RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION
On retiring from Currie Hall in early 1987 we settled into our new home in the suburb of Winthrop. There we established a new lifestyle. My sister visited us from New Jersey and I started thinking about writing a family history. Kay and I took a caravan trip to the Eastern States but while we were away my mother died. Several years later Kay’s mother also died, so we now belonged to the oldest living generation. I spent five productive years researching the ancestors and descendants of my mother’s parents and produced a book, “The Rumble Family Register” in 1994. For four years I served on the Council of St. Catherine’s College, became very active in a school for seniors, attended a course on writing an autobiography, and then set about that task. We visited my sister in America and watched our own family grow and work through the problems they encountered. These years were very productive and, as we slowed our pace of life, we could reflect on the richness of our lives and what we had learnt along the way.
I
‘Do you by any chance have a block that looks out over a park?’ We had decided to build our new house in the suburb of Winthrop, almost 17 km south of the city centre and Kay looked hopefully at Terry Treasure, the sales representative. ‘You've got to be joking,’ he replied, ‘All blocks like that were snapped up on the day we released phase three. But I can show you a few other, largish blocks.’
He marked a few blocks on a map, gave it to us and we went off to look at them. One, a corner block, seemed suited to our needs as there would be ample space to park our caravan. However, when we returned to the sales office, Terry approached us. ‘I’ve suddenly remembered that I may have a block overlooking a park. A fellow has paid a deposit on lot 78 but is having second thoughts about it. Go and look at it. I should know in a few days whether I can let you have it.’
This lot was in Paterson Gardens on the ridge of a small hill looking east over a large area known as Piney Lakes Reserve. It was classified public open space, and no one could ever build on it. As we gazed eastwards over the park and its small lake, we could see the bluish hills of the Darling Ranges, and fell in love with the site immediately. It was near a heavily populated area and not far from the city, but we felt that we were in the country as all we could see was bushland. We told Terry to secure it for us if he could. By the middle of the week it was ours.
We had already chosen the design of our house. Early in 1985 we spent many weekends looking at house plans and inspecting “Display” homes. Builders constructed homes in newly established suburbs, furnished them, and then made them available for inspection over a period of many months. Kay and I must have inspected dozens of these until one took our fancy. It had a narrow frontage and so would provide space for our caravan on one side, but was relatively deep. It had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a lounge, dining room, family room, breakfast nook and laundry. The rooms were spacious and almost every one had a large window looking out to the garden beyond. It had been especially designed to bring the garden into the house. The house was ideally suited to the block as it had an aspect that would largely protect it from the hot sun in the mornings and evenings, while we planned a wide pergola on the northern side. We
504
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
covered this with a Wisteria that would allow sun through in the winter months but provide shade in the summer. After changing the plan slightly to suit our own needs, we signed up with the builder and soon our new home started to take shape. We took up residence in November 1986.
An entry in my diary just three years later shows how delighted I was in our new home:
When we settled in Winthrop only a very small portion of the suburb had been developed. Finally there were about fifteen separate phases opened over a period of two or three years. Rapidly the suburb became popular and, when a new phase was about to be released, we would see queues of people lined up outside the Winthrop sales office. They brought along their sleeping bags and slept in the queue all night to be certain that they would gain the block of their choice on the next day. As time went by, the value of the land doubled and then trebled. The agents originally expected the two thousand lots to be sold over a ten-year period, but they were all gone within five years.
In the first years we worked hard establishing our home and garden and were plagued with rabbits that came out of the reserve every night and consumed our new plants. I was forced to surround the gardens with chicken wire for the first few years.
505
BUILDING AT WINTHROP MY HALF-TIME UNIVERSITY COMMITMENTS
There were two reasons why I decided not to retire completely on leaving Currie Hall: Firstly, I did not want a total change in lifestyle, and still enjoyed teaching; Secondly, I was only 59 years of age and complete retirement would seriously affect the level of my superannuation entitlement. I needed to work until almost 65 years of age to gain as much superannuation benefit as possible, as I must then live on the
1
proceeds . By accepting a 50% fractional appointment, while I would receive less than half my former salary, I would have more free time to develop my own interests.
In 1985 we had bought a second car so that I could commute to the University, while Kay still had transport of her own. Most weeks, my University commitments occupied only two and a half days. Often I left home at 7.15 am before I became entangled in busy freeway traffic, and returned home at 3.30 pm to avoid the evening rush. I enjoyed the life and the freedom it gave. I confined my lecturing to first and second-year classes, supervising my tutors in first year - as student numbers had reached almost four-hundred, and conducting my own second-year tutorials. I always enjoyed teaching and tackled it with much enthusiasm. However, I realised I was no longer young when one of my second-year students told me during a tutorial that I had taught her father!
I developed a very good rapport with my second-year students. In 1991 at one of my last tutorials with them, they said: ‘Let’s not have a formal tutorial today. Tell us some stories from the past.’ So I obliged by telling several, including the following tale of my “Champagne” lecture given many years earlier to a third-year group:
In those days I was always well-dressed in coat and tie. My students complained that I was too well dressed, and dared me to come along the following week in my old clothes. In good spirit I accepted the challenge and duly arrived in my old gardening trousers, held up with a piece of rope around the waist. I wore a paint spattered shirt and old tennis shoes. I had 35 students in the group, so decided to lighten the occasion by bringing along some bottles of Champagne. We were living in Currie Hall at the time and I asked my wife to ring a hiring company, Cool-Bev in Subiaco, to order three dozen champagne glasses.
When she went to pick them up, they told her to drive her car around the back to the loading bay to pick up the thirty-dozen glasses! They had taken the order, and said to themselves: Mrs Fall from Currie Hall wants three dozen glasses. That can't be right. Not for Currie Hall; it must be thirty-dozen!
After she had sorted out that problem, I took the three dozen glasses, a few bottles of Champagne and some non-alcoholic cider into the lecture room on a workshop trolley. I then gave my lecture, Champagne glass in hand, while the students sat, also with glass in hand. Some of the Asian students who were not accustomed to Champagne, slowly turned red in the face, although a few took the cider.
Somehow I don’t think we covered much in the lecture, but it remained a memorable
occasion. Years later whenever I met class members they reminded me of it and said
1 I had belonged to the University’s superannuation scheme since I joined in 1952. I contributed 5% of my salary and the University contributed 10%. In 1983 this system was abandoned and all staff joined a national scheme for universities. I asked for my entitlement to date to be paid to me and I invested the proceeds in unlisted property trusts. I then started afresh in the new scheme to which I contributed 7% of my salary while the University contributed 14%. When I retired fully in 1993, I took this new superannuation as a pension. By changing from an Associate Professor level to a 50% Senior Lecturer level in 1987 my salary more than halved.
506
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
that it had been a highlight of their course.
My enthusiasm for teaching reaped an unexpected reward in 1991. The student Guild of Undergraduates had long been concerned with the emphasis placed on staff research to the detriment, they felt, of teaching. In 1991 they inaugurated their “Excellence in Teaching” awards. Unbeknown to me, my students nominated me for the award. I was both surprised and gratified when I learnt that the Guild had chosen me as the first recipient. In my study at home I now have two framed certificates: One is my London PhD;
th
the other stated: “John Fall received this award from the students of UWA on 30 October 1991 in recognition of his outstanding teaching abilities.” The teaching recognition means more to me than the PhD.
At the end of 1986, before I took up my new duties, Alan Billings, who had relinquished the position of Head of the Electrical Engineering Department to Yianni Atikiouzel, drew me to one side. ‘Take a tip from a former Head of Department,’ he confided. ‘A fractional appointment is a dangerous one. Heads of Department, being what they are, will try to get out of you as much as they can. I ought to know! If you are not careful, they will have you working seventy or eighty percent of your time on half salary. I suggest that you refuse to act on committees.’
