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Ellison
Family
Block
numbers were 34A and 34B on opposite sides of road
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Here
are my brother's memoirs. He became the Chief Valuer for the
NSW Department of Main Roads and was much mourned by his family,friends
and colleagues when he died prematurely.He was a great character
who wrote many poems published in the Main Roads Journal.
He in later life enjoyed skiing travelling many times to Mt
Baldy in America and to other parts of the world. He was a
member from the age of 15 of the Narrabeen Surf Life Saving
Club and of the Long Reef Golf Club Nsw. I will send a photo
of Bill taken later in his life when I locate it in my records.
We do hope to have Bill's journals published at some time
but know he would be pleased to have this part in your Website..
Yours truly Lynette Ellison Kensey .
More
excerpts from his memoirs
can be found here
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Family Story
My father Alec was a World War I returned soldier who had
served in Egypt, Gallipoli and France. Prior to his marriage
in 1927, he had been basically a bushy all his life. His family
had resided in country towns or in rural localities since
arriving in Australia in the 1850s and therefore he was no
stranger to farming. In the early 1920s on their return from
overseas, he and his brothers Jack and Lionel had farmed in
partnership, at Colinrobie between Narrandera and Barellan
in New South Wales. Upon the dissolution of this partnership,
Alec went back and worked for a former employer of his at
Rosebery in the Old Mallee area of Victoria and some one hundred
to two hundred miles from the scene of my childhood. The Old
Mallee is also dry farming country but generally is much safer
country climate wise. It is also much less saline.
Still Dad was not a complete stranger to dry country as before
World War I, he had spent some time at a property, owned or
managed by one of his uncles by marriage near Oodnadatta where
the average annual rainfall is only five or six inches. About
the time of Dad's marriage Jack, his elder brother had been
allocated a block in the Millewa settlement about ten miles
south of Meringur and in the last tier of the subdivision.
In explanation the settlement area was about 60 miles wide
and fifteen miles deep with blocks each about one hundred
chains deep by roughly sixty chains wide in rows or tiers
of about eighty blocks each stretching in about twelve strips
from east to west across the settlement. I am aware that these
figures give more than 800 blocks, in fact, 960 if my dimensioning
is accurate but the discrepancy is accounted for by firstly
the approximate nature of the dimensions and second by the
reservation of certain areas for public purposes, such as
forestry reserves, and traveling stock and camping reserves.
School sites, townships and tank sites would also further
reduce the area available. However to revert to the story.
Jack had been allocated a block. Dad had selected a block
which was eventually allocated in the tier immediately north
of Jack's block and two blocks east thereof.. Jack and Grandpa,
otherwise Willy, had moved up and kept sending messages
to the newly weds, Alec and Glad, to come up but they were
a little reluctant to do so until they could be reasonably
assured of accommodation. Jack kept assuring them that they
could put them up so finally they set off in a horse drawn
van also sometimes referred to as a covered waggon driving
up in the summer heat(See photo below).
Upon their arrival they found Jack and Grandpa camped in
an open fronted galvanized iron shed on the block to the
west of Jack's and nothing else in the way of a building
for miles around except Archie Bennier's stone house, the
only structure of this material in the whole of the settlement.
With this limitation on accommodation, the newly weds camped
in the waggon for the next several months while Dad and his
father who was a carpenter, built the house on Dad's block
which had now come through. While this may have been a bit
of a trial for Alec, his country background would have given
him some training for it, but imagine poor Gladys who had
been an urbanite all her life other than country holidays
and was suddenly roughing it. Still she had some previous
experience with the climate as she had spent two years teaching
at Broken Hill where the country and climate were possibly
even more trying than the Millewa but hardly under the same
conditions. The cottage which was of timber frame construction,
with weather board cladding and galvanized iron roof, comprised
four main rooms lined with three ply to dado height with fibrous
plaster above and fibrous plaster ceilings.
The lot stood on red gum piers, about eighteen inches above
the ground and was surrounded by a verandah on all sides,
about twelve feet wide. The rear verandah was enclosed and
had a workman's room at one end and a bathroom at the other.
The northern side verandah had no floor and was used to garage
the car, a 1924 Hupmobile. The rear half of the south side
verandah also had no floor and was utilized as the laundry.
A fuel copper on iron stand and two tin tubs comprised the
laundry equipment which were in the yard. Water supply was
obtained from two 1000 gallon tanks which stored roof water
and supplied the bathroom and an outside tap. There was no
water to the kitchen, washing up being done in a large dish
and the only hot water was obtained either by lighting the
copper or by putting the kettle on the stove.
The stove was a fuel stove burning mallee roots which make
an excellent fire and there was an open fireplace in the lounge.
