She was born Eva Bessie Isabel Bartlett in Fitzroy (Victoria) on 9 June 1881. Her father was James Campbell Bartlett and her mother was Bettiena Johanah Bartlett (née Golgerth). She was one of six children.[1]
Eva married August Walt Oakley (known as Gus) on 7 June 1905. They had three children: Augustus Walter, born 1906; Eva Bessie Isabel (named after her mother), born 2 April 1908; and Mary Stuart, born 25 August 1912.[2]
When she was older, Oakley began writing children’s poems and stories as a way to entertain one of her grandsons, who was seriously ill and confined in the Austin Hospital for three years. Afterwards, she used the publication of her poems and stories as a way to raise money for various charities, including the Red Cross.[3]
Many of the children’s tales written by Eva Oakley were about fairies. Fairy stories were particularly popular for some decades after the First World War, a popularity which was likely contributed to by “proof” being provided that the fairy world was real, when some “fairies” featured in photographs taken by two girls, Elsie Wright and her cousin Frances Griffiths, in Cottingley (England). The photographs were taken in 1917; although, it was just a private matter until 1919, when Polly Wright (the mother of Elsie) showed the photos to a lecturer who had given a talk on fairies at the Theosophical Society. Many people were convinced that the photographic evidence was the “real deal”, and publicity ensued. In the 1980s the two photographers admitted that the fairies in the photos were fakes; it had just been a childish prank that had spun out of their control. There were many fairy stories in print before that time, whether in folklore or in major modern productions (e.g. Tinker Bell in J. M. Barrie’s 1904 play Peter Pan, subsequently popularised in a novel, and later made into an animated Disney movie); however, it was the fairies found at the bottom of a garden in Cottingley which initiated a spike in fairy literature.[4]
Eva Oakley died in Hawthorn East (Victoria) on 19 December 1952. Her husband had predeceased her early in the preceding year (he died on 22 February 1951).[5]
Whilst Eva’s output was not overly Australian in its content, it included various poems and stories which mentioned gum trees, gum nut babies, and other Australian iconography. Her works were similar to the style of many English fairy stories for children. Nonetheless, her writings are indicative of a type that were fairly common to that period.
Although Eva Oakley was not a major contributor to the national literary scene, her work provides an example of the small-scale contributions to Australian literature which were often made by lesser-known writers.
Books by Eva Oakley:
1945: Real Australian Fairy Stories, Melbourne: Austral Ptg. & Publ. Co., [1945?] (booklet)
1945: Fairy Poems, Melbourne: Austral Ptg. & Publ. Co., [1945?] (booklet)
1946: Sacred Poems, Melbourne: Austral Ptg. & Publ. Co., [1946] (booklet)
1946: Cooking Primer: Suitable for Youth Movement Groups, Melbourne: Austral Ptg. & Publ. Co., [1946?] (booklet)
1946: Robbie and Spadgie; Master Tom Cat and Miss Pomeranian; and, Wedding Bells in Fairyland, Melbourne: Austral Printing and Publishing Co., [1946?] (booklet)
1950: Learn from the Flowers and Two Sacred Poems, [Melbourne: E. Oakley, 1950] (booklet)
1950: More About Cooking, Melbourne: [E. Oakley?], (booklet)
1950: Real Australian Fairy Stories, version 2, Melbourne: Austral Ptg. & Publ. Co., [1950?] (booklet) (the contents of this publication are entirely different to the booklet of the same name which was published in 1945)
1950: Willie Wagtail; Two Little Romances and Other Verses, Melbourne: Austral Ptg. & Publ. Co., [1950] (booklet)
1951: In the Light, Melbourne: Austral Ptg. & Publ. Co., [1951] (booklet of religious poetry)
Articles about Eva Oakley:
[Mrs Eva Oakley] [12 November 1949]
References:
[1] “Search your family history”, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria
(birth record: BARTLETT, Eva Bessie Isabel, reg. year 1881, reg. no. 16485/1881)
“Eva Oakley”, My Heritage (see section “Eva Bessie Isabel Oakley, 1881 – 1953”)
“Augustus Oakley”, My Heritage (see section “Augustus Walter Oakley, 1875 – 1951”, which includes Eva’s birthday: “Augustus married Eva Bessie Isabel Oakley. Eva was born on June 9 1881, in Melbourne, Australia.”)
“Eva Bessie Isabel Bartlett (1881)”, WikiTree
“Deaths”, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 20 December 1952, p. 16 (column 2, see third notice re. Oakley, re. James and Bettiena Bartlett; gives the names of her five siblings) [the name of Eva’s mother, Bettiena Bartlett (née Golgerth) was spelt (or perhaps misspelt?) as “Bertina” and “Bettina” in the records of the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria, as well as in several newspaper items]
[2] “Search your family history”, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria
(marriage record: BARTLETT, Eva Bessie Isabel, to OAKLEY, Alf Walt, reg. year 1905, reg. no. 3360/1905)
(birth record: OAKLEY, Augs Walt, reg. year 1906, reg. no. 13583/1906)
(birth record: OAKLEY, Eva Bessie Isabel, reg. year 1908, reg. no. 14346/1908)
(birth record: OAKLEY, Mary Stuart, reg. year 1912, reg. no. 33861/1912)
“Marriages”, The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 8 July 1905, p. 5 (marriage of Augustus Walter Oakley to Eva Bessie Isabel Bartlett)
“Births”, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 5 May 1906, p. 11 (“Oakley … 28th April … wife of Augustus W. Oakley, jun. — a son.”)
“Births”, The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 4 April 1908, p. 7 (“Oakley … 2nd April … wife of A. W. Oakley, junior, a daughter”)
“Births”, The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 3 September 1912, p. 1 (“Oakley … 25th August … wife of A. W. Oakley… Mary Stuart”)
“Deaths”, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 20 December 1952, p. 16 (column 2, see first notice: “Oakley, Eva Bessie Isabel … loving mother of Gus, Eva (Paddy), and Mary”)
“Oakley marriages 1903-1909 Victoria Australia”, Family Tree Circles (see section “Augustus Walter”)
[3] “The life of Melbourne”, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 12 November 1949, p. 10 (see last section re. Eva Oakley)
[4] Miriam Bibby, “The Cottingley Fairies”, Historic UK
Rosa Lyster, “The Cottingley fairy hoax of 1917 is a case study in how smart people lose control of the truth”, Quartz, 18 February 2017
Martin Wainwright, “Joe Cooper obituary: He got the Cottingley fairy fakers to confess”, The Guardian, 25 August 2011
See also: “Cottingley Fairies”, Wikipedia
[5] “Search your family history”, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria (death record: OAKLEY, Eva Bessie Isabel, reg. year 1953, reg. no. 322/1953) [the records of the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Victoria) have Eva Oakley’s death registration listed as 1953; this may have been due to deaths in late 1952 not being registered until early 1953]
“Deaths”, The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 20 December 1952, p. 19 (column 2, three notices re. “Oakley … Eva Bessie Isabel”)
“Deaths”, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 20 December 1952, p. 16 (column 2, three notices re. “Oakley, Eva Bessie Isabel”)
“Deaths”, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 23 February 1951, p. 13 (column 1) (“Augustus (Gus), beloved husband of Eva Oakley”)
“Deaths”, The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), 1 March 1951, p. 16 (“Augustus Walter (Gus), beloved husband of Eva Oakley”)
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