The Role of Serendipity and Collaboration in Adding Texture and Family Context to the Career of Australian Educator Renée Erdos (1911–1997)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Renée Erdos was a history teacher and distance educator whose significance to Australian and international education was recognised in 2021 with an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. During her lifetime Erdos published a memoir, Teaching Beyond the Campus, and has left a collection of papers with the National Library of Australia. However, this material deals almost exclusively with her professional life. Her family history and personal life have been difficult to reconstruct even though the digital revolution and access to online resources such as Trove and Ancestry.com have helped to reveal more of the traces of her past. This article reflects on the way in which old-fashioned serendipity and collaboration resulting from chance encounters with researchers in different fields have played a role in providing access to otherwise hidden sources and information. The stories that emerge are interesting and add new dimensions to our understanding of Erdos's early life. Even though the serendipity and collaboration have been mediated by the internet and its instantaneous international reach, they highlight the way in which life writing can thrive on personal meetings across the range of historical practice, including family history.