{Information below was supplied by Elsa in 1991}

eter, the first child of Geoffrey Matthews and Mabel Perry, was born on 28 August 1932. He succeeded his parents as a farmer at Bencubbin, Western Australia. On 11 April 1953 he married Elsa Rumble and, between 1954 and 1972, they had eleven children. Eventually their marriage broke up, Peter gave up the farm and tried other ventures.

The descendancy chart for Peter is as follows:

15093AM‑‑ Geoffrey Hugh MATTHEWS‑404 (1906)

15093AF sp‑Mabel Daphne PERRY‑405 (1903)

│

├──16011AM‑‑ Peter John MATTHEWS‑361 (1932)

│ 16011AF sp Elsa Erica RUMBLE (1931)

│ ╔═══════════════════════════════════════╗

│ ║ For the Descendants of Peter and Elsa ║

│ ║ See Eric Rumble Chart, page 42 ║

│ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════╝

│

├──16X‑‑ Cynthia MATTHEWS‑858

├──16X‑‑ Susan MATTHEWS‑859

└──16X‑‑ Barbara MATTHEWS‑860

Working on his parents' farm at Bencubbin

Peter's early life was spent on a farming property at Wialki. In 1948, his parents moved to a property eleven miles north of Bencubbin on the Beacon road. After leaving school, Peter worked for his parents on the farm but eventually took over its management when they moved into the town of Bencubbin. This was probably in 1950 - when he was eighteen years of age.

Marriage

¹3500 Acres =

1416 Hectares

He met Elsa Rumble, and they married on 11 April 1953. He and Elsa then lived at the farm. Initially he leased this but finally bought the 3,500¹ acre property from his parents.

Over the years he acquired more land. Elsa recalled:

²Welbungin = 20 km east of Bencubbin.

³2/6d = 2 shillings & 6 pence = 25 cents

We ended up with close to 17,000 acres. We started off with about 3,500 in the first block. Then there was another one further down the road. When land opened up at Welbungin², Peter got another 3,500 odd acres there, at 2/6d³ per acre. Welbungin was just a railway siding with wheat bins.

When he had as much land as he was allowed to have, we got another block in my name. This was just under 2,000 acres. So, at that stage, it would have been between 11,000 and 13000 acres altogether. He put in 3,000 acres of wheat - about 14 or 15 miles from our home. So, if they were working there, I had to take meals over to them.

FARM ACTIVITIES

wheat, sheep, pigs,

fowls, vegetables

The main activities centred around wheat and several thousand sheep. They also kept pigs and fowls, and grew some of their own vegetables. As the property grew in size, so did the number of sheep. Elsa commented on this:

I don't know that we ever had more than three or four thousand. At the start we got about ten or twelve bales of wool. Peter said, `Right. When we get to twenty, you can have the rest.' But, when it got to twenty, it was put up to twenty-five. We worked up to thirty-five bales, and the wool money was good.

The Farming work-cycle

January: Harvest end

Holidays

Cleaning up, Fencing

The work on a farm is naturally cyclic. In January the last of the wheat crop is harvested and got down to the wheat bins at the railway sidings. Then comes a break when annual holidays are taken before children return to school in February. Next comes the period of general cleaning up, removing dried oats and grass, repairing fencing.

Ploughing

sowing oats and wheat

Sometimes, thunder storms in January would help fill the dams. If there were good rains in March or April, Peter started ploughing, getting ready to put in the crop. After the first rains, when weeds appeared, ploughing turned over the soil and killed the weeds. One farmer nearby always started the day after ANZAC day, but most waited for the rains. When they came, there was frenzied activity to get in the crop of oats and of wheat: the tractor did not stop, day or night.

Initially Peter had only one tractor but, as the farm grew, he needed another, as one would be used to finish the ploughing and scarifying, while the other was getting in the crop.

Elsa said:

Theoretically, the schedule for sowing the crop was three weeks. If they did it in six, they were doing very well. There'd be flat tyres or breakdowns, and that tractor kept going twenty-four hours a day. I took lunch down the paddock so there would be no delay. At last, when the crop was in, we could all relax again for a while.

Spring: Tailing Lambs

cutting hay

shearing

back to harvesting

With the coming of Spring there was the tailing of the lambs. By August or September, when the oats were shoulder-high, Peter cut hay. Shearing was done in October, and Peter brought in a shearer - who lived in the house until the job was done. In the early years, Peter's sister, Cynthia, took over the cooking at this time.

In November the hot easterly winds started and first Peter began harvesting the oats. He hired extra hands at this time. Then, as the wheat was harvested, he ran it into the wheat bins at Bencubbin.

Sport and Relaxation

Junior Farmers

For relaxation, Peter played hockey in Bencubbin on weekends. Each year he took part in "Hockey Week" in Perth. In his early days he also acted as boundary umpire for local football teams. There was a tennis club and occasional dances.

When Peter first started farming he joined the Junior Farmers organisation in Bencubbin. Elsa became the foundation secretary. She had previously taken part in the local youth club. Members of the Junior Farmers were aged seventeen to twenty-one, but a few might be twenty-five. It was an organisation to helpyoung people gain farming skills. They submitted entries each year to the local agricultural show. They also started debating.