Alan knew that I was an enthusiast in all that I did and that, if I accepted active committee membership, I would soon become overburdened. I saw the wisdom of his advice, and took it. This, however, did not prevent both Alan and Yianni at later times putting pressure on me to increase my involvement. Early in May 1990, Alan came to me. The University had restructured its organisation and now had Heads of Divisions, the head of each division being responsible for several faculties. Alan was both Head of the Division of Engineering and Computer Science, and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.
‘John, I want to put a proposition to you. We have decided that the Head of Division cannot properly represent the interests of a single faculty within that division, and so should not also be Dean. We had a meeting of the Heads of the engineering departments yesterday and it was unanimously agreed that I should approach you to take on the Dean’s job, and possibly combine it with the Sub-Dean’s position.’
I discussed this with Kay and decided that I should refuse. If I were to take such a position, I would insist on doing a thorough job, and would put much effort into it. Virtually I would be back to a full-time position, and this I did not want. Although I refused, one year later in April 1991, Yianni Attikiouzel approached me with the same proposition.‘The faculty executive has you on the top of its list. I told them that you would refuse, but said that I would ask you nonetheless.’
Again I refused although the task was less onerous than the original proposition, as the faculty had now appointed a full-time Sub-Dean. However, in the meantime, I had become a member of the Council of St. Catherine’s College. Although I enjoyed teaching, I missed the more intimate involvement with colleagues as a member of a policy-making or other committee. I lived on the periphery of the faculty, and so was receptive to the idea of being a member of St. Catherine’s Council.
II
2
St. Catherine’s College had had an unsettled period. Rosemary Reynolds resigned as Head of College and a much younger woman took her place. The new Head did not cope with the pressure, became ill and left; For some time the College was without effective leadership. While searching for another Head, the chairman of the Council and his wife ran the College remotely, not living on the site. Finally, Clare
2 See page 474
507
PRESSURES TO INCREASE MY WORKLOAD ST. CATHERINE’S COLLEGE COUNCIL
Wilson, an experienced psychologist from Queensland, accepted the post. Having left the College scene, I knew only vaguely of these events.
One morning in March 1990 I received a phone call from Clare. Could I have lunch with her to discuss the possibility of joining the Council? Over lunch she told me a tale of woe.
‘I’ve been in the job six months,’ she said, ‘and have had nothing but difficulty with my Council.’ ‘Before I was appointed, the Council chairman thought that you could run a College remotely by dropping in once or twice a week. You can’t. They appointed a resident caretaker-gardener and spent $40,000 upgrading a flat for him.. Because he was on the spot, they allowed him responsibilities that he should not have had. Although he has now left, I have received nothing but criticism from the Council and its chairman. They insist on approving every little thing I do. They give me no trust and little executive responsibility. That’s not as it should be.’ Clare was becoming wound up. ‘They promised to upgrade my residence to meet my family needs with two children and a husband. Now they are reneging on this and even suggest that I don’t need to live on site!’
Clare said that she had discussed the impossibility of her situation with the other college Heads and had suggested that she needed one of them on her Council as a “College-oriented” member, since few existing members really understood what a college was about, although they thought they did. Ben Darbyshire from St. George’s College, and my successor, Bruce Mackintosh, had suggested that she approach me, or Dave Robinson, who had retired from St. Columba College.
‘Can I put your name forward as a possible Council member?’ she asked.
I agreed, but warned that I would act independently to support those principles that I regarded made for a good college, and for a good college head. However, it was not until the following August that a new College chairperson called on me. Helen Wildy asked me to join the Council and possibly convene the planning committee; I agreed but said that I would only stay for three years.
I soon became heavily involved not only in planning work for the College, but in discovering and dealing with the friction that existed between Clare and her Council. I spent many informal hours with Clare discussing the task of running a college and working one’s way around areas of potential conflict. I also had many talks with Helen Wildy.
Quickly I discovered that there was a vast difference between Clare’s position and my former position in Currie Hall. In Currie Hall, the Principal was answerable only to the University Senate through the Vice-Chancellor. In effect, the Vice-Chancellor said “I don’t want to hear about you or Currie Hall unless there are serious problems.” I had overall responsibility, defined in the most loose terms imaginable: I was responsible to the Senate for everything in Currie Hall. Full stop. I was Chairman of Council, which was advisory to me, but technically I need not take their advice, although it was considered that I would and, generally, I did. The Chairperson of any Council is in a powerful position and can exercise much sway over the direction of events.
St. Catherine’s College was not backed by a Church, as were the other colleges, so the Council was the ultimate authority. The Head of College was not the Chairperson of Council. As the Council saw it, the Head was there to do their bidding. Because of the problems associated with the young person appointed to follow Rosemary Reynolds, they had drawn up a most detailed statement of the relative responsibilities of the Council and Head. It was almost a case of: “The Head may lick the stamps, but the Council Chair
508
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
must place them on the envelopes.”
Clare inherited these conditions and found them intolerable; she circulated them both to other local Heads and to those in the Eastern States. They were all appalled. Unfortunately, the current Chairperson and several long-term Council members interpreted the conditions literally.
After intensive private discussion with significant Council members, I pointed out the inadequacy of the existing multi-page document and suggested that Council must place trust in their Head and give her as much autonomy as possible. I suggested that a brief statement of relative responsibilities was all that was required, together with by-laws broadly defining Council policies.
I tabled the comments, shown on the right, and suggested the following brief policy statement:
The Council is responsible for all aspects of the College as defined by the constitution, and shall define general policies in its major areas of operation, such as College objectives, selection of students, appointment of senior staff, financial management, maintenance and development.
The Head of College, as Executive Officer, shall be responsible for the good government, administration and control of the College on a day-to-day basis in accordance with Council policies, and shall report regularly to Council on pertinent matters.
In due course it was this statement that was adopted to replace the unworkable detailed document. Clare felt much relieved, but it took time for new attitudes to develop, and there was often conflict between Clare and her Chairperson. Both had strong personalities, and Clare’s temperament was not attuned to quiet diplomacy that worked with the motto:
“Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey.”
Nonetheless it was important to back her wherever possible because remote Council members rarely understoond the nuances of running such a human place as a student college.
509
PRESSURES TO INCREASE MY WORKLOAD ST. CATHERINE’S COLLEGE COUNCIL
510
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
My role on the Council became more demanding as I took the position of Honorary Secretary as well as that of planning chairman. Slowly, the attitude of Council changed and some of the older members departed. At last we had a good working relationship. We even drew up plans for the extension of the Head’s residence so that it would meet both family and official needs. However, I found the atmosphere in the all-women’s college very different to that of the mixed community of Currie Hall.
The community was fragile and often emotionally driven. If it wasn’t Clare having problems with her accountant, or the residents being up-tight on some issue, it was lingering problems between Council
3
members and the administration. There was also a strong “feminist” sentiment . Clare often talked about the “Glass Ceiling” where women could rise to a certain rank in an organisation but were invisibly barred from attaining the highest positions, which were retained for men. Feminism, the pros and cons of mixed or segregated living and learning, and the “war between men and women” were driving forces.
It was a current debate in the early 1990s whether boys and girls at schools were taught better in mixed or segregated classes. Until the 1960s high-school boys and girls usually attended separate classes. Then, educators, and the community, decided to change to coeducation. By the 1990s some claimed that this had been to the benefit of the boys, but not to the girls.
