Carmen Brache Swain's Funeral

Almost 2 weeks ago now, Dans Nana passed away (She is the one on the left in the above photo at Morgans blessing Day). After reaching a ripe age of 94, I think she did pretty well. Unfortuantely, Dan didn't really have a close relationship with her and during our whole married life we have probably visited her 3 or 4 times. Pretty sad I know, but it seems to have been like that from when they were younger and long before I came along. As she didn't have a preference to religion, the plan was to have a graveside service conducted by Daniel ( the perks of being a Bishop). By the way, he married someone for the first time three weeks ago. It was a learning curve for all of us, but now that he has done one, it should be a cinch.

Anyway, back to the funeral. I really didn't know much about Carmen. The last few years she had been slowly declining and since my mother-in-law had been delegated the task of looking after her affairs, shopping and all the little things, not much of a nice word had been spoken about her lately. So when I asked about who was doing the Eulogy, I won't repeat what I was told! Well, don't ever tell me not to go find out information, because it has the opposite effect. I figured that in 94 years, there had to be something to say. And using all of my best research skills I set to work. I thought that since Dan would be saying a few Doctrinal words at the service that I could give him a page or two to say about the person we were there for! Well all I can say is 'Thank you' ancestry.com, Google, Whitepages and facebook and even the old man at the Bunyip Historical society, because after two days of hard work, I managed to find out about the most fascinating stories about Nana that neither I nor many other people even knew. I got to speak to some wonderful relatives who unbeknowns to me, were active members of the LDS church and felt the spirit of 'Elijah' so strong that I will never forget the experience. After staying up until nearly midnight the night before to finish it off, I presented it to Dan to 'kindly' ask if he would like to read this tomorrow.

Thankfully, he agreed. The service was beautiful, we went back to her home and I was able to meet many of the 18 grandchildren that I had not met before. As her home is being sold, I even got to take home some of her real Crystal collection. It got divided up right as we were eating lunch! The only sad bit, is that I was waiting for a medal (or something similiar) for all the hard work I had put in for her Eulogy. But I have since realised, (after not getting it) that the experiences while searching were enough. Below is a copy of what I wrote. Here are some pictures of some of Carmens Grandchildren.

EULOGY
Carmen Swain was born Carmen Brache on the 15 December 1915, in Kew Victoria Australia. She was born to Hermann Humffray Brache and Ida Clarice Drake. She came from a wonderful heritage. Her mother was originally from Devon England and thought to be related to the famous Sir Francis Drake of Queen Elizabeth fame. But as her father was a respected Doctor they had spent many years abroad living in France and Montecarlo. Her mother had also been an accomplished pianist and because of her time in France spoke with a slight French accent. After visiting Australia to see her brother, Ida was about to leave on a ship to return to England, but met Hermann Brache just in time. They were married not long after. The Brache family were also well renowned. Hermanns father was a world famous Engineer. Originally from Prussia, Jacob Brache came to Victoria in 1853 after engaging in mining in North and South America where He gained experience in engineering and mining. After employment in Panama on waterworks and the railway and also prospecting for gold, he reached Melbourne in August 1853. In 1857 he founded the Mining Institute of Victoria. Further back on Jacob’s line, there was a family of Brache’s in France who were friends of Queen Elizabeth and had their own Chateau in France. It had been handed down to family members, but eventually was left to a young boy in the town. It still stands today and has been kept just as it was when they lived in it. During the great depression Ida and Hermann suffered hard times and decided to swap their property in Kew Victoria for a farm in Drouin. Carmen suffered the loss of her brother Clive at age 13 to meningitis from drinking unpaturised milk. And then would soon lose her father aswell. With the loss of her father, their family had no financial support. The only help they received was in the form of 10 shillings for birthdays from their mothers uncle in Newcatle. This went to buy supplies. Since she came from such wealth, Ida found it very difficult to face the shame of being poor. Even being too proud to line up at the soup kitchen for her children. This financial hardship forced her children to go to work early on. Carmen worked as a servant for a woman in Melbourne at the age of 13. She worked for her for a long time and they became good friends and stayed in contact for years after. Ivor worked cleaning up a swamp, among other jobs and earned 5 shillings a week.

