Life Story

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Caroline Ann Scupin died soon after giving birth to a stillborn baby and they were buried together the following day. Caroline’s tragic and early death in 1892 aged only 32 left a bereaved husband, four motherless children and a grieving family and community.

 

Upon having delivered a stillborn child, Caroline experienced severe haemorrhaging and, despite Dr Wynne being summoned, she could not be saved. Her funeral the following day drew a large and sorrowful crowd and members of the Sons of Temperance Society marched behind the coffin as a tribute.

 

Caroline was the third of the five children of Thomas Brooks and his wife Ann Smith, and she was born in 1859 at Purnim on the outskirts of Warrnambool. Her father died unexpectedly in 1867 from typhoid and the Brooks family later moved to Sheep Hills in the Wimmera region. It was there that she met Carl Scupin, a local farmer, and they married in 1884.

 

Three years later, and already a mother of two children, Caroline, Carl and the family joined her widowed mother and siblings when they all took up farming on adjacent properties in Cororooke.

 

There were good and happy years, with successful farming and the company of family members. In the following four years, four more children were born, however the youngest two died as infants; the result of premature births.

 

After Caroline’s death, her young children, the eldest only seven years old, were lovingly raised by their grandmother, Ann Brooks, their father having moved to Western Australia, never to return.

 

Following the First World War, Caroline's second oldest child Frederick Scupin, (now known as Frederick Drayton), migrated to Canada and lost all contact with his family.

 

In recent years Frederick’s daughter Catherine, learning about her grandmother Caroline, came from Canada to visit her grave in the Colac Cemetery and to honour her.

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Research by Stephen Brooks
Story by Stephen Brooks
Narrated by Deb Baillie
 
© 2026 Colac & District Family History Group Inc. 
All rights reserved. 

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Life stories have been researched and compiled by the Colac & District Family History Group Inc. and its independent contributors. This material must not be copied or reproduced without permission. AI tools have been used to assist. 

For more information, please contact the Colac & District Family History Group Inc. 

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