Farm Finances

Finance was a constant worry for farmers. Rain at the wrong time could destroy a crop, so there were good years, and there were bad years. Most farmers depended on their bankers, and had overdrafts to help them through lean times, or when waiting for the wool or wheat cheques to arrive. There were many years when Peter did not have major financial worries but he learnt never to pay his bills until pressed, because this only increased his bank overdraft.

Hard times:

The drought of 1973

In the early 1970s, farm life became difficult. In 1969 they had bought a house at Swanbourne, a suburb of Perth, and Elsa lived there with the children to save the high cost of keeping high-school children at boarding school. Then, in 1973,

there were droughts. Finance became tight. Peter's accountant, looking at the state of affairs, said, `Private schooling! Out! The children can go to State school.'

Fortunately, there was now a high-school at Mukinbudin, about 40 km from Bencubbin, and Peter's farm was the terminus for the High School bus. So Elsa returned to the farm, and the children took the school bus each day.

Bad conditions prevailed. At their peak, wheat payments were up to $90,000 a year. Then they dropped to $70,000. Peter thought it would soon slide to $50,000 and then to nothing. He panicked, as he had a number of debts.

The house is burnt down

Peter gets out of farming and started to sell it

In 1974, when his house was accidentally burnt down, he felt it was the end of everything. He wanted to get out of farming, and thought of putting in a manager. He realised that this was not possible financially, so started selling off the farm little by little.

Commercial ventures in Perth

Peter and Elsa separate

He then entered into a number of commercial ventures in Perth. He bought a delicatessen at the Belmont Forum and took Elsa to see it, hoping that she would work in it for him. She said that she could not have stood working in such a confined space after years of living in wide-open spaces. His relationship with Elsa had deteriorated, and it was not long before they broke up and separated.

Peter also bought a delicatessen at Floreat and some of his grown children helped him run it, but these commercial ventures were not particularly successful.

{Quotations by Elsa, below, were made in 1991}

lsa, the first child of Eric Rumble and Lydia Bassett, was born on the 23 January 1931 in Wembley, a suburb of Perth. On 11 April 1953 she married Peter Matthews and they had eleven children James, Robert, Trevor, Kim, Anne, Patricia, David, Peter, Philip, Terence and Geoffrey. She spent much of her life on a farm at Bencubbin. In 1974, their house was burnt down accidentally and they eventually moved to 1502 Elliott Road, Chidlow, Western Australia.

Childhood

Early School Days

Learning to be quiet

in the car.

⁴ MLC = Methodist Ladies' College

Childhood holds happy memories for Elsa. In 1934, she and her parents lived at 75 Bruce street, Nedlands. From there she went to kindergarten, held in the local Methodist Church. Occasionally she visited her cousins nearby at 75 Broadway.

Before she started school she sometimes went with her parents when her father made a country business trip. Initially she liked to talk constantly, but her mother kept telling her to be quiet. To this day she has retained the instinctive feeling that, when in a car, she must not talk.

Elsa recalled her early school days:

While we were at Bruce Street, I had one year at the State school. The kindergarten at the church was closing, and Barclay House at MLC⁴ - the kindergarten there - had not been completed. So I was sent to the Nedlands State school. I think that's where I gained my skill at spelling and arithmetic because the following year, when I went to Barclay House, I went through everything very quickly. I was already very good at it.

Elsa took the trolley-bus to and from school and remembers vividly the day she travelled from MLC to Bay View Terrace, Claremont. She was about to alight when the trolley-bus jerked forward, flinging her to the ground, badly grazing her legs. She learnt to be cautious.

Moving to Webb Street

Cottesloe

Elsa was excited when her parents built a new house at 2 Webb Street, Cottesloe. There was even a small model made of the proposed two-storey house. In the early years of the Second World War, there were many empty blocks and bush nearby in which to play.

In the new house they had a refrigerator, a gas stove, and a gas-hot-water system. The baker delivered bread from a horse and cart. Elsa remembered that at Bruce street they had an ice-chest, as few people then had refrigerators. She remembered the ice-man delivering ice from his ice-truck and giving her a chunk of ice.

Staying at Beaconsfield

with Grandparents

⁵ 14068

Sometimes Elsa stayed with her grandparents - Joseph and May Bassett⁵, at 2 Reuben Street, Beaconsfield. Joe owned a wood-yard and made deliveries with his horse and cart. Elsa said:

Grandfather's wood-yard

and horse

Running wild with the

neighbourhood kids

Memories of an early camping holiday at Mandurah

⁶ Members of the

Bassett Family

I had great times there, because I loved the horse and I could ride her.

Uncle Joe - as I always called my grandfather - sat in his big arm-chair near the fire, and smoked his pipe. Gran knitted socks. Everyone congregated there on Sundays and Gran made beautiful pea soup and pies. She spent all day Saturday, cooking.

I joined a group of eight neighbourhood kids. We had a wild time, roaming around from the Fremantle War Memorial down to the beach. We never got into mischief, and we didn't need much money. We could buy lollies and icy-poles for a penny. Friday night was `Kid's night' at the movie theatre in Wray Avenue. Sometimes they showed horror films. We'd all go, and I remember spending half my time under the seat!

