Between 1852 and the 1930s, the Bracher family remained in Victoria. Except for occasional interstate holidays and George Henry Bracher’s colourful six years working in the gold region of Western Australia, the family’s life revolved primarily around Melbourne and regional Victoria. The only early NSW connection for the family had been Amelia Hall, aunt of Sarah Louisa Bracher (nee Hall). She had migrated from England in 1852 and had established one of the city’s earliest private schools. It was under her tutelage that Sarah Fanny Bracher received her life-changing education during the 1860s, which had enabled her to embark on her own teaching career in Victoria.

George Henry Bracher’s eldest son, George Reginald Alberto, lived for a number of years

around WW1 in Hobart, working for the Vacuum Oil Company. He serviced the island on a

push-start, belt-driven motorcycle. He moved his family back to Melbourne and it was not

until the 1930s that his eldest son, Keith Halford Bracher, broke the Victorian-centric lifestyle by moving to Sydney.

 

Keith Halford Bracher was born in Melbourne in 1911 and left school at 13 to work with

McPhersons Ltd. Two years later he joined the hardware importing and merchant

business, Edwin Wood. He worked his way to a directorship before 21 years of age, and his move to Sydney during the early 1930s was to manage the Sydney arm of the company.

After marrying Melbourne girl Hermione (Bonnie) Burghard in 1937, he became the Sydney representative for Patience and Nicholson. They lived successively in Tessa Street, Chatswood, Barwon Road Lane in Lane Cove, and finally settled in Roseville in 1948, where

they raised daughter Janice (1938) and son Ian (1943). Keith joined Tool Equipment Co,

as Managing Director in 1939, a job he held for 30 years.

 

During his time with Tool Equipment Co he was an office bearer of many organizations, including President of the Australian Institute of Metals and the Australian Cutting Tool

Manufacturing Association. He also sat on the Australian Standards Committee and belonged to the American Society of Tool and Manufacturing Engineers.

 

Following his retirement from Tool Equipment Co in 1969, Keith joined his son Ian in a business venture that was to become Halford Timbers. During the following 12 years they

built it into a large and successful venture. Keith’s second retirement was in 1982 and he spent the remainder of his days indulging in gardening, travelling, photography and family

historical research, until his death in September 2002. Bonnie died 14 months later. Keith’s

collaboration with his cousin, Audrey Ware (nee Bracher) on family history, helped form the basis of this publication.

 

Ian and Helen Bracher (nee Fryer) raised their two children, Martyn (1976-) and Lexie (1977 -) in Sydney’s West Pennant Hills, where they still live (2012). Martyn is an explosives consultant in the Hunter Valley and Lexie is an exploration geologist based in Western Australia. Ian has continued his father’s work in family history.

 

The second of George Reginald Alberto’s children to head north was Marie Alice Bracher

(1918-). From an early age it was clear that Marie was not destined for an ordinary life.

Blessed with her father’s artistic talent, fine looks and an exuberance that often raised

eyebrows in Melbourne’s conservative eastern suburbs, Marie began at Swinburne Technical College, where she won a scholarship to its Art and Design department, excelling in art,silverwork and needlework. She is credited with persuading her aunt, Louise Hester, to allow Marie’s cousin, Joy Hester, to study art at the National Gallery School in Me

lbourne, and thus 2 launching the career of one of Australia’s best known female artists.

 

Marie and Joy were very close as children and young women, buthad little to do with each other after Marie–and later Joy-moved to Sydney.

 

Marie began working in Melbourne for commercial advertising and fashion-related

businesses, including a leading Collins Street millinery, Normans. It was not long before she opened her own millinery shop in Burke Road, Camberwell, which had been financed by her enterprising mother, Florence.

 

It built a solid reputation among the well-to-do eastern suburbsladies, but, unable to co-

exist in business with her mother, Marie headed to Sydney during the late 1930s, where she readily found employment in that city’s fashion industry. Fulfilling a self-confessed penchant for older and foreign men, Marie married Hungarian Olympic table tennis champion, Miklos (Michael) Szabados (1912-1962) and produced a son, Sandor (1943-).

 

Michael had arrived in Adelaide in 1937 to play a series of exhibition matches around Australia, sponsored by the NSW Table Tennis Association. He was a sporting celebrity and was feted by many people. He met Marie during his several months in Melbourne. Several of the children of Harry and Ethel Bracher remember a visit to their home in Cowper Street, Hawthorn by Marie and Michael during the late 1930s. Un-phased by Michael’s fame and legendary prowess on the competition table, Ethel suggested to him that he challenge their teenage son, Lloyd, to a game after dinner !

 

Michael returned to Australia in 1939 and by 1941 had established a table tennis business in Pitt Street, Sydney. He married Marie in December 1941, but life during WW2 became

difficult for them both after being declared ‘Enemy Aliens’ by the Commonwealth

Government. Michael was posted to Alice Springs by the Allied Works Council to serve as a

mess orderly, while Marie was confined to move only within a few hundred metres of their

business and home in the CBD. She was finger-printed and required to report weekly. At the end of the war she was invited to re-apply for Australian citizenship. She indignantly

declined, declaring that she was born in Hobart and would always be Australian. They

subsequently lived in Carlton (Sydney) and Kings Cross.

 

The marriage did not last beyond the early 1950s, but another ex-patriot Hungarian, Anton

(Tony) Frank Kuliffay (1926-) had come into their lives after the war, and by 1954 Tony and

Marie lived together in Rose Bay, had married, and had produced a son, Martin (1957).

 

In a life equally as colourful as his wife, Tony had served several fighting and espionage roles for partisan armies and the American Airforce during WW2. After the war

his ability to speak seven languages found him jobs in interpreting and it was a chance encounter with the, then, Australian Ambassador that facilitated his emigration to Sydney.

Tony’s engineering background coupled beautifully with Marie’s creativity. They initially

worked for Luxtons, with Marie in the senior sales role. They then established the fashion company ‘Fabrika’. Tony managed the business side and he mechanised many aspects to

boost productivity and profitability. For many years during the 1950s and early ‘60s their

business of 15-20 staff was a prominent supplier to the Australian fashion industry. Marie recalled that Fabrika produced and shipped to Melbourne 60 hats a day for a three week

period before the Melbourne Cup, to fulfil their Myer contract.

 

Flood damage forced their business out of the CBD to a home-based operation in Malga Avenue, Roseville Chase. Their operations were closed down by the local municipality when the machinery consumed almost all rooms in the house. Further moves to Broadway, and then to Pitt Street, saw the business survive for another few years, but it finally closed its doors inthe mid 1960s.

 

Tony found work in the burgeoning field of electronics with Telectronics, manufacturers of

heart pace makers and defibrillators, where he remained for 30 years. Marie combined

motherhood with writing articles for ‘Flair’ magazine and as a regular columnist for

Australian Fashion News. During latter years she has returned to her early grounding in visual art and their Roseville Chase house is crammed with many examples of her talent.

 

The third of George Reginald Alberto’s children, Allan Reginald Bracher (1912-

1979), settled in Sydney during the late 1940s, after serving in WW2. Allan built a successful management career with G.J. Coles, working up from shop floor to senior positions in Melbourne and country Victoria. Following the war, Allan served as Manager of Coles stores in Benalla and Wangaratta, before heading to Sydney with the company. He died of cancer in 1979. A son, Geoffrey Allan (1942-1997), was born in Victoria to Allan and his wife, Iris Cutler. Geoffrey was raised in Sydney, where he became a pharmacist and married again. He died in 1997, leaving two children, Amber and Sam.