Life Story

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The stone reads simply: In Loving Memory of Eunice Hilda Billings.

 

And yet, she was never just a name.

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Born in 1887 to William Billings, a labourer, and Louisa Scott, a gentlewoman, little Eunice—known as Hilda—arrived only months after her parents’ marriage, a bright beginning to a young family. Baptised the following year by Rev. Thomas Angwin of the Wesleyan Circuit, she carried the names of those lost before her—her great-grandmother in England, and an aunt who had died young. Even in life, she was a thread in a longer story.

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She was to be the eldest of many—twelve children in all—but Hilda would never meet her siblings. At just three years old, croup brought her short life to an end.

The family never forgot her. More than forty years later, her father’s death notice still spoke her name.

 

And here she rests, beside her parents and her sister Sophia—forever their first child, forever remembered.

 

Research by Merrill O’Donnell
Story by Merrill O’Donnell
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.