One family had a huge mulberry tree, and we spent a lot of time up that. I would return home with buttons ripped off my mulberry stained blouse. I was a real tom-boy.

Auntie Glad and Auntie Avis^6] took me to Mandurah camping one summer when I was around eight or nine. I remember the tent and the black sand everywhere. I also remember sitting under the bridge at Mandurah, fishing. It was a good day because I caught the most fish.

The Saturday Matinee

The lolly shop

Visits to the lolly shop near the Cottesloe theatre, where she and her friend Helen Wildy were allowed to go to the Saturday matinee, were also popular. This was at a time when her sister Robin was still at kindergarten and too young to go to the matinee. Elsa recalled:

The Saturday matinee was full of screaming kids. They'd show the Movietone News, some cartoons and then maybe a Western. At interval we would go to the lolly shop.

Clinkers were my favourite lollies - a sort of coloured stuff coated with chocolate. You could have two for a halfpenny. Actually, they were three a penny, but you could have two for a halfpenny, if you didn't do it too often. You could have a milkshake for ten pence, which was twice the size of the milkshakes you get these days. There was malt added to them as well as the flavouring. When I was financial enough to buy a milkshake and share it, afterwards we'd go outside and see who could give the biggest burp.

Happy with her own company

Did not enjoy teenage

parties

Although Elsa enjoyed the company of friends, she liked reading, and spent some time by herself. She was happy with her own company and was never very interested in going to parties. She recalled one teen-age party:

I was invited to a party at the home of one of my friends, Marjorie Lovegrove. Dad took me over. There was an equal number of girls and boys, and they played games like Postman's Knock. I just wasn't into all that sort of thing at all. So, when Dad came to pick me up after ten o'clock, he found me in the kitchen with Mrs Lovegrove, helping her get supper ready. Everybody else was still playing Postman's knock. I went home with him then and there, although supper was not ready. Teenage partying wasn't my thing.

The Chowns come to Cottesloe

⁷ 15015

Playing with Joseph:

Cowboys & Indians

At the beginning of the war years Elsa's Auntie Phyl and Uncle Ted Chown⁷ left Goomalling and rented a flat at 58 Forrest Street, Cottesloe. Elsa now had cousins Miriamme, Joseph and Edward living nearby, and she was only a year younger than Joseph. Joe was at boarding school in New Norcia, but came home for holidays. From Jarrad Street to Forrest Street there was bush, so in it she and Joe played Cowboys and Indians. Sometimes on weekends they, and other friends, walked to the beach. Elsa remembers that she and Joe sometimes climbed around the rocks at the beach and dropped pebbles on the lovers below.

Cottesloe amusement park

Christmas:

Relations and games

⁷ 15016F

There were many attractions at Cottesloe Beach. At the northern end there was an amusement park with a merry-go-round, dodgem-cars and scoota-boats - both electrically driven from an overhead grid. These were closed during the war years.

At Christmas her house was often full of people. Her Auntie Doll⁷ would come and stay with her children Joan and John. There were sometimes noisy nights when, together with the Chown children, they all played the game Murder in the Dark.

World War II Air-raid trenches		The Second World War had little effect on Elsa. She remembered her father digging an air-raid shelter in their back garden, quarrying through the limestone rock. She remembered the excitement of the MLC girls when the boys from St.Louis College dug slit-trenches for them. She remembered also one day whenthe air-raid sirens went, they all took to the trenches and a small plane flew over. At night, black-out curtains were drawn so that no light was seen outside. There was a meat shortage, but Elsa felt that they had all they needed, and her father did not seem short of money. Life at home followed a routine:
Home life		I would lie in bed listening to the conversation downstairs to see when it was safe to get up. Actually, Mum and Dad did not fight. I never heard them argue. Mum said that she tried to have an argument with Dad in the early days, but he got so upset, that it just wasn't worth it. In winter, Dad made the porridge, prepared our school lunches, cleaned our shoes, and drove us to school. When I came home from school, the breakfast dishes and mum's lunch dishes would still be in the sink, waiting for me to wash them up. I am not sure what Mum did, but she cooked tea, and she kept the house tidy. For a long time she had a maid to help. Mum was almost always there for us when we returned from school. I never wanted to be late home because Mum was strict, and sometimes gave me a hiding. Dad was more subtle in his discipline, and quietly withdrew favours.
The Radio		Elsa's childhood was before the days of Television. On the radio, before dinner, she listened to a children's program, The Search for the Golden Boomerang. Then, in the evening, there were programs like First Light Fraser - a drama of war-torn Europe and, of course, the famous serial, Dad and Dave, a never-ending saga about parochial life in a small country town. She remembers a good Sunday night serial, As Ye Sow, about the early days in New South Wales, and, although neither of her parents were Catholics, she enjoyed listening to Father Lalor broadcasting The Catholic Answer.
Adults: Bridge & Chess ⁸ Members of the Bassett Family ⁹ 15015		Sometimes her Aunty Jean and Uncle Fred⁸ visited on a Friday night and played bridge with her parents. Her father sometimes played chess with Uncle Ted⁹. Her mother also played bridge during the day with her Aunty Phyl⁹ and others.
Dad's boat: Rottnest holidays		Elsa's father had a boat, and they often sailed to Rottnest Island for annual holidays. Her father always prepared everything and cooked all the food when they were on holiday. Elsa enjoyed the excitement of sailing, and she also enjoyed the wide-openness of the sea.

