We took the train to Tambellup, then to Katanning where we spent the night, and the next day went on to Ongerup. All our furniture and belongings onboard. My brothers John and Wally followed by horse and cart.
On the train trip between Katanning and Ongerup at Warperup Creek, the train stopped. The guard and engine driver got out with their guns and went up the creek shooting ducks. We thought this was terribly funny, we weren’t used to the country ways. From Ongerup it was twenty-two miles to Needilup.
There were a few hundred acres cleared on our block. There was a fair-sized house but we didn’t ever live in it because we didn’t like the smell. It was in the catchment of the dam and must have been wet all the time underneath.
So, we put up three tents under a bough shed and slept there. Dad and my brothers set to work building a house further up the hill, out of rocks collected on the farm and put together with mud. When finished, it had three bedrooms, a sitting room, a dining room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a wash house.
Mr. Pocock was our neighbour on one side, and Mr. Brown was over the road. Mr Brown asked if I would teach his boys as there was no school there. So, Ray and John used to walk over every morning and I used to teach them in the dining room.
I didn’t have any qualifications and had only passed the eighth standard, but I could read and write.
The Browns, McHardys, and Frenchs ended up buying the old East Ongerup School building and transported it to North Needilup just up the road from where I lived.
They contacted the Education Department who then approached me to become the teacher there. I wasn’t teaching very long before the Inspector came out and sort of passed me as a teacher (chuckles). If you know what I mean (laughter).
The school started with four Browns, four McHardys, oh, and two Frenches. Ten children. My wage was two pounds a week for teaching, and a pound a week for cleaning the school.
Hail, rain or shine I would walk the two and a half miles to the school. In the wintertime, there was a creek to cross and it was full of water. I used to have to walk over on the wires of the fence, frightened all the time the wires would give way and I’d fall in. The McHardy children were four miles away and came by horse and sulky, or cart.
One day the school had a visit from an aeroplane. My students and I raced out of class across the paddock to have a look at it. I couldn’t run fast enough! The plane had lost its way. I think he was after Pingrup. There weren’t too many of them (planes) around at that time, so it was an uncommon event. It would have been a risky business landing on a paddock, with mallee roots and trees, and that type of thing.
For entertainment, there was a bush hall at South Needilup. It had a wooden floor, bush walls, and a bush roof. At dances (which were rarely held) Mr. Holmes would play the accordion. Eventually, a corrugated iron hall was built.
We had musical evenings at home where my mother played the organ and sang. There was also the occasional afternoon tea outing to the Browns or Mrs. Pocock’s, where finely cut sandwiches were served. They created something of a diversion and an opportunity for women to talk.
The monthly Church service in Needilup was the main social event. A real day out. After the church service at eleven o’clock, there would be a lunch and the men would play cricket or else tennis.
On Boxing Day there would be a picnic. We used to cook for it, take a big spread down to the bough hall and have our lunch all together. Boxing Day was our sports day. People used to come up from Ongerup. There were children’s races… and a dance that night.
After four years of teaching, I stayed home and helped with the housework.
There was a weekly mail service from Ongerup. There was a letter box on the Pocock’s place. We called it Mailbox Hill. For stores, the boys went into Ongerup by horse and cart about once a month. Camp the night and come back the next day.
The road was very bad and pretty wet at times.
Like many people, we would also take our own wheat to the mill in Katanning. Bringing home enough flour, bran, and pollard to last a year.
When we started growing grain it would have to be carted all the way to Ongerup by an eight-horse team and a wagon.
One time my two brothers came back with an empty wagon and as one opened the top gate, one of the horses got a fright and they all bolted.
Eight horses pulling an empty wagon with my brother standing up hauling the reins! It sounded like thunder. He was standing up, nothing all around him y’know. Just standing there on the empty wagon – no rails or anything. Mother and I, stood there looking frightened. We couldn’t do anything. No one could do anything. Fortunately, my brother managed to turn them uphill, and they stopped.
I met Fred Mills from Ongerup at a dance. We got married in 1940 at the Methodist Church in Gnowangerup. My sister-in-law Maud was my bridesmaid.
After the wedding, we set off to Albany for our honeymoon. We left a bit late and it’d begun to get dark. Being wartime, you were supposed to put things over your lights but we didn’t have anything with us, so we had to pull off the side of the road and into some timber for the night. It was a cold night and we had no rugs or anything. I slept in the front seat, (or at least I lay there, I won’t say I slept) while Fred was in the back seat, and THAT was our honeymoon!
In Albany, we stayed at one of the hotels – can’t remember the name of it. George Walker took and drove us everywhere.
Afterward, we returned to Fred’s farm about two and a half miles out of Ongerup, on the Ongerup-Needilup Road.
We lived in a house that Fred's father had built on the north side of Warperup Creek. Our neighbours were Nelson Lemmon, the Newbeys, and Mage and Gordon Lamont.
Lila was born in 1943.
It would be fair to say that Fred farmed at a leisurely pace, he wasn’t one of 'the goers'. He enjoyed farming but only put in what he wanted. If he couldn’t get it all in, well that was just too bad.
On our farm, there was a jarrah post that had once been on a little cairn of stones. Into it was carved the name “Roe”, the surveyor’s name, and a date. I’m not sure what date it was or what happened to it. I suppose in those days you weren’t interested in all those sorts of things.
In 1955 we were forced to move out of our original house when the creek came down with a big flood. The water came up to the back door! We moved up to the new house we were building despite it not being quite finished.
Once a month we would go to church in Needilup, and have tea at Mum’s place and Dad's place. Dad went to throw some slops out, or some scraps to the fowls. When Mum thought he had been out a long time she went to look for him and he was down on the ground dead.
My mother moved near us and some of the old family furniture went into the Ongerup Museum. Including the organ that my mother used to play.
In the 1960’s I belonged to a Flower Club in Ongerup that met once a month. Members included Jean Jaekel, Alison Foster, Joyce Bainbridge, Mrs Smith, Al Richards, and Florrie Ireland. We had quite a big show every year. It was beautiful.
Fred died… I don’t know if it was 1972 or… I suppose it’d be about 1971 or 1972. I should remember but I don’t.
After that, I moved to Busselton where we always went for holidays. I liked Busselton because it was flat (chuckles) and I didn’t have to walk up hills like in Albany. They have been happy years. Might be a bit lonely sometimes, but you get over that.
I have had a very happy life. Both before I was married and after. Hmm. Happy memories.
