Sapphia-Sofala!

I've decided to remove this post about my Great Great Grandmother, Sapphia-Sofala, because it contains wayyy too much intimate information about my family. I've kept it, however, for any family members who want to read the stories my mother's Great Aunts told me about their mother. Just let me know, family, and I'll send it to you.

But as for how she got the name Sapphia-Sofala. Guess I can tell that here:

Seems the family was traveling from some place in Australia to someplace else in Australia, when the jolting sent our Great Great Great Grandmother into premature labour. They were too far from any town, on a track called Sofala Road, so they took her out into a field near the road to have the baby. Seems all through the delivery, she kept complaining that there was a very uncomfortable rock immediately beneath her so her husband, just as the baby was coming, reached under the blanket to get it out.

Turned out the rock was the most enormous sapphire imaginable. Perfect too; completely unflawed and the most amazingly deep blue. He insisted the baby be called Sapphire. However, because her mother always intended this baby, if a girl, to be named Sophia, there was a big argument. But in the end they reached a compromise: Sapphia. And the Sofala tag-on came from the name of the area, obviously, as a tribute and a thank you.

Anyway, they kept the sapphire for her dowry, and when she married she sold it and built herself her dream-house, atop that hill, from which she watched over her kingdom like an eagle or a dragon, till the fire destroyed her lair and she didn't want to live anymore!

But those are all family stories so ...