Lighting was by kerosene lamps and the toilet was an earth
closet, the contents of which it was Dad's pleasure to empty
and bury at frequent intervals. Drainage was non existent
and bath water, washing up water and any thing that could
be spared, was used to water Mum's Passion Fruit Vine( Mum
tried to grow these vines wherever she went) and any vegetables
which could be grown. There was no such thing as domestic
refrigeration and ice was unobtainable in the district therefore
the only means of keeping food cool was to use a Coolgardie
Safe. This basically consists of a wooden framework with hessian
sides standing in a drip tray with another tray full of water
as a top with strips of cloth hanging over the sides from
the top tray so that the hessian is kept damp.
Evaporation provides cooling and when there is a breeze, the
effect is not too bad. Water was similarly cooled in water
bags to which a handful of oatmeal was added. This was the
house occupied by the family when I was born and was to remain
my home until late 1936 when we moved to Mildura. The move
to Mildura was an abandonment of the farm and was the culmination
of a series of poor seasons and low prices. We were by no
means the first family in the area to walk off and were certainly
not the last. I lack data on the present population but would
be surprised if in the whole of the Millewa more than six
hundred people still reside. Just because we went broke doesn't
mean that the whole of life was a struggle or that nobody
had any fun. In the first few years, before the depression
really bit, the young family people in the area had a fair
sort of social life and lived fairly well.
They held dances and At Homes where those musically or dramatically
inclined would provide the entertainment. Mum played te piano
by ear and records let them know the tunes popular around
the time. A tennis court was built from ant nests and a cricket
pitch. Agricultural Shows were held at which Dad and his horses
were a success as was his dairy cow until the drought hit.
However by 1934 most people would have realized the settlement
was not a goer and the last few years before Dad got out would
have been pretty grim. For that matter the first few years
in Mildura were even grimmer to him, and it wasn't until we
moved to New South Wales that things started to look up a
bit. This is not an aspersion on the state of Victoria, but
is a commentary on the hard times of the 30's. I was still
quite small when we left the farm having just gone six, and
due to the remoteness of the locality my only regular playmates
were my three sisters, one of whom was older than me, and
two younger, the youngest being about eighteen months old
at the time of our moving to Mildura. As well, there were
my cousins, Janet and Ken, the first about my age and the
other Lynette's my second sister. We saw them pretty regularly,
and as we got older were within walking distance of about
two miles.
These were Jack's children he having married in the district
after moving up. Others who were in walking distance were
a large family called Pawker who lived about a mile and a
half north of us, and an even larger tribe named McMahon about
the same distance to the south east. Both these families were
older than any of us except the youngest of the Pawkers, and
so we didn't get to know them really well. As well as these
neighbours there were a few more children more my age belonging
to various friends of Mum and Dads who were on the visiting
circuit, but other than odd recollections helped by family
reminiscences I know little more than their names, and except
as one may cop a passing mention as I progress with this tale
all that needs to be said about them has been said. What sort
of life did we kids have in this remote locale with limited
facilities and towards the end little or no money? Probably
as good if not better than most during the depression years.
We ate well and didn't need much in the way of clothes. What
did we eat? Well we had chooks and our own milking cows. We
made our own butter and killed our own meat. Grain was ground
by itinerent mobile mills on the basis of one bag for the
miller and one for the farmer. Other requirements were obtained
by a bit of barter, surplus eggs and butter being our contribution
to the trade. In retrospect it was a pretty spartan existence
but the consumer society had hardly got under way at that
time and one didn't miss what one hadn't had. Still to revert
to my story. I think the last thing that has happened so far
is that I was born. Pam was born about fifteen months before
this and had had a visit to be shown off to her admiring maternal
grandmother in Sydney. She also had a visit somewhat later
to go to said Grandmother's funeral. With the death of her
mother, Mum was left with no blood relatives other than her
children at that time , one and one in the can me, so that
as far as we are concerned all family are Dad's relatives.
When I was about fifteen months old the whole family had a
holiday by the sea at Port Noarlunga in South Australia, but
with increasing financial stringency this was the last family
holiday we had. When I was barely old enough to remember Dad
went down to Melbourne for the Show and took Pam and me with
him. We stayed at Lionel's place but all I can remember is
the concrete in the back yard and wondering where all the
endless supply of water came from without tanks. In these
early years Dad and Mum played tennis and Dad cricket and
possibly even football but with the aggravation of hard times
and the movement of people from the district these activities
were a thing of the past by the last couple of years. Schooling
There was a school at Tunart about five miles from our place
and another at Kurnwil, about the same distance away.
By the time Pam and I were old enough to start school both
these had been closed and the only suitable school was at
Meringur ten miles distance,so Mum who was a teacher gave
us our early lessons in the three R's. In those days there
were no free rural school buses or for that matter no public
transport of any kind within the Millewa except a weekly train
service which wasn't much use to us so that this isolation
was the first straw leading to our departure from the farm.
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