Carmen longed to have contact with other family and at one time, she found out that a ship was coming to Melbourne with Brache’s onboard. She begged her mother to go and meet them, but her mother wouldn’t go. Funnily enough it turns out that they actually weren’t even related. But this demonstrates a strong desire to connect with, and spend time with family.


The house that they lived in on the farm was in Longwarry North. It was during this time that Carmen enjoyed going dancing. As a young girl she would love to be picked up by the farmer on a horse and cart to go to the dances.

Carmen met her first husband and the father of her children Frederick Phillips in the 1940’s. They had four children, Brian, Margaret, Anthony & John.

Carmen took care of her children. For a period of time, Fredericks mother lived with them in their home at Surrey Hills. As a devout Catholic, she expected the children to get up at 6am to go to mass, but Carmen explained that her children should be given the chance to choose for themselves.

Continuing to provide for her family during hard financial times, Carmen decided to help support her family. She worked at Cresnit for 28 years. She would leave early in the morning to go to work. Always wearing her high heels. She worked as a Steam presser and would have to endure very hot working conditions. She would stand there in that heat with fans blowing on her in those high heels all day long. Then once she returned home She would then work to cook and clean the home, ready for the next day. Unfortuately, after her 28 years of working for Cresnit, when she was getting ready to retire, she was so excited knowing that she would receive the usual gold watch that others before her had received. Sadly, she never received one.

Carmen was a wonderful cook. Cooking up a storm on Sunday’s. Every Sunday she would cook a delicious Roast, along with Bread and butter pudding and tarts. She would also make delicious Christmas puddings. Her sister in law remembers that they would often drive over to Carmens on Sundays to join the family for a meal, and on one occasion, one of her daughters asked “ Do we only go to visit Aunty Carmen because she makes such beautiful Tarts?”. Her scones were famous. During one of her many visits to Rubyvale in Queensland with Ivor and his family, there was a gentleman in one of the caravans who commented that “ I really miss scones.” With encouragement from her sister in law she began cooking on his stove. As she peeked in to have a look at the scones, she pushed them back too far and they all fell into the mud. But she didn’t mind having to start from scratch again. People started coming from all over to sit and wait for her delicious scones, served with Jam and cream. She loved to come and visit with the Brache’s at Rubyvale, but dreaded traveling back in the little 8 seater plane to return to Melbourne.

Carmen had an amazing sense of humour. When she worked at Cresnit, there was a time when her sister-in-law also worked with her. The lunch hour was filled with laughing and giggling around the table.

Another of her talents was dressing beautifully. She loved to shop. When she worked at Cresnit, Carmen would get paid on Fridays. After work on Friday, she would Cross the road and often go to Mrs Marks shop to look at their new clothes. She would often say “ I daren’t go to Myers – I know how the account will grow’.

After Fred died, her brother Ivor built a home for her in Nunawading and she loved living in a beautiful new house and took on some new challenges. She learned to drive in her later years and this gave her a lot of independence. I believe her first car was a green Morris 1100.
It was during this time that she met and married Jack Robinson. She was very happy and they travelled to England and switzerland. Unfortunately, Jack was taken too soon and within a short time of them being married, Jack died suddenly of a heart attack.

After Jack, she met and married Brian Swain. They would enjoy going up to Queensland every wintertime and stayed at a Caravan park at the Gold Coast. Brian ‘said they would always retire to Qld’ and they did and lived in Springfield Crescent until Brian passed away.

Carmen loved to travel and enjoyed a trip to Tasmania on the Princess Tasmania in 1960 with Fred and John.

Her favourite Perfume was Beautiful by Estee Lauder

Carmen enjoyed watching TV and particularly Sale of the Century and Hey Hey it’s Saturday when they were originally on.
Her Favourite pets included her two dogs Missy and Shiloh


Carmen Loved spending time with family and her close friends. If Ivor’s family didn’t come and visit on Sundays, Carmen would bundle the kids up and take them on sometimes two buses to visit them at their different residences. After Nan moved to Qld, they would get together with their childhood friend June Collins, known as Nicki and the three of them would drive into the mountains in the Gold Coast hinterland for afternoon tea and have the most fun.

Carmen has been lucky enough to live a long and relatively healthy life. She was very hardworking and did her best with what life presented her with. Without her, none of us would be here today, and I thank her for that.