Environmental pressures in the past steered girls away from subjects like maths and science. In mixed classes girls performed less well than boys in these subjects. The boys were more aggressive, denying the girls learning opportunities. Boys wanted to be "on top", and girls often did not try hard, because this led to derision by the boys. By the early 1990s, some classes in Sydney schools moved back to segregation. The result was that the girls preferred it, studied and performed better. Boys, however, did not like being separated from the girls. Teachers said that girls in a class civilised the boys.
Those in favour of segregation pointed to the obvious improvement in the learning skills of the girls. Those against segregation said that teaching in separate classes was artificial. It did not prepare youngsters for the later society when they would be mixed. They stressed that segregation could lead to the argument that girls might be better by themselves, but that they couldn't stand up to the competition provided by the boys, and so were inferior.
My own experience of university residences was that the all-male Currie Hall prior to 1971 was a rowdy, aggressive environment in which damage was done, and some drank too much. When we became coeducational there was a pronounced "civilising" of the men. They moderated and quietened their behaviour. It was good for them.
Within meetings of the Hall Committee the women held their own very well with the men. However, the men dominateed much of the society. In twenty years, only one woman was elected president of the student club. Clare Wilson, claimed that women performed much better at the university when segregated. They competed against each other. Every office within the community was held by a woman, and all saw other young women as leaders, so that the College provided good role models.
‘We have the best of both worlds,’ declared Clare. ‘Our women live in a segregated environment in college, which is good for them, and they are in a mixed teaching environment in the University. This combination helps raise their self-esteem and self-confidence.’
3 See page 421 for a comment on the rise of feminism in the 1960s
511
THE PROBLEMS OF ST.CATHERINE’S COLLEGE THE ISSUES OF FEMINISM
The debate about the roles of men and women has, of course, gone much further than simply that of espousing the virtues of segregated or mixed living and teaching. Feminism arose in the 1960s through the desire for equality with men. There was a centuries’ old tradition that women were to be kept in a submissive, unequal role. Women have had to fight hard for emancipation from their servile position. They have had to fight for the right to meaningful employment, not simply to gain the recognition of “equal pay for equal work”. They have had to fight for the right to have equal opportunity in seeking employment. All too often there has been the assumption that it was the woman’s task to maintain the house and look after the children, receiving no recognition for this unpaid work.
It was in the 1960s that some outspoken, strong women achieved much for the feminist cause, although not all women agreed with the extreme position adopted by some. It is now being realised that men are also victims. The competitive male society demands that men conform to an accepted image. In male
4
company they must deny their feelings and emotions . The stereotype image of the male is one of toughness, not of softness.
5
I once heard a young woman of eighteen discuss the antagonism between older people. ‘Older men and women have a relationship of intense competition. One is always blaming the other,’ she said. ‘They do nothing but take sides, which is completely unnecessary. Each should be true to themselves, and be themselves. If people could discover who they are and then be that person - without regard for the opinions of society, then there would be no need for competition between the sexes. As it is, older people see everything as stereotypes.’
There is much idealism among the young, and I saw it constantly in both St. Catherine’s and within Currie Hall. This is encouraging. Change is occurring, and I remain forever an optimist.
Exposure to the emotional element of St. Catherine’s College taught me much in a practical sense, but the demand it placed on me was very great. There were many more internal conflicts dealt with emotionally than I ever experienced in Currie Hall. I found that dealing calmly with other people’s emotional approach to life, and steering them in the direction of rational common sense was always stressful; often I came home feeling exhausted.
I had resolved to retire after my three-year term, but found this difficult. I had joined the Council to help solve a problem between it and the Head. Having done this, it was time to leave. Unfortunately, several good people had left the Council through natural attrition, and Clare was having much difficulty with one particular member; she also said that it was her intention to resign after her four-year term. I knew that we must appoint another Head, and that it was important that we obtain the right person. So I stayed.
Clare never had opportunity to enjoy the extensions to her residence, although we drew up plans. She and I pressed very hard to get the work done. I was firmly convinced that it was most important that the Head should feel happy in her home, although some members of Council did not see the need for improvements. The work was finally completed just before she left.
4 See page 419 on how men and women handle emotional problems 5 To this young woman, “older” meant “anyone over thirty”.
512
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
Appointing a successor was a time consuming business. We received many applicants some of whom seemed excellent on paper, but we wanted those hard-to-define, intangible qualities that make for a good head: a competence and stability, coupled with a warm and understanding, tolerant nature. We rejected every one of our initial applicants and readvertised the post.
At length we offered the position to Yvonne Rate. By that time I had left the Council but, as Lisa Young, who now occupied the Chair, was away, Yvonne came to my house in early December 1993 for a long discussion. I had prepared a dossier containing much background material which she took away to study, saying that she would let me know within a few days whether she would accept the post. She did, taking up her position in January. Yvonne rang me in February 1994 and said that she was enjoying her new position very much and regarded the dossier I had given her as her bible. She had a good relation with staff, with her Council and with the other College Heads. I wished her well, and faded out of the life of the College. At least, Yvonne did not inherit the problems that had confronted Clare when she first arrived.
III
In 1987 we became increasingly concerned for my mother’s health. She had moved into Wearne Hostel
6
in 1984 but increasingly spent periods, particularly in the winter months, in Hollywood Repatriation Hospital. We were sad to see the debilitating effect of her emphysema. Sometimes we could bring her to our home for the day, and we visited her constantly in hospital, but she found it ever more difficult whenever she returned to the Hostel. Eventually the matron and her doctor decided that she must move to a nursing home. She needed constant care, a respirator and oxygen, they said: A nursing home could provide this.
We found it was very difficult to secure a place in a suitable home. After inspecting several, we put her name on the waiting list of three or four that appealed to her and, while waiting for a place, she remained in hospital. We accepted the first offer received but, unfortunately, it was in Wembley, about twenty-five minutes´ drive from our home. Most nursing home rooms were shared by two people, and we knew that mother would not like this; luckily she was offered a private room with facilities, and soon made herself reasonably comfortable. I visited her at least three times a week but often found it exhausting. Mother maintained her negative outlook on life and this was heightened by her illness. By the time I had driven there, made my visit and returned home, I was both emotionally and physically drained.
Kay and I badly needed a holiday and had for some time planned another caravan trip to the Eastern States . When mother became ill and entered the nursing home we thought we should cancel the plan, but her doctor and the matron urged us to go. Our children said that they would visit my mother often while we were away and encouraged us to make the trip.
So we set out in late August 1988 and had a wonderful time until late October. We enjoyed crossing the Nullarbor again, and then headed for the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. We travelled through the Barossa Valley and then to the Grampians in Victoria. Eventually we went over the Snowy Mountains and
6 See page 479 7 See page 493 for our 1981 caravan trip to the Eastern States
513
FEMINISM DEPARTURE FROM ST.CATHERINE’S MY MOTHER’S HEALTH
to the coast on the Eastern seaboard. We spent a delightful day on Kay’s birthday on a river cruise at Mallacoota and then headed for Tidal River in Wilson’s Promontory, the most South-Eastern corner of Australia. For two months we refreshed ourselves by communing with nature.
We booked our car into the caravan park and went for an exploratory walk around the river and beach. The scenery and the weather were absolutely magnificent and, as we meandered back to our van, we felt pleased that we had booked for a ten-day stay. As we reached our caravan we saw a note on the door. It read: “Please ring your son.” We knew that this could mean only one thing: Peter told us that Mother
8
had died the previous night, 21st October .
