Collection SummaryAnnie Mondel was from a pioneer family who settled in the Miranda area.BiographyAnnie Mondel was born in 1884 at Liverpool, New South Wales to parents Jacob and Elizabeth. The Mondel family arrived in Australia from Europe in 1872 and came to Miranda in 1893 when Annie was a young child. Cuttings of ‘Isabella’ and ‘Muscatel’ grapes brought from the vineyards of the Macarthur Estate, where Annie’s father Jacob had previously been working, enabled the Mondel family to establish a vineyard alongside a family farm and orchard.
Annie worked on the family farm in the difficult days of the 1890s depression. With little income from the farm and the death of her father in 1895 Annie earned a supplementary income by collecting seed from the family’s African boxthorn hedge, which was sold to a seed merchant at five shillings a pound.
It has been said that Annie was an intelligent, practical and independent woman. She was reportedly always well-dressed when she went to the city or church, in a tailored suit of a previous era, which in later years became men’s shoes without laces, lisle stockings, ticking shift dresses and a long black coat.
Annie had also been known on occasion to defend her property with vigour from both uninvited visitors and straying pets.
Annie remained in the original family home which was still without running water, sewer or electricity and had over time fallen into disrepair.
Annie died on 26 July 1981 aged 97 and was buried at Woronora Cemetery.
The home site was auctioned in June 1982. It was decided however that the historic cottage could not be retained on the site which was to be redeveloped. Consideration was given to relocating it to another site but it was deemed due to its poor condition that it would not survive the move and so it was demolished.