The Junior Exam

Boarding school

at New Norcia

She liked the school

At the end of the third year of High School, all students sat for the Junior Certificate examination. Elsa was fourteen, and a year younger than most in the class. She was an average student, but failed to gain her certificate.

Her parents decided that she should go to boarding school and were influenced by her Aunty Phyl who was a staunch Catholic. Miriamme and Joseph had boarded at Catholic Schools in New Norcia, so they decided to send Elsa to St. Gertrude's College - the girls' college in New Norcia. Elsa was not enthusiastic, but agreed to go if her nine-year-old sister, Robin, could also board. Elsa recalled:

I was very homesick at first, because it was my first big stay away from home. Soon, I settled in and liked the routine. When I found that I was expected to plait Robin's hair each day, I wondered why I had ever wanted her to come with me.

I enjoyed my time at boarding school. There were eighty girls altogether in the whole school. We were fed well enough, and the sisters were wonderful. So I got my Junior Certificate!

Starting a commercial course

She learnt an important lesson in life:

Perseverance.

But, the next year, Dad had said I could do a commercial course. I took typing and shorthand. I continued music, English and French at the sub-Leaving standard, but soon I wanted to give up first the English and French and then, the music.

Sister Marie Therese took us for music. One afternoon, when I was doing my typing practice, she blasted me. `Pray for perseverance! Trying to drop everything!'

She really went on! I just typed away, while getting all this verbal blast. But she made me think, and it did give me a bit of backbone. It made me realise the importance of perseverance.

The need to grow up and put Cowboys-and-Indians behind her.

¹⁰ mad

Elsa was still young for her age and had not developed a strong interest in boys. She would still rather play Cowboys and Indians. Friends of the Chowns, the Sachses farmed at Bencubbin. Brian, one of the Sachse boys, remembered that the first time he saw Elsa she came galloping around the house on a stick, yelling out `Bang! Bang! Bang!' He wondered what he had struck.

Finally, Elsa grew up. She recalled:

After the first six-months at New Norcia, I came home for holidays. The first thing I did was get into my cowboy togs and tear out into the street. `Here I am! Where is everybody?' All my childhood girl-friends looked at me as if I was absolutely nuts¹⁰. So I went back inside, took them off, and never wore them again. I reckon that's the saddest day in my life. I had to grow up!

Leaving School

Starting work for her father

Elsa took her last year of school in 1947 and the following year, when seventeen years of age, she returned to Cottesloe, and started working for her father. He was a manufacturer's representative. Some of her work was done for Ross, one of her father's sons by his first marriage. Ross was manager of Rumble's Limited, a company started by his father. Soon she felt that she was working for two bosses, and sometimes there were pressures. She had also decided that an office job and city life was not for her.

The appeal of country life

The desire to marry a farmer

Several experiences had made country life appeal to her. She had the early experience of her grandfather's horse. When she was ten years of age her father took her to a holiday farm, Key Farm, near Toodyay. The farmer was ploughing with horses, and she was allowed to sit on the horses while they went round and round the paddock. She said:

Ever since then I thought I would like to marry a farmer. But how are you going to find a farmer, when you work in the city?

She had become friendly with a Perth boy, Gerry Parkinson. They had sailed her dinghy together, and he had unsuccessfully tried to teach her to drive a car. On one of her holidays Elsa stayed with the Sachses on their farm at Bencubbin. Gerry came up to the farm to bring her home.

Elsa takes a job in the Bencubbin Road Board office

Elsa had several holidays with the Sachse's at Bencubbin and then, in 1952, the year in which she turned twenty-one, a position became available in the Road Board office in the town. Without telling her parents, Elsa applied for the job and then surprised them when she secured it. She and the Town Clerk, David Rigoll, were the only two in the Road Board office. The office was part of the main Bencubbin hall and included a board-room and a small library. Apart from the office work, Elsa cleaned the rooms, washed the floors and generally keptthe place in order, for which she received 10/- per week. On a weekly wage of ,9/1/6d she thought she was doing well. Monger's Store, in the town, had some accommodation at the rear, with a spare bedroom, so she boarded there.

Meeting and marrying Peter Matthews.

Elsa was now on the look-out for a farmer-husband. She was interested in the Sachse boys, but nothing came of this. She came to know Peter Matthews who was working on his parent's farm out of Bencubbin. He was about her age and he was attentive: he made certain she was kept supplied with firewood, and that she and another girl, Sue Graham - who worked at the post office, got to the local dances. He was wanting to settle down. Elsa worked for the Road Board for eleven months. She became engaged to Peter, and they married on 11 April 1953.

They had little behind them when they married. As Elsa recalled:

Early married life:

The farm house

My last five pounds I gave to Peter to buy petrol at Yallingup, so we could get home from our honeymoon. I was then totally dependant on him. I had nothing. But, I didn't need anything. Peter's father, Geoff, had gone into partnership with the Mongers who had the store in the town. They moved into town, and the house on the farm was available. That was why we were able to get married: Peter had a house in which we could live.