We decided to leave the caravan there and fly home immediately but discovered that this was not possible. An airline pilots´ strike had just concluded. I rang several airlines. ‘You must be joking,’ they said. ‘We have a backlog of pre-booked passengers. You won’t get a flight for two weeks!’ So we decided to drive home with our caravan as quickly as possible. We asked our children to delay the funeral for a week.
That sad, homeward trip was over 3,700 kilometres in length. We could not travel fast as we were pulling our caravan, but had long days of driving, averaging about 550 kilometres a day. We set off early Sunday morning, 23rd October and reached Perth on the following Saturday. Before we left Perth we knew that this could happen while we were away, but it still came as a great shock.
A year after this event I was asked to write about the saddest moments in my life, and this is what I then put on paper:
Sadness implies sorrow, and sorrow implies the loss of something, or a failure to achieve that which is important to us. In childhood sadness comes often because we cannot always have what we desire, and a loss seems unbearable. But such sadness is quickly forgotten. As I grew up I experienced the normal "highs" and "lows" of youngsters; I experienced moments of happiness and of sadness, but these were usually short-lived. If I look for the deeper, more
9
meaningful periods of sadness in my life, then I must look to the death of my father in 1974
and of my mother in 1988.
In both cases I was prepared for it. My father's health had declined. He then experienced a minor stroke and greatly feared a further stroke that might not kill him but reduce him to a mere human shell - a vegetable. This he was spared, as the next stroke killed him. Given the circumstances it was what he would have wished, but at the time I felt deep anguish.
My feeling of loss was complex. It was the first time I had confronted death. I lost a man who had been a part of my life; Never more could I talk with him. Underlying this was another sense of loss: I had never really known my father at the depth I needed. We had never communed. We had never communicated our essential beings to each other. There was the sadness of regret: Regret that the opportunity for that communing was now past.
At that time I knew the meaning of deep sadness.
8 We had given Judith and Peter a rough itinerary of our travels, so they had divided between them the list of places where we might be, and systematically rang them, one by one, until they found us.
9See page 427
514
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
It was the same in 1988 when my mother died. She had lost meaning in life, since her life was lived for, and through, her husband. She had never surmounted her many disappointments in life. Her health deteriorated with lung disease and she looked forward to her release.
I had had an ambivalent relation with my mother, but, as I visited her regularly in the nursing home, I felt deep pity for her. She had never summoned up the inner strength to cope with life and its disappointments and had developed a negative attitude to life. But she had accepted death.
She often said: "When I die, you should celebrate." With these words she looked forward to the release from the emotional and physical pain of living.
When she died I experienced very complex emotions. Here I was, aged sixty yet, with the death of my second parent, it was like the cutting of the emotional umbilical cord. I was on my own. What a strange feeling, when I had been "own my own" for so many years, and had forged other meaningful relations through my wife and children. I think that no matter what our outward relation with our parents there is an emotional tie that always remains.
Coupled with this sadness, I also felt relief both because my mother had been spared lingering longer in this world when her only thought had been to be reunited with Dad, and because I had been released from a binding relationship that had caused me much anguish over the years. Suddenly I felt "free", in a new way.
At the time of hearing about my mother's death I was almost four thousand kilometres away from home. All this mixture of emotion flooded in to me, unanalysed. I was only aware of a deep feeling of loss and sadness, including sadness that I had not been at my mother's side during the last few days. I felt sad that my mother had not coped better with her life and had had considerable periods of unhappiness.
These were my two saddest moments in life, but I also experienced profound sadness whenever I had close relationships with students faced with deep life problems over which they had no control, and which brought much personal suffering. Perhaps "sadness" is not the right word. I experienced anguish.
Anguish and sadness are not entirely negative experiences. Grief can make one whole again. I remember the young student who once said to me: "The only time I ever learn anything deep about life is when I suffer."
IV
There had been another death in the family. My brother-in-law, Joseph Dougan, had died on 20 January 1987 following a long period of being incapacitated by a serious fall from a ladder at work that caused spinal injury. We persuaded my sister Joan to visit us, first in October 1987, and then in 1990. On her first visit we invited all my cousins to gather at our home to meet her. It was the last occasion that we had the surviving members of my mothers´ generation present. Uncle Horace, his wife Vera, my Aunty Phyl,
515
DEATH OF MY MOTHER IN 1988 VISIT OF MY SISTER JOAN TO PERTH IN 1987
10
and my mother were there .
During the gathering someone said: ‘We should write a family history.’ Everyone looked at me: ‘You’re the academic,’ they said. So I accepted the challenge.
Having accepted the challenge, I found the prospect daunting. For a year I did nothing except mull the concept over and over in my mind. What form should it take? Could I write a single narrative history, or were there too many separate branches of the family? I made a list of all my uncles, aunts and
| cousins. | youngest daughter of my |
| cousin Robin Furphy. | |
| I had virtually no one on my father’s side. Both his brother and his sister had | During the wedding |
| married but neither had children. However, my mother was the youngest of | breakfast, several of my |
| the seven children of Harry Humfrey Rumble and Kate Knight. All but one | cousins approached me: |
| had married and had families: I had a sister, and fifteen cousins. It was these | ‘Have you finished the |
| cousins, on the Rumble side, who had expressed interest in the family history, | family history?’ they |
| so I decided that it should concentrate on them. | asked. I had not even |
| committed a single word | |
| But where should I start, and how detailed should it be? Obviously I should | to paper! It was this and |
| track down everything that I could find about our ancestors, but should this | one other event that |
| be the ancestors of my grandparents only, or should it also include the | goaded me into action. |
| ancestors of the spouses of my uncles and aunts? Each cousin would be | |
| interested in the ancestors of both their parents. And what of those now | When my mother died, |
| alive? Should I include their life stories? Surely, if the history was to be of | we found amongst her |
| lasting value, our grandchildren, great-grandchildren - and beyond - would | belon gin g s many |
| be interested in their ancestors. | volumes of the diaries of |
| her mother Kate. | |
| Ever since I was a small boy the portrait of my great-great grandfather, the | Reading these diaries, |
| Rev.Edward Fall, had watched over me. I felt that I had known this kindly | which covered the period |
| old gentleman all my life, but knew little of him. Born in 1779, he had lived | from 1911 until her |
| at a time of great change - the period of the first industrial revolution. | death in 1932, finally |
| convinced me to make a | |
| When Edward Fall was two-years old, James Watt had invented the steam | start on the work: The |
| engine; when he was ten, there was the storming of the Bastille in France. | story of the ancestors |
| Then there was the abolition of the slave trade, the smashing of factory | and descendants of |
| machinery by the Luddites and, in 1825, the first railway from Stockton to | Harry Humfrey Rumble |
| Darlington. | and his wife Kate |
| Knight. | |
| Gazing on his portrait, I realised how wonderful it would have been if he had | |
| written his life story. To hold in my hands the tale of his adventure through | |
| life, and his comment on the changes that he saw, would greatly enrich my | |
| appreciation of my ancestry and of my own life. | |
| So I decided that I should include the stories of all family members in the | |
| current generation, and I resolved that eventually I should write my own | |
| detailed life story. | |
| On 31 December 1988 Kay and I attended the wedding of Brenda, the |
10 Phyllis died on 6 February 1988, my Mother or 21 October 1988, Horace on 1
th
December 1989, six months after celebrating his 100 birthday, and his wife Vera on 3 October 1992
516
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
My Uncles, Aunts & Cousins
Horace Rumble
m. Vera Glover
Jean Bob Peter Nancy
Eric Rumble m1. Isabel Anderson
Jim
Ross
m2. Lydia Bassett
Elsa Robin Penelope
Leslie Rumble
Maude Rumble
m. Frank Spencer
Miriamme
Humfrey Rumble
m. Muriel Love
Lesley Ailsa Alison
Phyllis Rumble
m. Ted Chown
Joseph
Edward
Dorothy Rumble
m. Victor Fall
Joan
John
Donald Fall
- m.
