Mining Disaster, John Eric Tiedemann - Part 2

 After participating in the heroic task of recovering the bodies of his comrades in 1897, John went back to work in the mine. He did so, as far as we are aware, without major incident until 1905, when he had his hand crushed and had to have two fingers amputated. 

Back he went again, I suppose with a need to keep putting food on the table for his youngsters. He married Ellen "Nellie" Mitchell at about the same time, though I have no way of knowing whether it was before or after losing his fingers. Nellie was very soon pregnant, to add another mouth to feed.

Six weeks after the wedding, 17 Jun 1905, tragedy struck once again, leaving 5 orphaned children.

Coroners Report
Click image to read

The funeral was very well attended by Miners and Oddfellows, as he was a member of that Lodge. He was evidently well-known and involved considerably in his local community to have so many in attendance, including 40 vehicles and 350+ members of the local clubs and community in general.

Description of the funeral

It seems that Ellen was fortunate in some respects as she was allowed to claim on a very new insurance policy, under which very little in premiums had been paid and the insurance company did the right thing by her as witnessed in the following letter of thanks to the newspaper. The amount received is shown but too difficult to make out.

Fairly soon after John's death, Ellen took the 4 youngest children to Sydney where she deposited them in foster care, to be taken care of with the aid of the Miner's Accident Fund. It is not clear whether this was the same payment as above or whether it was a separate amount.

John's last resting place is in Campbells Hill Cemetery, at West Maitland in an unmarked grave in the same plot as his eldest son Martin. Behind him in the next row is his first wife Mary Ann (my gt-grandmother) where the bunch of white flowers marks the spot.

John's burial plot is where the white flower is.
His son Martin is buried in the same plot
Campbells Hill Cemetery

Note: Some family say that he had brothers in the area but have provided no source evidence, at this time it is just here-say. There are lots of Tiedemann's in the Maitland, Morpeth areas and I have researched most and haven't found any siblings so far. One of my aims is to thoroughly document each of these families to ascertain if there is any relationship.