Elsa had seen this house during one of her earlier visits to the Sachse's. She recalled her first impressions:

The house was of weatherboard and asbestos, with a tin roof. It had been built before the 1930s. During the depression years, it was not unknown for people to walk off their farm and leave the house. The main doors on the Matthews' house had been taken from other houses. When the Sachses first took me to visit Peter, there were two huge tractor tyres in one of the bedrooms at the front of the house. Peter's bed was in the lounge room and, once, a chicken got in through a hole and laid an egg on his bed!

Peter's parents had moved into Bencubbin town in either 1949 or 1950 and when I first met him he was living in this house with another lad, Merv Dowson. Before we married, the house was improved. Eventually, we turned the lounge into the kitchen, all done up nicely. We had a kitchen, two bedrooms, a lounge, and a back verandah that included the laundry.

They extended the lounge room to the edge of the verandah. Peter and his cousin cemented the remainder of the verandah on the other sides of the house. The north side was enclosed to provide a bedroom for the boys, while the girls had the bedroom off the kitchen. They even added a shower room, and some facilities for the working-boy.

Elsa recalled her first attempts to establish a garden:

¹¹twenty-eight = the ring-necked parrot which utters a two-note whistle sounding like "twenty-eight".

I remember trying to grow geraniums in the first year of our marriage. One morning I looked out of the window to admire the twenty-eights¹¹ playing around on the netting at the edge of the verandah. Later I found that they had stripped off every bit of green from the plants. They never did grow.

When Elsa married, her parents were very supportive. Eric and Lydia replaced furniture in the home in Cottesloe and much of their old furniture was given to Elsa and Peter. Elsa recalled: Dad said to me, `No matter what the future holds, you are always welcome in our house.' That was something very good to fall back on, if ever needed. If we came down to Perth, we always stayed at 2 Webb Street, Cottesloe. Sometimes Mum and Dad came to stay with us. Then, Dad would do all the odd jobs around the place, and tidy up generally. He was missed after he left.

Water supply

cooking

laundry

Electricity

Initially, the only water was rain-water stored in a tank. There was no tap over the kitchen sink. There was an old chip bath-water-heater. They did their cooking on a wood stove. The laundry copper with a wood fire was in the back-yard, and they had an old hand-operated mangle. As Elsa's family grew, washing became a daily job.

When they married there was no electricity. They used kerosene lamps at night. Eventually they bought a 32-volt home motor-generator set. Previously Elsa had ironed the clothes with a petrol-iron. Now she bought an electric iron, and soon they bought a radiogram - a combination radio and record player - using 78 rpm records. Electricity from the State Electricity Commission did not appear until the early 1960s.

The family

The "Working Boy"

When Elsa first went to Bencubbin she persuaded her father to give her a set of golf clubs for her twenty-first birthday. After marriage there was little opportunity for this sport. Nor did she have much time for her hobby of collecting stamps - inherited from her father. Jokingly, Elsa recalled a saying amongst farmers in those days that you had to keep your wife "Poor, Barefoot, and Pregnant." She felt that she fitted the description aptly.

Elsa and Peter had eleven children:

1. James Ronald (17 March 1954) 2. Robert Geoffrey (26 February 1955)

3. Trevor Michael ( 4 October 1956) 4. Kim Christopher (7 April 1958)

5. Anne Catherine (21 June 1959) 6. Patricia Helen (26 January 1961)

7. David Neil (16 May 1962) 8. Peter Brian (16 January 1964)

9. Philip Adrian ( 7 July 1965) 10.Terence John (29 March 1970)

11. Geoffrey Francis (27 February 1972)

Even before the arrival of the children, Peter and Elsa were never alone on the farm. They always employed a live-in "Working-Boy" to help on the farm.

Elsa's daily routine

Initially, Elsa's day started with getting breakfast. When she had babies to feed, Peter took over this task. Elsa recalled:

Oh, it's a great life. You know, the busy times weren't that bad. I never had to make bread because there was a baker in Bencubbin, so I used him, but we had to milk the cow. We killed our own meat. There were the chooks. Then there were pigs to feed, and I was always cooking, and feeding people.

I had to run to a routine. I washed six days a week. I always washed on Saturdays, so Sundays were free. For a long time I had thirteen napkins each day. The men knocked off for morning tea, or I had to take it to them down in the paddock. Then there was lunch.

In winter it would be cold. We had a wood stove and we'd put newspapers in the oven to warm them up. Then we put them in the base of the kids' beds to warm up before they got in. While they were little, it was too cold to go to the bathroom, so I'd bath them in the kitchen sink. We even had a tub in front of the kitchen fire. One winter it was so cold that we kept the lounge-room fire going all the time, and we all slept in the lounge-room. I had a winter garden, and we grew a few vegies, such as tomatoes, cabbages, turnips and beetroot. I did not grow flowers - like geraniums - until we got the scheme water laid on. Then, we put in a lawn at the front of the house - it was all just gravel before that.

If our winters were cold, our summers were hot, so we'd all move out on to the front lawn to sleep. By three or four o'clock in the morning we'd cool off, and go back inside.

