Collection relating to Hubert Sylvan Hall and Cecille Isor Esau Hall (nee Deakin)

Studio portrait of the wedding party of Cecille (Cec) Deakin and Hubert Hall. Born in 1892, Deakin was working at Fremantle Hospital in Perth when she met her future husband, 100 Sergeant Hubert Sylvian Hall, 10th Light Horse Regt of Roebourne, WA. A station manager with three years previous experience in the Perth Battery Field Artillery, Hall enlisted on 5 October 1914 and embarked from Fremantle on 8 February 1915 aboard HMAT Mashobra. On 15 May 1915 he was injured in transit from Heliopolis to Alexandria on a train, suffering severe injuries to his left arm. Although he underwent convalescence in Egypt and rejoined his unit in January 1916, he returned to hospital at Heliopolis and on 22 February 1916, his left arm was amputated. He was invalided to Australia in April 1916 and following hospitalisation in Fremantle, was discharged in August 1916. Cec Hall later recalled to her family that Hubert started courting her after he was discharged from hospital and she was still living at the nurses home. Strict curfews for the nurses saw that she and a friend would have to sneak out to meet their beaux. At the end of the evening Hubert, who remained extremely strong despite his amputated right arm, would lift them over the iron railing fence so they could creep back in. On one such evening the couple were not so lucky, with Cec's dress getting caught on an iron picket, she becoming stuck on the fence. Cec and Hubert Hall married in 1916 and had three sons, Geoff, Evan and Peter. In 1929 Hubert died on his farm at Moora, WA. Cecille Hall passed away in 1981, having never remarried.