When Karl rode into Brisbane in May 1900, he was greeted by Mr. Dusinbury from the Goold Company. The local bicycle agent showed Karl around the sights of Brisbane and also took him for a visit to the Observer office, the local newspaper where he was met with a photographer.
The paper reported, the “camera, a machine which registered the counterfeit presentation of a fresh and boyish face, looking not one minute more than its 21 years of life, and and topping a sturdy frame, somewhat short, but compact as an oak and still fully developed…..”
The photo of Karl was printed on Page 892. His photograph was on the bottom left of the paper, along with and article and image of the late General Villebois-Mareul, the French Leader of the Boers; a photo of the new courthouse at Charleville, an ad for women’s clothing and patterns from the Ladies’ column about modern lace.
Karl was staying for a while in Brisbane working for Mr. Dusinbury at the Red Bird depot anticipating he would have a more difficult time earning a wage once he left Australia.
In a letter to his younger sister Mattie, he shared that his work was “fixing up a show room and making some boxes”. He went on to say that although he worked two days during the week, he didn’t no much except clean up his bike and the bikes of his bosses and “the whole gange of us went for a short spin in the afternoon”. I suspect that Karl’s presence and employment was less about earning a wage for any particular tasks or duties but being a bit of a novelty encouraging customers to visit the show room and hopefully leave with a Red Bird.
The rest of Karl’s letter is quite typical of his writing style to his younger sister - recall dear reader that Mattie was the youngest of Karl’s siblings being 6 years younger.
Dear Mattie;
I wrote to all of the family except you and Minerva* and as it is now only 8:30 I have time to get yours written this morning….
There is a Vancouver chap working at the Goold Bike Place and yesterday I went out there to lunch. He married a girl that was born in Truro and it made me feel like being back in Nova Scotia to hear a girl talking anyways intelligently. The girls out here can do nothing except paint their faces. They don’t know the first blooming thing and all they think about is dress.
In Melbourne the finest race course in the world is seen and I was shown around there one day during the NewMarket races a great event there and talking about “dress”. I saw one woman with a dress on that cost 100 guineas over $5.00 don’t you think she could afford to buy some brains?
They don’t eat porridge out here much and I think if I had had some this morning I would be able to write better.
This is an outlandish country outside of two or three cities everything is bush and scrub country of course I can stand knowing that I will be leaving so soon. I am getting first class in these times and the hardest part of my journey is over sure enough. It is more interesting now and will be more still in the east.
Well I do not know what to write about anymore this time so will close this short note, yours Karl M Creelman.
I’ve written before about how i find The letters from Karl to Mattie** are quite endearing and read like an ongoing conversation between the two siblings over the three years of Karl’s absence. I think Karl tailors his writing to his audience and frequently responds to Mattie’s letters about girls and the fashion he’s seeing, catering to those interests of a 16 year old girl, reading in fascination as her older brother navigates the world at large.
*Karl had 5 sisters and 1 brother. Minerva was 4 years younger than Karl.
** if you want to read other excepts from these letters, you can use the search function on my webpage and simply type in “mattie”
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