By the 1960s Elsa had children at school. The farm was eleven miles out of Bencubbin. Elsa said:

School and the school bus

High school: boarding at St. Louis College

I was up early in the morning getting them ready, and of course, they had to go on the school bus. So one week it's early bus, and that left at seven-thirty. The other week it came around the other way at twenty-five past eight. So for many years, I worked that routine, and worked my way up to five lunches.

When the older boys were ready for high school there was nothing available in the area. So Elsa sent them to board at St.Louis College in Perth. She had enjoyed her New Norcia experience, and thought that James and Robert would do the same, but they hated it.

1969: A house bought at Swanbourne.

Elsa and the children live there

Return to Bencubbin

In 1969, when Trevor was ready for high school, Elsa and Peter bought a house in Swanbourne. Boarding school was proving too expensive. Elsa moved down to the house with the family, and the children became day-scholars. Elsa had become a Catholic at the age of twenty, and she wanted her children to experience a Catholic school. By 1973, following bad farming conditions, Elsa and the children returned to Bencubbin. A high school had now been built at Mukinbudin, so the older children took a bus there each day.

The house burns down

It was in 1974, following a period of hard financial times, that there was a calamity: On April the first, the house was burnt down accidentally by the younger boys. On that day, Elsa went to town in the morning and the boys were playing in the spare room, which was filled with old docket books and papers from Mongers store. Elsa smelt something burning before leaving. She said:

I couldn't see anything burning, so we went off to town. What I should have done was to tell Peter to check it out. But he was down at the shed. Later, Peter came in, cooked lunch, and could smell something burning. The incinerator outside was alight, so he thought it was that. I came home and, looking in the spare room, I could see the flames! I yelled out, `The house is on fire!'

So Peter sent me and the little boys down to our neighbour, Perry's, to ring the fire brigade. Now, he was most anxious to save his farm papers and whatever else he could. He and the working boy smashed the lounge room windows and started tossing things out.

By the time the fire brigade arrived, the house had pretty well gone. When the flames reached the ceiling of the spare room, they spread across the ceilings under the roof, and the whole house went. I sat in the lounge that had been taken outside, and watched it burn down!

We were fortunate as there was a sale at Beacon that day. People, on their way to the sale, stopped to help get quite a bit of furniture out of the lounge-room. Then they went on to the sale where they bought various household items to give to us. One of our neighbours said something to me, which I have never forgotten: Let people help you. So, instead of saying to anyone who offered help, No, we'll be O.K., I let them go ahead and help. It was a wonderful exercise of community spirit.

Peter gave up the farm, tried other ventures.

Elsa thought that at last she would get a new home, but it was not to be. For a time they lived in the old Perry house next door. Two of the boys, Robert and Kim were interested in continuing with the farm, but Peter decided that enough was enough. He refused to build another house but made no mention of selling out. He told everyone that he was retiring and eventually bought a house in Chidlow.

1975: Elsa moves to Chidlow

It was in 1975 that Elsa moved to the Chidlow property. The house was on two acres of land, and there was a twenty acre block on a separate title. Money was short, so they sold the twenty acre block. Eventually Elsa and Peter separated and he said that he could no longer provide support. Elsa approached the Department of Social Security. In 1994 she was still living in this house, and was an active member of the Chidlow community.

Social activities

at Bencubbin

Throughout life Elsa was always busy with the farm and her family. Although she had little time to play golf, both she and Peter played tennis at Bencubbin, and she followed Peter in his interest in hockey. Before marriage, while staying with the Sachse family in Bencubbin, she gave a helping-hand with a local youth club organised by Rev. Joe Atkinson, the Congregational minister. Elsa recalled:

After my experience with the Youth Club, one summer, when I was home at Cottesloe, we started The Jolly Young Maiden's Club. We gathered all the girls from round about - Margaret Snell, Helen Boylson, Anne Paterson, Margaret Foulds, Karleen Drake-Brockman, my sister Rob, and I - and arranged to meet at our place one night a week - probably Friday - to have games, singing and supper. We took it in turns to bring the supper.

In 1952, while she was working for the Bencubbin Road Board, The Rev. Atkinson persuaded her to join the local Junior Farmers organisation and she became the founding secretary. There were regular dances, and they thought nothing of driving eighty miles to a dance in a neighbouring town.

After marriage, Elsa and her family sometimes stayed with her parents for their annual holiday, or went to Palm Beach, near Rockingham, where Peter's grandmother owned a duplex unit.

In 1963 there were heavy rains at Bencubbin and at Welbungin, a nearby siding, lakes formed. Elsa said:

Several farmers bought speed boats, Peter included. So we all learnt to water-ski. Sundays were spent doing that. I prepared food for my family - and, by this time, I had seven children. There'd be two cooked chooks, and three pounds of sausages - because you could buy three pounds for ten shillings. There'd be boiled eggs, sandwiches, a fruit cake. . . stacks of food because, with the single men that were still roaming round, I fed them, too. So that was quite a day. Peter usually left early with the children while I took the youngest ones to church before following on afterwards.

In the early days, Elsa depended on Peter to take her to church as she could not drive a car. She delayed learning - although she drove the tractor - because she had an ulterior motive. Peter was not a Catholic and she hoped that by coming to church with her he might become one. But he never did.

