Another 70 years would pass before Florence encountered the ghost of Granny Fitz again. Interestingly, it happened when she began researching the family tree. She wrote of the episode later in her journal so I can do no better than to use her exact words to describe her unexpected psychic experience.
"I was standing near the Melbourne Town Hall and as I looked up Collins Street [one of the city's main streets] I noticed a sign outside Georges store and recalled that my great grandmother, Granny Fitz, had lived there at that location before her marriage to William Simmons, and wistfully thought, oh I wish I could see Collins Street as it looked in your day Granny.
"Then I saw a chestnut horse and rider racing up Collins Street passing an open landau. [Today it's trams, traffic and tall buildings.] There were three men standing just three metres to my right by a hitching rail where one horse was tethered. The three men were dressed in beautifully tailored riding clothes: the one nearest to me wore a tan sports coat, riding breeches, high brown boots and carried a whip.
"There were ladies and young girls grouped in twos and threes along the footpath, all wearing long pretty skirted frocks.
"I must have stood there for about 60 seconds and then said, oh my God, and ran. I don't think I stopped running until I reached my bus."
Who, then, was Granny Fitz?
And why was her spirit (?) drawn to Florence?
"I was standing near the Melbourne Town Hall and as I looked up Collins Street [one of the city's main streets] I noticed a sign outside Georges store and recalled that my great grandmother, Granny Fitz, had lived there at that location before her marriage to William Simmons, and wistfully thought, oh I wish I could see Collins Street as it looked in your day Granny.
"Then I saw a chestnut horse and rider racing up Collins Street passing an open landau. [Today it's trams, traffic and tall buildings.] There were three men standing just three metres to my right by a hitching rail where one horse was tethered. The three men were dressed in beautifully tailored riding clothes: the one nearest to me wore a tan sports coat, riding breeches, high brown boots and carried a whip.
"There were ladies and young girls grouped in twos and threes along the footpath, all wearing long pretty skirted frocks.
"I must have stood there for about 60 seconds and then said, oh my God, and ran. I don't think I stopped running until I reached my bus."
Who, then, was Granny Fitz?
And why was her spirit (?) drawn to Florence?
