Edgar Family Stories
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Edgar Family Stories
Part V

There is a whip round to collect clothes for the children, amongst them an overcoat is needed for Hugh (my father) - 1916

There are 14 letters in this vain from 1914 to 1918 written by Alice Edgar

All of them speak of the financial predicaments Robert Richard is in. There is a whip round to collect clothes for the children, amongst them an overcoat is needed for Hugh (my father). In one of the letters Alice writes 'if your father were here he would be heart-broken'; I also know through my father that eventually some of them were farmed out to the wealthy relatives. My own father ended up with Auntie Ada and Uncle John Hall. Ada Hall was Isabella's sister, John Hall worked for the Ferrocarril Sud (FCS), a British concession to run the Southern Railways. At that time they lived in Tolosa, where the railway had very large workshops, he was in a managerial position, but I do not know what it was. It must have been good, as their only son Percy- was at boarding school at Eton, England. This boy saw his parents every 3 years when they went on home leave.

Through dire necessity to survive he accepted employment with La Blanca. He was an Inspector; he only understood The Truth and to always say the truth, he thus became a man that was both feared and hated; the result was that finally he had to abandon this job.

He then set up a building materials warehouse, his partner absconded with the cash, and he was once again broke. It was at this time that his inheritance from his father came through. He opened a butcher's shop in Lomas de Zamora (Espana St, between Gorriti and Laprida) next to the Coliseo Theatre. On this occasion his employ'ees were the ones who cheated him, yet another disaster.


I do remember him telling me stories from their time in Guamini


In 1920 he hit on the idea of teaching English privately for students in secondary education. Finally he was self employed; doing something he liked and worked on this job to his dying day. So this is a potted history of my father's life, no doubt, incomplete.

I notice that another question you ask me is "when were they (the Edgar Family) finally settled in Argentina". There is a Bible dated in Montevideo 1881. We don't know why that is, because by that time the family had been living in Argentina for 30 or 40 years, when the Nowell family brought over my grandfather, still in his childhood”

That is the end of his letter. The other letter is about the Pearson and the Montgomerie families his maternal grandparents which I will deal with separately.

During his life my father who was a man of few words, would suddenly have a spate of verbosity and recount stories of his childhood, very rarely did he speak of himself as a grown man.
During these interludes that generally happened when he took me for long walks when I was in my very early teens, I do remember him telling me stories from their time in Guamini, they are just vignettes. I remember five stories; one was about the prize winning pig, the other was about a prize winning dog, the next one was about Harold (second son) and the barrel, another one was about Christmas and the last one was about an attempted robbery.

His father had bought a prize winning pig to improve the quality of his stock, he also had an indistinct brute. He had the prized pig in a separate enclosure to protect him from the other wildish pig. One afternoon this wildish pig broke into the separate enclosure of the prize winning pig and a battled ensued between them. The boys all hung around to watch the outcome of this fight and when the prized pig was killed they then ran to tell their father what had happened. You can imagine that Papa was not well pleased, especially if one is conscious of the financial problems my grandfather had.

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