Trove Tuesday
Another Tuesday, another Trove Tuesday post! Thanks to all those
GeneaBloggers and local and social history bloggers who are joining in each week! I have put a list of all the
Trove Tuesday blogs on a page on my blog site, so please let me know if I have missed any. It gets updated each Tuesday evening (AEST).
Hit-and-Run - Murder or Manslaughter?
Ada Caroline Culla was born to Denis Culla and Margaret Jane McCormick in 1870, probably at Dora Creek. Her parents had married in 1862 in Maitland.
In 1891, Ada was a bridesmaid at her sister Eather Ellen Culla’s wedding, which I mentioned in my blog post about
William Buchanan.
In 1899, Ada had an illegitimate daughter, Maude, who died the same year. For the next 20 years, there seems to be no records relating to Ada, until an accident ended her life in 1920.
On 19 July 1920, she was knocked down by a car and killed on George Street in Sydney, after being to the movies with her husband and a friend.
It was a hit-and-run, and the below articles follow the story of the accident, investigation, and acquittal of two suspects.
I should order some certificates to find out more about Ada’s husband, but I believe he was Bernard Edwin Nowitzki, a sailor born in Danzig, Germany (now
Gdańsk, Poland), who arrived on the merchant ship
Harvest Queen on 17 August 1895 and stayed to work on the wharves as a labourer. He successfully applied for Australian citizenship in 1936, and passed away in 1948.