- Kathleen
- m.
- John Bennett
Marjorie Fall
My mother, perhaps more than any other of her generation in Perth, had always kept alive a romantic notion of her past. From a very early age I knew that my grandfather’s parents were Henry Euean Rumble and Grace Humfrey. The Humfrey family came from the landed gentry: One of them, my mother told me, had been “Lord of the Manor”. Her tone of voice indicated that we had an impressive pedigree. That was
517
I EMBARK ON THE TASK OF WRITING A FAMILY HISTORY
nothing, however, to the Rumble side where, she said, we went back to the Black Prince. For someone brought up on a diet of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and its romantic folk-lore, this was even more exciting: To be descended from Royalty was, for a seven-year-old, something very special indeed.
There was also something special on my grandmother’s side of the family: Kate Knight’s parents were Anthony Knight and Letitia Hochee. With an expression of pride and a hint of snobbishness in her voice, Mother told me that Anthony was so wealthy that he had no need to work for a living and had travelled abroad - indeed, Kate had been born in New Zealand. Letitia was the daughter of a Chinese man, Ho Chee, who had come to England and had married a seventeen year old English girl, Charlotte Mole. He, too, said my mother, was wealthy. Perhaps, she hinted, he was Chinese ambassador to Britain. She was very vague about this but, whoever he was, he was someone important. Ho Chee and his wife, she said, also had a son who joined the army, did not like his Chinese name, so changed it to Meredith.
From this vague background I set out on my pilgrimage to discover my past.
We searched my mother’s papers and found several letters. One was dated 1897 and was addressed to my grandmother Kate by her brother Henry St.John Knight in England. A much more recent letter to my mother was from Frances Baynton in Scotland. She was my mother’s first cousin but was much younger, having been born in 1919. I wrote to her in January 1989 and enclosed a recorded letter-tape and many family tree charts that I had put together. I asked her what information about the Rumble family could she give me, and what other contacts could she provide. Frances replied in April and put me in touch with
11
several members of the Rumble family to whom I wrote .
In February 1989, knowing that searching for ancestors would take a long time, I started to collect information about the descendants of Harry and Kate. I sent the following letter to each of my cousins:
When my sister Joan was visiting from America in 1987 we had a gathering of the "clan" - or, as many as we could get hold of, on 25th October. Some of us on that occasion talked about the desire to put together our family tree and "story". I said I would start this; when we went to Brenda Furphy's wedding on 31st December last, the subject came up again, and I realised I had not gone very far with it. But I have been encouraged to make a new attack on it - and the discovery of a set of day-by-day diaries of Kate Rosaline Rumble from 1911 to 1932, and some old family letters, have been a "shot-in-the-arm" for the project.
I have already collected much information about the forebears of the Rumbles, the Knights, the Falls, the Spencers, but I still have a way to go. I am also re-photographing old family photos so that copies can be made for those that wish them. At present I think I know more about the family in the past than I do about present members!
And this is where I hope you can help me. I am sending this letter to all my relations to ask if each would complete the family tree information (as contained in the enclosed chart) and send it to me as soon as possible. In particular could you write down the chart information for yourselves, your children and grandchildren (where this applies). I also have quite a lot of information about the Rumbles and Knights going back from Harry & Kate, but I would like information about your forebears on the other side.
Family trees and records are not of much interest unless enough is included to make each person "come alive". I hope to visit each of my relatives, where this is possible, and bring a cassette recorder with me, so we can talk about the details of family activities, from which I hope to obtain what I need for a picture of the lifestyle and career of the family. Family anecdotes are of particular interest since they help to show the
11
A family chart showing those whom I contacted in Britain is shown in the following pictorial essay, page 550
518
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
lighter, human side, and the character of people.
So, in due course, I hope to contact you to arrange a visit - but, since there is a lot of work involved, don't expect me to be on your doorstep tomorrow! In the meantime, do give me a ring if you are interested in helping out with this project, and send me any of the written "family chart" details that you can put together. I certainly need this before I visit you.
I have embarked on talking to Horace and Vera Rumble (Cassette recorder in hand) to collect what memories they have of the early Rumble days in WA, and we have already visited the Bunbury Historical Society to collect what they can tell us about the 1915-1922 period when the Rumble family was down there.
With best wishes, John Fall
This process of interviewing all my cousins and their spouses, and in some cases, their children, was a long and protracted business. I made my first recording of oral history in January 1989 but did not complete the task until July 1993, although most interviews were conducted in 1991. I collected over sixty cassettes
12
of recordings and carefully transcribed them as source material for my family history .
I had never known my cousins well. As children living in the country, there was little opportunity to visit our city-based relatives. Now I was to discover many of them virtually for the first time. However, there was a problem: Would they be willing to talk about themselves and, if so, would I be told highly edited versions of their lives? Someone once said to me that the trouble with autobiographies and family histories was that they always painted rosy pictures. The problems and embarrassing failings in life were rarely mentioned, and yet it was often these problems that explained why the family developed as it did.
Everyone knew that our grandfather, Harry Rumble, had been an alcoholic and had caused many serious problems for his family. I discovered that my cousins delighted in recounting stories of his many failings. However, he and his children were now gone, and the issue was no longer sensitive. It was a very different matter when it came to their own lives, or the lives of their parents.
Among the living there were still great sensitivities. A cousin would think carefully before telling me truthfully of their more embarrassing life problems, considering that they were the business of nobody except themselves. If they told me, and I wrote about them in the family history, it could hurt people. I was not keen to pry into other people’s private lives and thought that usually I would not be told delicate matters. However, toward the end of 1989 I attended a University extension course titled Autobiographies for Future Generations. Our tutor, Luceille Hanley, emphasised that we should be very careful before telling an untruth. ‘Whatever you now write,’ she stressed, ‘will in future be taken as the truth. Never tell an untruth and, wherever possible, always tell the truth if it is important to understanding. At most, you can omit some aspect of a person’s life, or treat in a general way.’
Inevitably I faced ethical problems when deciding how to treat the material I gathered. For example, in 1991 I interviewed my cousin Miriamme. Her mother, Maude, had died when she was only a few months old. Miriamme was adopted and brought up by my aunt Phyllis and her husband Ted Chown. Miriamme
12
In 1994 I bound these interviews into a 650 page volume, The Rumble Family
Interviews.
519
WRITING FAMILY HISTORY: PROBLEMS OF TRUTH AND SENSITIVITY
married John Young and, after the interview, I wrote in my diary:
Miriamme and John had difficulties in their married life since John became a drinker, and this caused problems for the family at some stage, and probably influenced the children. Uncle Ted in his later years also became a drinker. During my recorded interview, Miriamme talked briefly about this problem with uncle Ted, and added: "I don't know whether I should be talking about Uncle and his drinking problems, because my John had that problem." We stopped the tape recorder and discussed this difficulty. . . .
My attitude was that I did not want to "whitewash" people in the family history; I did not wish to paint them as spotless, because, if I did, they would no longer be credible human beings. However, while sensitivities existed, it was not my desire to cause unnecessary hurt to present members of the family. I would therefore find ways to write about people with a positive regard, and with respect. Their blemishes might be suggested, but would not be dwelt upon.
It is possible that, when I and my cousins are dead and gone, our grandchildren, then in their middle life, may read some of the entries in the family history and say that, from their oral family tradition, much was left out. If they then wished to expand the entries and write a more detailed account of their grandparents and parents, and the nature of the problems within their families, they should do so.