Elsa's conversion to Catholicism

¹² 15012M

Elsa was slow to become a Catholic. In July 1987 she wrote an article entitled The Story of a Convert for the News Bulletin of the Sacred Heart Parish, Mundaring. Part of what she wrote follows:

I had what I call a religious-free childhood. If I wished to join my friends and go to Sunday School, I was allowed. There was never any pressure that I should go. My parents at that time were not church-going.

Most of my schooling was done at Methodist Ladies' College. . . I was a Rumble. Dr Rumble MSC¹² was my uncle. . . I was only vaguely aware that half my relatives were Catholics. At the age of fourteen I failed my Junior and was sent to St.Gertrude's at New Norcia. . . I remember my MLC school friends being horrified that I was going to a Catholic school and they hoped that I wouldn't become a Catholic - I assured them I wouldn't! I had never met Uncle Les, and he was the bane of my time at St. Gertrude's. People would say, `You're the niece of Dr Rumble and you're not a Catholic!'

Before the end of the first year at St.Gertrude's I knew I wanted to be part of "this", but, being shy and retiring, did not tell anyone about it. I have always felt that I was very fortunate in that some of the first Catholics I knew were the Benedictine Monks of New Norcia. They were truly wonderful people. . .

Visits to the Sachse family with their eight children gave Elsa a good insight into Catholic life. Finally she introduced herself to Fr. Brennan, the curate at the Cottesloe Parish. One month before her twentieth birthday she was conditionally baptised into the Church and made her first holy communion at midnight Mass.

Religion is an important ingredient in her life

Religious belief is a mainstay in what Elsa believes is important in life. She said:

My life is based on doing what I think God wants me to do. For many years, I was wife and mother, and I did my best to look after the family. I was always there when they came home from school. Afternoon tea was ready. I have always felt that my family is entitled to a home and my house is here for whoever needs it, as long as they need a home of their own.

There were several times when I felt like giving the Church away. It would last three weeks and I'd be back in the confessional, and back going to mass again. That was about as long as I could be without it.

Elsa recognised that in her youth the Church taught partly through fear: If you do the wrong thing, you will go to hell! But she feels now that her religion gives her a sense of security, and the Catholic Church is a good wall to have behind you.

When Elsa reached the age of forty she re-assessed where she was going in life, and became more involved in the community:

When I got to be nearly forty I realised that my mum had died at the age of fifty-four, and her mother had died at about fifty-eight. I thought, Crikey! Another fifteen years and I could be dead, and I haven't done anything yet!

So I got involved with typing for the local rag, The Gimlet. Then I also took a little group of kids for a parent-involvement program at Mt.Marshall Primary School and taught them how to use a typewriter. This was my first experience of one child not wanting to sit next to another because they did not like each other.

From family involvement you branch out into the wider world, and you try to do something in the community. Later, you realise that you can't take on the whole world. You can't change everything. So you just do the little bit you can do, and be content with that.

Once settled at Chidlow, for many years Elsa became responsible for the instruction of Catholic children in Government schools. She organised the team of Catechists from her Parish, working in Chidlow, Mt.Helena and Wooroloo. Among her other activities have been: Secretary of the Parish Council for two years, Member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, Special Minister of the Eucharist, Secretary of the Hills branch of Save the Children Fund, President of the Mt.Helena Tennis Club, and Treasurer of the Mt.Helena Progress Association.

In response to the question, What gives meaning to life? , Elsa said:

You've got to feel wanted. I like doing a bit of cooking and turning on a meal for somebody. As a youngster I enjoyed sailing: the wide openness of the sea. The wide-open spaces of the land took over from that.

Everybody needs food and clothing. So, working with wheat and wool is basic and important. You'll always be needed. Working the land itself is about as close to God as you can be. We've had seasons when hail fell on the crops and wiped them out. I'd say, `What do you think you're doing, God?'

I enjoy gardening: planting seeds and watching them grow.

And, of course, family, past and present, gives meaning to Elsa's life. This started with her own happy childhood and her relation to her parents, especially to Eric, whom she regarded as the best of fathers.

Childhood:

Diphtheria when

three years old

Robin was born when her parents were living at 75 Bruce Street, Nedlands. She was the middle girl of three. Her sister Elsa was six and a half years older than she, while Penelope would be born five and a half years later. When she was almost three years old Robin contracted diphtheria and spent her third birthdayin hospital. Penicillin had just been invented and was used in her treatment, but diphtheria was still considered a dangerous illness. While she was in hospital, her parents moved to 2 Webb Street Cottesloe.

Schooling:

St. Gertrude's, New Norcia

Robin hated school.

¹ An acute infectious

inflammation of the skin.

After attending North Cottesloe kindergarten, Robin started primary school at her sister Elsa's school, Methodist Ladies' College, Claremont. Then, after completing the first two grades, her parents sent her with her sister Elsa to board at St.Gertrude's school, New Norcia. The Second World War was in progress and there was danger that Perth would be bombed by the Japanese. Her parents thought it better for the children to be in the country.

