Nicholas Family at War II

Lt Byron Nicholas was the second of the five Nicholas brothers to be lost at war. Bryon was a teacher at Gormandale East in 1912, and the two part-time schools at Carrajung South and Willung South in 1913. He enlisted on 10 March 1915 as a private and saw service at Gallipoli and in France, where he was promoted to officer rank and awarded the Military Cross on 5 April 1917. He was killed in action on 9 October 1917 in the attack on Daisy Wood.

Following the war, the Nicholas parents moved to Stratford, where John Nicholas was pharmacist until his death, aged 68, in 1924. He is buried in the Stratford Cemetery. A short time later his widow, Mary Ellen Nicholas, built the house that later became the Convent at Stratford, before selling it in 1926 and moving to Melbourne.

The only daughter of the family, Aileen, became Sister Ignatius at the Notre Dame de Sion Convent in Sale, until her death in 1949. The sketches of her brothers with other photographs and records were in the care of the Sion Sisters until the 1990s, when they were passed to the Stratford Historical Society.