Another problem occurred in writing the story of my uncle Eric. Eric married Isabel Anderson and had two sons, Jim and Ross, but partly because of Isabel’s close relationship with her sisters and because she was twelve years older than Eric, their marriage did not last. Eric formed another relationship with Lydia Bassett, who worked for him and, in 1931, they had a child, Elsa. Isabel would not divorce Eric. He left her and lived with Lydia for the rest of his life, also bringing up two other girls, Robin and Penelope. He and Lydia posed as Mr and Mrs Rumble. When Isabel died in 1948, they married, telling their girls that they were simply reaffirming their marriage vows. Never did they tell their daughters that they had been born illegitimate.
In the 1930s and 1940s it was considered immoral to cohabit in an unmarried state. A local scurrilous weekly paper, The Mirror, delighted in detailing lurid accounts of those “living in sin”, while the churches condemned such immorality, and society shunned such people. Uncle Horace cut off all relations with his brother Eric, but both my mother and Aunty Phyl supported him as they understood his situation. It is hard for those brought up in the 1980s and 90s to understand these attitudes. Today, many young people cohabit, and generally this is accepted. Marriage is often entertained only when a family is contemplated. The stigma previously applying to divorce has largely been dissipated but, in the 1930s it could not be treated lightly.
The problem surfaced for Robin when her own daughter Brenda required a passport to travel overseas and had first to apply for her mother’s birth certificate. She was refused.
‘In delicate matters, such as this,’ said the official, without explanation, ‘your mother must give approval for the issue of a birth certificate.’
When Robin asked what was the problem, the officials told her that the birth certificate showed that she was born out of wedlock.
Robin exploded. ‘But that’s impossible. Your records must be wrong.’
She consulted Elsa, who was adamant that her parents were married when she was born.
Brenda wrote to me from Britain about this problem. ‘Will you ask Jim and Ross for the truth. Do they know if my grandparents were married when my mother was born?’
520
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
I replied to Brenda that I had no need to ask either Jim or Ross. I had known since I was fourteen in 1942 that Lydia and Eric were not married. Indeed, all my cousins knew this.
As could be imagined, this upset Elsa and Robin immensely, not simply because their parents were not married but because, while everyone else knew, they had never been told.
When it came to writing the family story, I wanted to tell the truth, and suggested this to Elsa. She wanted to avoid the issue, so I discussed it with Ross Rumble and his wife Beryl. ‘It was so long ago,’ they said, ‘that we think you should write the truth.’ Eventually I arranged that Elsa and Ross discuss the matter together, which they did, and they finally agreed that I could tell the full story.
I received a different comment from my cousin Joseph Chown, who lived in Melbourne. Before he was born, his mother had a difficult pregnancy and vowed that should she and her son survive the birth, she would dedicate him to God and to the priesthood. I remember him saying, even before he could speak properly, ‘I’se going to be a priest.’ He grew up in the country town of Goomalling but spent a few years in Perth before, at the age of fourteen, he left home for the Seminary of the Sacred Heart Missionary in Victoria. He later studied in Rome and gained his doctorate of divinity. However, he eventually left the priesthood and married, raising three children.
I wrote to Joseph and asked him to tell me about his life. He replied that, after leaving home, he had been brainwashed and that his early life in Goomalling now belonged to a previous incarnation. He remembered little or nothing of it. This saddened me.
Whenever I wrote the life story of one of my aunts or uncles, I sent the draft to each of their children for comment and correction. I sent Joseph my draft for his parents. In his 1993 reply he commented on the process of writing such material.
Personal memories and impressions may reproduce subjective interpretations of fact rather than the facts themselves, but there is obviously a lot of human interest and value in the statements you have gathered together from within the family. We all choose to be selective in what we remember and record about ourselves and others. It makes you wonder how close to reality history can ever be, or whether it really matters!
I replied to him the next day:
Your comments about the subjective nature of writing history are well taken. It is a topic I discussed several times with my daughter, Judith, when she was engaged in historical work while enrolled for a Masters’ degree at UWA. She asked the question: Can a European write the history of the Aboriginals? Can we
th
today write the history of the 17 century? Of course, strictly, the answer is no.
I mentioned in my last letter that we were attending a course entitled Appreciating Aboriginal Arts. First, we spent much time trying to understand our own culture and prejudices in an attempt to make some sense of Aboriginal culture. It is almost a case of the biblical demand to remove the plank from one’s own eye before concerning ourselves with the mote in the eye of the other.
When a comment is made on someone else, we may learn more about the observer than the observed, as you suggested, because we are all bound up in complex emotional relationships that colour our perceptions.
521
PROBLEMS OF SUBJECTIVITY: I CONFER WITH MY COUSIN JOSEPH
There is also the question of individual sensitivities. There may be parts of our background that we do not wish other people to know. If a mother was an alcoholic, or a father was a swindler or philanderer, then this remains a family secret. It will not be included in the family history, although such situations may profoundly affect family relations and give explanations if they were known. . .
It is impossible to know the truth, or “facts”, because we are always told things through the perceptions of others, and these are often coloured by the emotional relationships involved. There is also the problem of respecting someone’s right to privacy. This, I will always do. If someone does not want material included, I will respect that wish. This is the reason why I will let no one see the draft for another person, until it is finally approved.
If I included only the “facts” in my family history, I would confine myself to the name, date and place of birth, marriage and death of each person, plus a bald statement of their occupation. When I move beyond that to the topic of personality and how that person reacted to others in the world, I am on dangerous ground, as all impressions I receive will be subjective. And I will be subjective when I select which of these impressions to include, and how to convey them. . .
However, it is comments on how people react to each other and how they relate to life that, for most people, give substance and body to their character. So, I intend including people’s reactions and impressions, though they are admittedly subjective. Wherever possible I will include these as quotations made by a specific person. Sometimes during interviews I may receive conflicting views of the same person. What I would then do is to state “X thought that. . . , while Y expressed an opposite view. . .”
It is also for this reason that my initial drafts tend to include much material that may later be removed or modified. I cannot, by myself, make judgment on them, and I depend on others to help me. Therefore, I sent the draft for Phyllis and Ted to you, to Miriamme and to Edward. When I receive all the comments, I will work over the draft hoping to achieve a more balanced and “accurate”, though necessarily subjective, statement.
I was surprised at the cooperation I received from everyone. I assured them that each interview, although recorded, was a private matter between them and me. No one would be allowed to see the draft for the proposed entry in the family history until they had read it and had opportunity to amend and approve it. My attitude was that each entry was to be their own story as they wished it to be, and that I was only the facilitator to get it down on paper. Almost everyone wanted some amendments made, so drafts and redrafts were exchanged until at last they were happy.
When I posted the first draft of her story to Joyce Rumble, the wife of my cousin Peter, she rang me:
John, when you interviewed me recently, I poured my heart and soul out to you. But, now that I see it in writing - and all that you have written is correct - I don’t know whether I want my children to know all those things that I told you.
So, she visited me, we went over the text and cut out certain sections. Then she was happy.
Another of my cousins was a very down-to-earth person and, in his youth, had been very much a larrikin. He still retained some of these characteristics and his interview was full of colourful and earthy, expressive slang. I thought that this language was so typical of him that it conveyed his character very well. However, when I sent him the draft, he put a blue pencil through all his colourful phrases and “sanitised” the text. The story lost much in the process, but he would not approve it unless I followed his wishes.
