Letters of World War I: the tragic tale of Melbourne couple Frank and Ruby Roberts

IT’S the little things that tell stories of heartache, and this is the story of a young Melbourne couple full of hope, despite the shadow of a war that showed no sign of ending.

THEY were a young couple full of hope and optimism.

Sweethearts Frank Roberts and Ruby Barrett dared to plan a life together despite the shadow of a war that showed no sign of ending.

Frank was an orchardist with a property at South Sassafras when he enlisted on May 1, 1916.

He was 27, and he didn’t want to wait until he returned home to marry Ruby. So the pair married while Frank was still in training at Royal Park.

Frank became a corporal and left Australia on the Ascanius. Like hundreds of other diggers, he was bound for the horror of the Western Front, a grim network of trenches, mud and grime where thousands died.

But Frank had some good news, something to look forward to; he left Melbourne knowing that Ruby was pregnant.

Sweethearts Frank and Ruby Roberts share a loving embrace. Picture: Museum of Victoria/Jilba Geogoulis

Frank and Ruby with their wedding party on their wedding day in 1916. Picture: Museum Victoria/Jilba Geogoulis

Ruby and Frank’s daughter Nancy was born in November, 1917. Nancy decided that she would try to introduce their daughter to Frank in the letters she sent to her husband, posing as Nancy in the correspondence. It was a way of keeping Frank connected to the world he had left behind. And Frank wrote back to Nancy, sharing some of the few lighter moments. According to military historian Peter Stanley, Nancy was frustrated by the delays in the mail. Some letters took up to eight weeks to arrive and Frank would occasionally send expensive cables to ensure Ruby was not alarmed by not hearing from him.

After surviving shellfire, Frank wrote to Ruby and told her, “I’m immune now.’’

As the War reached its climax in 1918, Ruby decided to send Frank one of Nancy’s leather booties. She included a note: “Daddy dear this is my shoe / can you put it on dear daddy I wonder? Mummy tells me its 16 months since she saw you. Come home soon…Good luck to you daddy / Mummy and I want you home so badly / lots of love from your little daughter Nance’. Ruby kept the other precious boot at home in Hawthorn. She was waiting and hoping for Frank’s return, to bring the bootie with him, and make the family complete.

It wasn’t to be. On September 1, 1918, a bold Australian attack on the German-held Mont St Quentin helped pave the way for Germany’s defeat. But the success came at a terrible cost. Frank Roberts died in the effort.

Nancy’s little booties, one of which was sent to Frank, and sadly returned to Ruby. The package was stamped “undeliverable”. Picture: Museum Victoria/ Photographer: Deborah Tout-Smith

Some of the letters and post cards sent between Ruby and Frank. Picture: Museum of Victoria

Ruby (nee Roberts) with a bird cage in 1916. Picture: Museum Victoria/Jilba Geogoulis

The single bootie was returned to Ruby, stamped “undeliverable”. Frank’s father Garry, devoted to his son, received the dreaded telegram 12 days after the battle while he was at work at Melbourne Municipal Tramways Board. It was, as Garry described it, “the most awful day in our lives.’’

According to the curator of a new exhibition at the Melbourne Museum, Deborah Tout-Smith, Garry slept in Frank’s bed for several days, wracked by a grief that would consume him for a decade. Ruby and Frank’s mother Berta immediately went out and bought black mourning clothes.

Ruby made sure she kept the booties and they became Nancy’s when her mother died. Garry embarked on a determined attempt to record Frank’s life, from school, through to his war service, seeking out the men from Mont St Quentin who knew Frank, taking notes, cutting out newspaper stories, writing down recollections in a painstaking attempt to keep Frank’s memory alive. By the time had had finished the task, there were 27 scrapbooks of his son’s life.

Frank had been in many ways the favoured child among the three Roberts’ siblings, there was also a daughter Gwen and son Bert but it was Frank whose presence loomed large in the family. And so it was for Ruby, who never quite came to terms with the loss.

Ruby with her granddaughter Jilba Geogoulis who never got to meet her heroic granddad Frank. Picture: Museum Victoria/Jilba Geogoulis

She re-married and had another daughter but the memory of Frank seemed to stay with her. It was an impact that shadowed two generations of the family. Nancy married too.

Nancy’s daughter Jilba Geogoulis recalled the sadness of Frank’s life seemed to permeate the family. “I grew up hearing about it,’’ she said. And the impact was lasting. “It was about young men struck down in their prime, and that effected families – fathers, mothers, wives and children,’’ she said.

The pictures of Frank and Ruby tell one part of the story, and the booties, tiny and creased tell another, of a father who never came home and a family that was never the same.

DON’T MISS

Free public event: Victorians are invited to join Australian entertainers – including William McInnes, Deborah Conway, Archie Roach and Clare Bowditch – for a WWI commemoration of an historic meeting at Melbourne Town Hall. It will include readings from diaries of soldiers and nurses, re-enactments and musical pieces (with Paul Grabowsky as Musical Director).

Where: Melbourne Town Hall

When: 6pm -7.30pm on Monday 4 August

Register here to attend, it’s one of many free events as part of the Anzac Centenary program.

Get more info at www.anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au or on the event’s Facebook page.

Event background: Shortly after the declaration of World War One (WWI) in August 1914, a meeting was held at the Melbourne Town Hall to garner support for the war and encourage men to enlist and others to support their enlistment. It was a vociferous meeting, called by the Lord Mayor and packed with men and women who spilled out into the corridors, carrying their Union Jack flags, while organ music played, anthems were sung, and an address was given by the Premier, the Leader of the Opposition and other civic leaders.

Melbourne was the seat of the Commonwealth Government during WWI, the city playing a critical role in the actions and decisions of the period, and the Melbourne City Council was quick to grasp the patriotism of the community and actively engage with the spirit of the time.

For more on the Frank Roberts story visit The Melbourne Museum’s new exhibition World War I: Love and Sorrow, opens August 30.

With thanks to Peter Stanley’s The Men of Mont St Quentin .

Originally published as Letters of World War I: the tragic tale of Melbourne couple Frank and Ruby Roberts