Summary

Alternative Name(s): Autograph Book

Autograph album with grey cover, with painted image of yellow daisies. The album is inscribed with the date 1917 and the name Ida Daniel, whose home was in Forster Street, Kadina. Kadina is a town on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, north-west of Adelaide. Ida attended the Methodist Ladies College in Wayville, a suburb of Adelaide, now Annesley Junior School, probably as a boarder.

Ida began the autograph album on 1 November 1917, during World War I. It contains a range of sentimental entries, such as: 'I want to write something original, But I don't know how to begin, For there's nothing original in me, Only original sin.' (L. Lawson, MLC, Wayville, 23.11.1917). Other correspondents include (probable) fellow MLC students Marjorie Lee, P. Griffiths, Mabel Robertson, Edna Vauser, Beryl Day, Myrtle Pearce and Emily Anderson. Many provide another address, probably their home address, and are likely to have also been boarders at the school. Ida lists MLC boarders in 1917 and 1918, provides pupil lists for Commercial Classes' of 1917 and 1918, and lists her 'Kadina friends' in 1923, who she describes cheerfully as '22 scallywags'.

Ida is probably Ida Jane Daniel, born in 1903 in Daly, South Australia - the county in which her home town of Kadina is situated. She appears on several occasions in local newspapers, including at a fund-raising Red Cross fair and concert for the war effort in May 1915, when she and another girl appear with an 'Ambulance Waggon' (Ida's surname is listed as 'Daniels') (Kadina and Wallaroo Times, 29 May 1915). In November that year Ida appears in a 'highly successful Gallipoli Fair' at Kadina, doing a 'rainbow dance' with Dorothy Hall (The Register, 3 Nov 1915). On many other occasions Ida is acclaimed for her singing and dancing in local newspapers, and is a noted member of the Kadina Tennis Club. Ida was married to David Stewart Gordon on 23 December 1924, when she was 21 years old and he was 25. The service was held at the Victoria Square Methodist Church, Kadina. Ida was described as the youngest daughter of 'Mrs. and the late Mr. John Daniel, of Kadina', presently living in Minlaton (also on the Yorke Peninsula). (In1937 Mount Gambier newspapers announced that an Ida Daniel was the heroine in a locally-made film, 'The Adventures of Dot', in which she played a school teacher - probably another Ida Daniel.) Ida Jane Gordon died in South Australia 1986. David Stewart Gordon pre-deceased her by two years. The autograph album was purchased by the donor. Its ownership since Ida is unknown.

Physical Description

Autograph album with grey cover, with painted image of yellow daisies and green foliage, and title in white 'Autographs'. Album contains interspersed white, pink and blue pages, some inscribed, many blank. Owner's name and date written on first inside page. Inside covers papered with pale green on white floral design. This paper is torn inside the front cover, at the lower edge. The back cover and a pink page have been repaired with adhesive tape, now very deteriorated.

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