Editing Christina Stead (section)

==Biography==
Christina Stead's father was the marine biologist and pioneer conservationist [[David George Stead]]; her mother was his first wife Ellen Butters, who died in 1904.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=39793|first=Hazel|last=Rowley|authorlink=Hazel Rowley|title=Stead, Christina Ellen (1902–1983)}}</ref> She was born in the [[Sydney]] suburb of [[Rockdale, New South Wales|Rockdale]]. They lived in Rockdale at [[Lydham Hall]], now operating as a museum.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sedneva |first=Olga |url=https://www.bayside.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-11/Sedneva_Olga_Entry_Between_the_Lines_Behind_the_Doors.pdf |title=Between the Lines. Behind the Doors |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-6487449-7-9}}</ref> 

Stead later moved with her family to the suburb of [[Watsons Bay]] in 1917. She was the only child of her father's first marriage, and had five half-siblings from his second marriage. He also married a third time, to [[Yolette Thistle Harris]], the Australian botanist, educator, author, and conservationist.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Blake|first=Ann|year=1994|title=An ocean of story: the novels of Christina Stead|jstor=41556568|journal=Critical Survey|volume=6|issue=1|pages=118–124}}</ref> According to some, this house was a hellhole for her because of her "domineering" father.<ref>[[Sydney Morning Herald]], 2015-9-11, p.15</ref> Stead attended [[Sydney Girls' High School]], to 1919, and went on to [[Sydney Teachers' College]], leaving in 1922 and becoming a teacher, which did not suit her. In 1925 she determined to become a writer, and worked as a secretary.<ref name="ODNB"/>

In 1928 Stead left Australia, finding work in the London grain company Strauss & Co. managed by [[Edward Strauss]]; the American manager [[William James Blech]], later Blake, became an important figure in her life, and they married in 1952.<ref name="ODNB"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rowley |first1=Hazel |authorlink1=Hazel Rowley |title=Christina Stead: a biography |date=1995 |publisher=Secker & Warburg |location=London |isbn=0436202980 |page=75 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mosse |first1=Werner Eugen |last2=Carlebach |first2=Julius |title=Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-speaking Jews in the United Kingdom |date=1991 |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |isbn=978-3-16-145741-8 |page=183 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-6WlsDsuo8C&pg=PA183 |language=en}}</ref> She worked in a Parisian bank from 1930 to 1935. She travelled to Spain with Blake, leaving at the outbreak of the [[Spanish Civil War]], and to the USA. After Blake's death from stomach cancer in 1968, she returned to Australia.<ref name=bwcs />