Eva RUSSART
Name Variations RUSSERT, RUSSETT, RUSSELL, RUSSET, RUSCAT, RUSSARL
Father George Carl aka Charles RUSSERT b.c. 1814 m. (1) bef. 1849 (2) 1857 d. 18771
Mother Margaretha REAL b.c. 1810 m. bef. 1849 d. 18572
Step-mother Eva aka Josephine YOUNG aka JARY b. m. 18573 d. 19004
Brother Jacob Rhiel Rupert RUSSART b.c. 18355 m. 18636 Margaret KENNEDY d. 19127
Inmate Eve aka Mary Eva Jane RUSCAT b. 18538 m. 1877 (see below) d. 19289
Half-brother William RUSSERT b. 185910 m. (1) 187811 (2) 190612 (1) Mary Helen or Ellen RUSSELL aka PETTY13 (2) Winifred KING d. 193714
Husband William KENT b. m. 187715 d.

Eva was admitted to the Newcastle school on 26 November 1868, from Parramatta Court as Eve RUSSART. No record has yet been found of her court appearance and to date no records from Parramatta or Penrith courts have been found to have been reported in newspapers on Trove. It is not believed that any reports were written in these papers at the time. On Eve's admittance to the school, she had attained one of the highest levels of education recorded in the school as she was reading the third book and writing in a copybook. The Entrance Book recorded that she was a Protestant who was about fifteen.16 As Eve was recorded in CLARKE’s list of girls eligible for apprenticeship on 15 December 1869, where she was recorded as a seventeen-year-old who had been in the school for one year and two months.17 Eva was discharged from the school as an apprentice to Mr J. A. SMITH of Maitland18 on 19 February 1870.19 These indentures were to be for a year but were soon cancelled as Eva complained to CLARKE of bad treatment by her employer and she was returned to Newcastle on 28 August 1870. CLARKE applied to transfer Eva's indentures to Mr George BOWDEL of Murrurundi for seven shillings a week. He commented that Eva was 'fully eighteen years of age.'20

In 1877 in Orange, Eva, as Mary Eva Jane RUSSARL, married William KENT. As Mary KENT she was the informant when her father died and at that time she was a resident of Prospect. William was perhaps recorded as the Acting Undertaker for the burial of his father-in-law.21 William KENT was still alive in 1903 when he and Eva placed and In Memoriam notice for the death of Eva's half-brother, William's wife, Mary Hellen (PETTY), who had died on 26 December 1902. Also mentioned in the notices were Mary's husband, William, and their children Eva, Tilly, Daisy, Carl, Leonard and Linda. A separate notice was place by her children, William and Jinney. The registration named no parents and was in the name of May E. RUSSETT.22 It may very well be that after Mary's death Eva assisted in raising some of the children of William and Mary Ellen aka Mary Hellen RUSSETT. Eva was further linked to her half-brother, William RUSSETT, in the Funeral Notice for his second wife, Winifred, in 1921.23 In this notice Mrs Eva KENT was named as Winifred's sister but marriage records indicated that they were sisters-in-law. It is possible but unconfirmed that William KENT died at the age of 86 years on 12 August 1923, at his residence, Uruga, Ashley-street, Hornsby, where he was described as having formerly lived at Wallabadah.24 This death has been attributed to him but it has not been verified by observation of the actual registration. It is also unusual that only Eva was mentioned in a Funeral Notice two years previously so it may be that William had died earlier - possibly between 1903 and 1821.

Prior to her death Eva was living with her half-brother's daughter and her niece, Eva A. M. RUSSETT, who had married Samuel TAYLOR in 1906.25 Eva died as Mary E. J. KENT nee RUSSART on 9 March 1928,26 at the Home of Peace in Marrickville at the age of 76.27 Her Funeral Notice in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10 March named only her half-brother, William senior and his family. Her death registration recorded that she died of a cerebral haemorrhage, paraplegia and bed sores. She had never had children. The informant was William MOORE, who was no relation, but Eva's death was certified by Eva TAYLOR, her niece, of 52 Middle Street, South Kensington. Eva was buried the following day in the Church of England Cemetery, Randwick.28 When her niece, Eva TAYLOR died in 1962, she was also buried in the grave with her aunt.29

Family

The Entrance Book recorded that Eva's father was Charles but contained no record of the name of her mother which strongly suggested that she was dead even though this wasn’t stated. Eva’s baptism was registered as Eve RUSCAT in 1853 where her father was recorded as Charles and her mother was recorded as Margaret. Eva was born on 13 January, and was baptized on 13 February 1853, in the Catholic Church in Parramatta by Nicholas JOSEPH. Her father was recorded as a labourer of Prospect and because the record was Catholic, her mother’s maiden name was recorded. This record does contradict the notation in the Entrance Book that Eva was Protestant but it is believed that this Catholic baptism was atypical and that the whole family was Church of England.

The surname RUSSART has become Anglicised and records for Eva's half-brother, William, are recorded with the surname RUSSETT which is the spelling that has been adopted by William's descendants as neither Eva or her older brother, Jacob, ever had children. Immigration records, supported by the research of descendants, indicate that the father of Eva and her brothers although he was known as Charles, arrived in NSW as Carl. As George Karl or Carl RUSSERT he arrived with his wife, forty-one-year old Margaretha, and his son, fourteen-year-old Jacob, aboard the Beulah in 1849. The Beulah carried vine dressers from Germany. He was thirty-five. Margaretha died as Margaret RUSSET in 1857 and that same year Charles remarried Eva JARY. It is likely that Eva was also know as Josephine and it is also likely that the surname JARY is a mistranscription of the name YOUNG. The Anglican church records for the two marriages of William RUSSETT record his parents in 1878 Charles RUSSETT and Josephine YOUNG and in 1906 they were recorded as Carl RUSSETT and Eva YOUNG.30 He had been born in Smithfield west of Sydney and the 1859 entry on the NSW BDM Index recorded his parents as Charles and Ever E. RUSSERT. Charles died in Parramatta in 1877 and Eva died in Randwick in October 1900.31

Eva's older brother, Jacob, drove the stagecoach for Cobb and Co. between Parramatta and Bathurst and operated public-houses,32 moving steadily west to finally settle in Blayney where he became a publican and alderman. Nothing has yet been found in his obituaries to link to his sister. While Eve married in Orange, it has not been confirmed where she finally lived and she appeared to have keep closer ties with her half-brother, William, rather than her brother, Jacob, who was a generation older.

Updated October 2017

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