My uncle Humfrey had three daughters all of whom suffered severe arthritis. One, Ailsa, had already died. The youngest, Alison, was confined to a wheel-chair with wasted limbs and little mobility in her body. I interviewed her three times in an attempt to get her life story because she continually became sidetracked when in the middle of one episode, to start another, and another. It was a painstaking task. Painstaking it might be, but Alison’s courage greatly impressed me. Because of her constant illness her
522
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
marriage finally broke up but, with the support of her strong religious faith, she maintained a positive outlook on life. Reflecting on her marriage breakup, she said:
We did have good years, and that’s what I really had to work at. The good years we did have were better than the years that some people never have. It doesn’t mean that because you’re married, you’ve had a happy life. Some people just stick together, but that doesn’t always give the answer. We should remember the good times, because they are the only important things in life. . .
I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve learnt how to cope with it. It’s easy to go along when everything is going fine. You don’t need to think too much about anything. It’s when things go wrong that you find the testing time . . .
There are things I can’t do, but things I can do, I do with joy. . . I wipe off the things I can’t do. I try to make up for this in other ways. I put myself in the Father’s care each day and let Him show me the way. You’ve got to work with what you can do at the moment.
I can be happy. . . and I always welcome anybody that comes to my house. That is important to me.
Not long after Alison approved my final draft, she was admitted to hospital and died on 25 July 1991.
It was in September 1991 that Kay and I fell to talking about my cousins. By that time I had interviewed most of them and realised that few had lives without problems of one kind or another. There had been marital discord and marriage breakups, serious family quarrels, problems with children, minor and major illnesses and other traumatic experiences including death within the immediate family.
We looked at each other and said how lucky we had been in life compared with most of them. We were still happily married and there was no tension between us. Our two children seemed happily married and we had good relations with our six grandchildren. Neither of us, nor other members of our family, had had bad health, and I had been in full and generally satisfying, fulfilling employment throughout my life. We agreed that we had much for which to be thankful.
Discovering the lives of my cousins brought rewards, not the least being the many human, anecdotal stories that I encountered. Typical was the simple story recounted by my cousin Peter Rumble. Peter’s parents lived at 75 Broadway in Nedlands and in 1930, at the age of five, he joined the local sea-scout group at Pelican Point, within walking distance of his home:
I pestered my mother because I wanted to camp-out overnight at the scouts. She reckoned I was too young. I said, ‘Oh, other kids go,’ and won her over. I packed my little sugar bag, as we used to do in those days, and slung it over my shoulder. I took a mixture of things: I had some snaggers13, a tin of condensed milk, half a loaf of bread, and a few other things like that.
13 Sausages
523
REWARDS OF RESEARCH: MY COUSINS, UNCLE LES & THE DE BROTHERTONS
When it was near tea-time on Saturday night, I started feeling homesick. Everybody retired to the galley. There was a big old wood fire and a table in a separate room. All the kids were there, each getting ready to prepare his own meal. And here was this little five-year-old bloke with his snaggers and a bit of dripping, and a bit of bread. I mixed it with the mob, and then slept in the rope shed that night. Next morning we were expected to be in the river very early for a nickey14 swim, and a few other activities.
By mid-day Sunday I was thoroughly homesick. I thought, I’m going to pack my bags and go home. So I chucked everything in: shoes and socks - I was never keen on wearing shoes. In went my left-overs, including my open tin of condensed milk. I slung it over my shoulder and walked home.
When I got home, Mum was waiting for me with a big smile on her face. She said, ‘Well, did you enjoy your camp?’ - and that’s when I burst into tears and said, ‘No, it was rotten!’ She said later that when she unpacked my bag, there were my socks and the half-opened tin of condensed milk, and bits and pieces everywhere. She put everything out on the back lawn, and hosed it all down.
It took me some time to track down the stories of my sister and her children and of my uncle Les who had
15
become a priest . I did not obtain final details of my sister and her five daughters until we visited them in Amercia in 1993. No cousin in Perth could tell me much about my uncle Les. He had died in 1975, so I wrote to his monastery in Kensington, New South Wales, and was fortunate to establish correspondence with Father John McMahon, archivist at the monastery and Leslie’s one-time superior. McMahon was most helpful, gave me an insight into my uncle that I could not have otherwise gained and sent me a small life story written by Leslie himself. This proved invaluable, and I felt very pleased with the draft that I wrote for his life.
As the stories of Australian members took shape, so, too, I made progress with my research into Harry and Kate’s ancestors. From Mike Rumble16 in England I received an enormous chart showing the family
17
tree of the Humfrey branch stretching back to Thomas Humfrey, born in 1616. From Mark Rumble I received much detail about the de Brotherton branch. Mark told me that Thomas de Brotherton, the father of Frances, who married Thomas Rumble, was not descended from the Black Prince, but from the original Thomas de Brotherton born in 1300 to King Edward I and his second wife Margaret of France, half sister to King Phillip IV of France. Even this, he said, was only family folk-lore, since the College of Arms in England could not trace the ancestry of Frances without knowing her place of birth. No one knew this. Other members of the Rumble family in England gave me details of Harry Rumble’s brothers and sisters and of their descendants.
14 Nude
15 See page 41, 42 for a brief account of the prominence that Leslie gained through his radio program and books titled Radio Replies. See page 109 for a discussion of his influence on my decision to leave the Church.
16
See family chart on page 550 for my relation to the people mentioned in this section.
17
For a complete set of family trees, see appendix C, page 655. An abbreviated descendancy chart for the Humfrey branch is shown on page 672.
524
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
While I obtained much information about the Rumbles, I had no contacts for the Knights. One day, searching through my mother’s papers, I came across a small hand-written family tree in which the name of Ho Chee appeared. Against this was written “From Oxford University.”
Brenda Furphy had married Andrew Rohl and Andrew was now studying for his doctorate at Oxford, so I wrote to Brenda and asked if she could look at the records of Oxford University to see if there was any mention of our Chinese ancestor. I knew that he could not be a Chinese ambassador to Britain, as my mother had hinted, because there was no such position at that time. Maybe he was connected with Oxford. Brenda’s research showed that he was not.
However, Brenda became interested in my project and, not working or studying at the time, decided to undertake research for me. She wrote that she had applied for a birth certificate for Ho Chee’s daughter, Ann, whom she had discovered in the Records Office. Birth certificates usually showed the occupation of the father, so we hoped to find something about Ho Chee from that. When the certificate arrived, he was simply classified as “Gentleman” - which probably meant that he owned landed property. However, the certificate also showed a place name in 1840 as “Nortons, Lingfield”. From this Brenda consulted census and other records and slowly built up a picture of him. She applied for many birth, marriage and death certificates, for which I paid, obtained photocopies of Wills, and visited cemeteries. The search for Ho Chee and his family became a combination of detective work and jigsaw puzzle. We had false leads, and sometimes misinterpreted the information we received. Brenda found the Will of Charlotte, the wife of John Hochee, as he became known. This referred to an oil painting of our Chinese ancestor. We became even more determined to persevere with our research.
18
Then we obtained copies of his 1839 letter to the Government applying for “denization” . In this he wrote: “I have reason to believe I should come possessed of freehold landed estate. . . if the disability of my being alien born were removed by Letters of Denization. . .” How was he to gain possession of freehold estate? We did not know.
We discovered details of his other children and found that his first son was baptised John Elphinstone Fatqua Hochee. Where did the name “Elphinstone” come from? Was it the maiden name of an ancestor on his mother’s side? Eventually we discovered that that name was “Milton”, and that in later life he was
19
known as John Milton, not as John Meredith, as my mother had thought . “Elphinstone” remained a mystery.
