The Australian Women's Register

Tess Epis talks about her Italian background and family history; her mother losing first husband in accident at Great Boulder Mine (1921); her second marriage Giovanni Furia (1924); father left mine work due to Silicosis; the family bought the Cornwall Hotel; travelling to Italy (1937); her early memories of Cornwall Hotel; delivery of beer in barrels and pumped with a hand pump; how the family lived upstairs in hotel; her mother’s work; Ted Clarke; a gold stealing case and murder of detectives; her schooling at St Josephs Convent; studying shorthand and bookkeeping at Technical School; riots in Kalgoorlie, the Hotel Cornwall burnt down, rioters focusing on Dingbat Flats; there being no racism at school and no awareness of lead-up to riots; how the government built a makeshift hotel on the side whilst hotel was rebuilt; mother running the hotel after her husband’s death, her death in the 1970s; the sale of the hotel sold (1990); working for an accountant as a stenographer until her marriage; women as barmaids; Cornwall pub, dances every Saturday night; Sunday, accordion music and singing in the bar; her mother feeding and helping men during the Depression; Italians being interned in Kalgoorlie during WWII; meeting her husband at school, Mario Epis, an assayer, his background; their marriage (1947); husband working as a prospector, pegging ground and selling to mining companies; their children; Kalgoorlie brothels.