Ethel Christina Ramage was born at Dryfield, Black Mountain near Guyra NSW, on the 27th of October 1896, the eldest of nine children of  of James Thomas Ramage and Lillie Maud Spinks. James grandparents, James Senior and Christina, nee Kilpatrick emigrated from Lanarkshire, Scotland on the St Helena in 1854 and worked stations in the New England area of NSW.
       Ethel met Sydney Trautwein, a local school teacher at Conifer, near her home at Green Valley, Tingha, when she was about fifteen years old and they married at Redfern, Sydney in 1914 when Ethel was eighteen.Their son, Theodore Charles Trautwein, known as Theo, was born in Sydney in 1915 and daughter, Hilda Augusta was born at Tingha in 1921. Theo was a merchant seaman and was killed in 1947 at Penrith, in a collision with an Air Force motor vehicle. Hilda met Werner Heilbrunn at Jillilby where he was farming. They went to the pictures in Wyong by horse and buggy on their first date.
       Ethel taught sewing at the schools that Sydney taught at Kanwal and Jilliby, near Wyong from 1916 to 1949 and died from heart problems at Tingha in 1950. She was buried at Botany Cemetery with her son Theo. Her husband, Sydney, who died in 1963, was buried alongside Ethel and Theo.