One day I received a letter from Brenda: she had made an important breakthrough. She has made contact with a Henry Knight and his daughter Alexandra. Henry Knight’s grandfather had been Henry St. John Knight, my grandmother Kate’s brother. They had already researched the Knight family, and also the Hochee family. They knew where the portrait was located, and they knew the significance of “Elphinsotone”.
John Elphinstone was the son of Sir William Elphinstone, Chairman of the Board of the British East India Company. The company traded in Canton and, while there, John Elphinstone had come to know Ho Chee and his father Ho Foo. Ho Foo was a mandarin and, with his son, was connected with British trade. John Elphinstone and Ho Chee became close friends and when Elphinstone returned to Britain he eventually sent for Ho Chee who became his secretary and helped manage his estates. In gratitude, Elphinstone left Ho Chee several estates when he died, and Ho Chee became relatively wealthy. John Elphinstone may well have been the godfather of Ho Chee’s first son, named John Elphinstone Fatqua Hochee.
18 Denizen = an alien admitted to residence and to certain rights of citizenship in a
country.
19 See page 515
525
HENRY & ALEXANDRA KNIGHT: I DISCOVER HO CHEE AND THE KNIGHT FAMILY
It was not long before I was in correspondence with Henry Knight and his daughter Alexandra. From them I received a history of the Knight family. My mother had said that her grandfather Anthony Knight was a wealthy man who “dabbled on the stock exchange” and had no need to work for a living. This might have been partly true, but I now discovered that he had become a solicitor, establishing the firm of Humphreys and Knight in London. The family’s money came initially from his father, Valentine, who followed his own father in the goldsmith trade. He specialised in engine-turning and found a substantial demand for engraved gold and silver dials for clocks and watches. This business flourished due to the high quality of his work. He became founding President of the British Horological Institute and, at its annual dinner in 1863, reflected on his success and the demand by Americans for “Knight’s Dials”:
I succeeded beyond my expectations. During many years I worked sixteen or seventeen hours a day, and sometimes all night. Such an enormous business I was sure could not last, and therefore I thought it better to make hay while the sun was shining. I did so, and at a comparatively early age was enabled to retire from business.
Valentine gave his last speech to the Institution in 1867 and died in November of that year at the age of 74. Alexandra sent me a copy of his obituary published in the Horological Journal in December 1867. It outlined his life and work. The above quotation was taken from it. The closing words of the obituary20 were:
At the anniversary dinner which took place this year he said he was fast getting into the sere and yellow leaf, but as long as he lived and could appear before the members of the Horological Institute, nothing would give him greater pleasure. Those who heard these words little thought how soon he who uttered them would be lost to them. Peace be with him! Clerkenwell will long remember him, self-made men, yea all men, might well have imitated his happy disposition, and geniality of character.
I was delighted to receive this information. It brought my ancestors alive and turned them into real people. I continued correspondence with the Knights. A few months after I had published my family history they completed research into the forebears of John Ho Chee’s wife, Charlotte, and sent me detailed information tracing the family back to a John Merriton who died in 1642.
Much later, in 1997, they discovered that they had another third-cousin, also descended from Ho Chee. They put me in touch with Guy Duncan whose great-grandfather was James Hochee, a brother of my great-grandmother Letitia. Guy sent me details of another portrait of Ho Chee that he had in his possession,
21
and provided further details of the Elphinstone connection .
Slowly I drew all my work together. My complete family tree included the names of 944 individuals. For some I knew no more than their place in the tree. For others I had written a life history of over 16,000 words. There were many different branches of the family and not all branches would be of equal interest to readers. I decided to abandon the thought of writing a single narrative tale, but titled the volume The Rumble Family Register, and cast it in the form of a “Who’s Who”, with separate entries for each person, with cross references to each person’s parents and children. In this way, I thought that individual readers could follow and trace those in whom they were interested.
20
The full text of the obituary can be found on page 112 of The Rumble Family
Register.
21 See the following pictorial essay, page 554
526
10: RETIREMENT - THE YEARS OF REFLECTION (1987 - )
In 1989 I had bought a personal computer because, up to that time, I was surrounded by masses of charts and hand-written material. These were becoming unmanageable, particularly as there was need for constant alteration as new material came to hand. Computers had come a long way since I used them for
22
my PhD research in 1958 . The first IBM personal computer had come on the market in 1981 and, when I bought my computer, few people owned one outside university circles. They were soon to develop a mass market, increase enormously in power and capacity, and invade every aspect of society.
It was not long before I had my family history on the computer. I acquired a special program produced by the Church of Latter Day Saints called “The Personal Ancestral File”. This was a special database for organising family information; it enabled me to print family descendancy charts. I included 24 pages of
23
these charts in the register . To set all the people in the register in their historical context I devised a chronological chart with three columns, listing family members in the first column, events in Australia in the second, and international events in the third column.
I made a special entry in my diary for 22 May 1994, as shown on the next page. I printed a single copy of the volume on my laser printer and took it proudly to the binders. When I held the bound volume in my hands, it was an enormous relief that the work of five years and untold hours of meticulous labour had finally borne fruit. I printed another unbound master copy and went in search of suitable printers and binders to produce copies for those family members who wanted them. In mid June I wrote the following letters to my cousins:
At last I have completed the Rumble Family Register, after working on it for five years! I printed one copy at home and have sent it for binding. It should be in my hands by the end of June.
When I know the total number of copies required, I will order that number to be printed and bound. This will take six or seven weeks after I place the order. The cost is $55 per volume for library-quality hardcover binding. I can also supply unbound but collated copies for $30. Since the family register is a large volume of 648 pages, A4 size, and may be passed down through the family, a good quality hardcover binding is desirable. The unbound copy will comprise loose pages, which you may bind in any way you want.
If you wish one or more copies, please complete the order form attached and post it to me, enclosing a cheque to cover the total cost, including packing and posting if you are outside the Perth Metropolitan area. I will be placing the order for the required number of volumes on Tuesday 2 August 1994. This should give you sufficient time to make a decision. After that date, I cannot accept orders for additional copies, as small quantity production is not economical. (You may inspect my sample copy at my home from 1 July if you wish - but ring me first.)
Many of my cousins purchased copies to give to their children as Christmas presents. I reserved copies for my own children and grandchildren and finally had sixty-five copies printed and bound. By the middle of August I had collected these from the binders, hand-delivered copies to my metropolitan cousins and posted others overseas and to other States. Kay and I decided that we would give a copy to each of our grandchildren on their eighteenth birthday. I placed two copies in the Western Australian Battye library, which holds local historical material.
So ended my enormous undertaking.
22 See page 160 23 See appendix C, page 655, for a collection of such charts.
527
AFTER FIVE YEARS' WORK I COMPLETE MY MAGNUM OPUS
My first work on the RFR today was to print a double-sided copy of the index for my prototype master copy. During the day I checked the introductory pages, proofread and finally printed them.
It was time to celebrate. So Kay and I, not having the cocktail available, as shown on the left, contented ourselves with
When we were children, I had never been close to Joan. After she married, she and Mother exchanged regular letters, but it was not until after Mother’s death that she and I started exchanging monthly letters. Soon, I established a close relationship with her; this made our visit of all the more value. On Wednesday th October we reluctantly packed our bags and caught the Amtrak back to Chicago, changed trains and continued for a two-day trip to Kingman Arizona, which we reached in the middle of the night. Jane, Joan’s youngest daughter, her husband Erin and two daughters were waiting for us, and we had a magnificent week with them. During this time we set out one day by ourselves to visit the Hoover Dam; on another day we drove to the Grand Canyon. We kept off the main highways and travelled along the old but now deserted, famous historic “Route 66.” This was the first road built between Los Angeles and Chicago. 
