 Eileen Sarah Robley, the daughter of Percy Charles Robley and his wife, Emily Hovey, was born in Lithgow in August 1918. She was a tiny baby likened by candid relatives to "a featherless sparrow". At Saint Patrick’s school, in the 1930s, she sat for and obtained a State Bursary and went to Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta. In 1935 she passed the Public Service Entrance Examination and trained as a telephonist at the GPO in Sydney. On completion of training her salary was 81 pounds per annum, which rose to 93 pounds when she reached 18 years. Further annual increments were awarded to a maximum of 170 pounds. Later she was appointed to the Staff of GPO Trunk Exchange. In 1937 when a vacancy occurred at the Lithgow Exchange she was the successful applicant. In May 1940 she met Archie James Young, a teacher at the Lithgow High School and in January 1944 they married at St. Patrick’s Church, Lithgow. At the end of the year Archie spent 3 months at the Ingleburn Military camp and was then transferred to Condobolin High School where he taught until the end of 1944. Eileen resigned from the GPO in 1943 and took a job at Hawke’s Radio and Electrical Shop in Main Street, Lithgow where she assisted in the shop and did the office work.At the end of 1960 Archie transferred to Hunter's Hill High School and the couple moved to a house in North Ryde. Archie retired in 1977. Between 1977 and 1981 The couple travelled extensively in Europe and South East Asia collecting data for a book of Family History and in 1979 commenced writing the book 'Christopher Robley, his family and descendants'. It is from this magnificent piece of research and their subsequent book that these short biographies of individuals have been written Archie died in 2000, but Eileen lived on for another 12 years.  She died on the 12th. of July 2012, at the Cooinda Aged People's Home in Lithgow, aged 94 years. . |