Granny Winsall: Triumph from adversity

Mary Gee 1872-1948

Granny Winsall has always intrigued me. I'm told she always wore black; always wore long beads; and always kept the hotel keys on her person hanging from her belt. And she ran a tight ship at the hotel!

Granny Winsall was born Mary Gee in 1872 in Gympie Queensland, the second child to William Gee from Canton China and Anna Elise Wieckhorst who came as an 11 year old with her parents and siblings from Schleswig Holstein in Germany.

Australia in the latter half of the 19th Century wasn't very kind to people of Chinese origin so Mary had the cards stacked against her right from the beginning.

She grew up in Maryborough Queensland with her 7 sisters and 2 brothers. The family then moved to Rockhampton. 

It was after this move to Rockhampton that the family changed the surname from GEE to GHEA. And Mary changed her name to Marion. So Mary Gee became Marion Ghea.

Dave Winsall 1871-1914

Marion marries the very handsome Dave Winsall, a miner from Northhampton England.

Over the next 11 years they have a number of children in Mount Morgan, just south of Rockhampton, where Dave continues as a miner.

In 1909 Dave got his first hotel licence and purchased the Railway Hotel in Yeppoon. And so began a life in hotels.

However after only 2 and half years the hotel, together with the nearby residence and all its contents, is sold.

So back to Rockhampton for the Winsalls and this time with Dave as licensee of the Supreme Court Hotel where life seemed to go well.

But then disaster struck! In September 1914, only 2 years later, Dave Winsall dies of Miners’ Pthisis, an occupational lung disease from years of inhaling the crystalline silica dust in the mines.

Now a widow, Marion was left alone with a pub to run and with 3 teenagers and an 8 year old to support.

15 months later she leaves Rockhampton for Aramac some 650 kms west of Rockhampton and takes up the licence of the Marathon Hotel. Also living with her are her son Alf, her sister Maud and her husband a dentist in Aramac. 

Marion and her sister Maud on the verandah of the Marathon Hotel Aramac

On the first anniversary of being the Licensed Victualler of the Marathon, disaster strikes for a second time and the pub is burnt to the ground.

Marathon Hotel fire 1916

The hotel is eventually rebuilt and reopens. But in 1921 Granny Winsall moves back to Rockhampton when her sister Tilly transfers the licence of the Crown Hotel into her name. And she remains as the Licensed Victualler there for the next 16 years.

There are many references in the newspaper of sponsoring various sporting groups and events. The hotel is the venue for many functions such as weddings and twenty-firsts. And Marion becomes a significant business woman in the town.

Finally in 1936 Marion purchases the freehold of the Excelsior Hotel opposite the Wintergarden and Earls Court cinemas in Rockhampton. She immediately makes plans to demolish it and build her own hotel ... and renames it Winsalls Hotel.

Winsalls Hotel Rockhampton 1980s

Granny Winsall died in 1948 just before her 76^th birthday but the hotel continued as a landmark in Rockhampton until it was demolished in recent years.

Little Mary Gee had triumphed both personally and in business. She was known as a tough business woman and well-known and respected around town. She built lucrative businesses and built her own hotel.  She was the matriarch of the family, provided for her parents, and financially supported her children and their families throughout the years during tough times.