Christina Power/Minogue/Wilkes (1879 - 1925) (Second generation)

Christina was born in 1860, the daughter of an unknown woman from Melbourne that, it is generally assumed, had the surname Power.

One of the miss Powers had a bit of bad luck (says Des Sykes, her grandson) and became pregnant whilst unmarried… Christina Power Minogue was born at Wentworth. Her mother, known to the family, was sent to Granny Minogue to await the birth of the child. The mother returned to Melbourne and Granny Minogue raised Christina as her own child.

It is most likely that the surname Power was the surname of Christina’s mother, but Des and others in the family held the view that Christina may have been the illegitimate daughter of Herbert Power, a central figure in the history of horse racing in Victoria (who had connections with Polia station, on the lower Darling river, south of Pooncarie). My mother, Joan, also speculated that Christina may have been the daughter of the writer Adam Lindsay Gordon.

But according to John Myhill, a researcher of the Power family, it is unlikely that Christina was the daughter of Lindsay Gordon. But he allows that it is possible that Christina may have been the daughter of Herbert Power:

Herbert Power was ... loitering palely, un-married, and largely unoccupied not that far from Wentworth about the time of Christina's conception. If there is a Power connection, my money would be on Herbert!

Des describes her early years:
Christina Power was educated at the public school in Wentworth. In 1877 she met Frederick William Wilkes (the man she would marry) and in that year (aged 17) she was the only bridesmaid at the wedding, in the Presbyterian church, of Donald Ross McLeod with Georgina Shell, the grandparents of Isabel - who married me (Des) in 1937 …so there was a family connection earlier there… Granny Minogue was a very bigoted Catholic and Georgina McLeod was a bigoted Methodist. The little difference started really over a rose show in which the Wilkes’s beat the McLeods… that’s how the rift started, I’m told. Those roses were grown at Tara.

Jean Roper (nee Loomes) remembers that Christina painted pictures and had a 'good eye' for floral arrangement.