School did not appeal to Robin. She recalled:

At primary-school, because Elsa was also there and did my hair occasionally, I don't think I was homesick. However, I hated high-school and couldn't wait till I left. It was a Catholic school and I was not then a Catholic. We were all made to go to church every morning and had high-Mass on Sundays. This may have had some influence on me as we all learnt our catechisms and about the Catholic faith. Eventually I became a Catholic. But life was highly regulated. We did the same thing day after day after day. I made some good friends, but life was very monotonous and I often became sick.

I got impetigo¹ and Mum sent me up a case of oranges, so I would get vitamin C every day. Then I was hit over the mouth with a hockey stick, breaking my front tooth. The dentist put on a gold cap but about once a month I travelled by bus to Perth on a Friday for further dental treatment. I usually returned to the school on Saturday, late for the afternoon music theory class. Invariably, I would be in trouble for not knowing my theory; I got whacked around the legs with a ruler. Another reason why I did not like school.

On Saturday nights we went to the pictures at St Ildephonsus, the boys' College. The big girls had to sit at the back of the theatre, away from the big boys. We little ones sat between them. If the movie was not a good one, the big boys played cards and rolled bottles around the floor.

One day a week we sat up in the sheds and said our rosaries while we darned our socks and stockings. On Sundays we all went for a mile walk as a "crocodile". We had a piece of fruit and, at tea-time, a slice of cake. We were often served tapioca and, once a week, made to drink a warm cup of Andrews' Liver Salts!

Elsa spent two years at the school. I went back for another year after she left but came down either with measles or chicken-pox. Finally Dad took me away from the school, saying that the country did not agree with me.

The last school years at Loreto Convent, Claremont.

²P.E. = Physical Education

The dreaded Junior School Certificate Examination

Returning to Perth, Robin became a day-scholar at Loreto Convent and entered fifth-grade. In the second year there she became a Catholic. At that time each student had their own desk, and different teachers came in turn to the classroom. She recalled:

We each had a pine desk with a sloping lid, four legs, and a hard chair to sit on. Beneath the hinged lid was space for our books. At the back there was a ledge where we placed our pens and pencils. That was our chair and desk for the whole twelve months until we went to the next class in the next grade, and were allocated other desks. At school we were taught to sew by making clothing for Mission babies; On Tuesdays we had P.E.²; On Friday afternoons we had singing lessons, and Miss Lily Kavanagh gave us elocution lessons.

Robin still had no liking for school and saw no reason why she should study such subjects as French, Latin or Italian; with these she struggled. At the end of her third year of high school she sat for her first public examination, the Junior Certificate. In those days the results were published in the daily paper for all to read. Robin did not look forward to this:

I failed my Junior and had to go back and do it again. You had to pass five subjects, and I only got four. When the results were due to be published, I went off to Beaconsfield to stay with Aunty Jean for a week. I refused to be home when the results came out. When I found that I had only passed four subjects I knew I would have to repeat the year again. I did, and next year I passed with five subjects. Then I said, That's it , I'm not going to school again!

Activities during childhood and youth.

Of course, childhood was more than school. At home they kept both a dog and a cat. Robin made friends with Anne Patterson and Helen Boylson, who lived in her street - and all three fought. When she was eight, she and her cousin Edward tried walking on a petrol drum. Robin fell backwards and broke her arm. In compensation, her father bought her a beautiful rocking horse. Within the family she learnt to play the card games of Rummy and Patience. A boyfriend, Gerald Flynn, at New Norcia taught her Canasta, while her father taught her Bridge. These were the days before television dominated the home, and there were many family games. Robin remembers playing Bobs and the board games Monopoly & Chinese Checkers. She continued playing these later with her own children.

Robin recalled that she and her sisters had many clothes: they had been to three different schools with school uniforms for each with changes for winter, summer. They also had sports attire. As each child became old enough, they had to clean their own room, lugging the vacuum cleaner up the stairs. Robin's mother placed newly ironed clothes at the foot of the stairs for the children to pick up and place in their bedrooms.

In addition to her rocking horse, Robin had dolls, scooter, skates, the piano to play, old clothes for "dressing up", and books to read. In particular she enjoyed Milly Molly Mandy, the Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce, the Pollyanna series, Embroidery Mary, The Little Round House, and Joey and the Greenwings. Her mother had shelves of books in the lounge-room. She was given a two-wheeler bicycle and her sister, Elsa, taught her to knit.

Home discipline was not severe, but Robin remembers being smacked on the bottom with the back of a hairbrush and, once or twice, being put in the bathroom.

Youth and Tennis Clubs

After she left school and was older, she joined the nearby Cottesloe Youth Club and became secretary for two years. There she took part in a range of activities such as jiving and fencing lessons. She joined the Cottesloe Tennis Club - because her current boyfriend joined. Because of the age difference between herself and her sisters, they did not do many things together, at least . . .

not until we reached the stage where I could play the piano reasonably well. Then Elsa and I played duets. Later, when Penny was old enough, she and I also played duets together. But it was not long before Elsa had left home, had gone to Bencubbin, and married.

Family holidays

at Rottnest

As a child many family holidays were spent at Rottnest Island. Robin's father sailed the yacht Penelope I and later acquired the launch Penelope II. She recalled:

We sailed over to Rottnest nearly every Christmas. Mum would lie around and do nothing; Dad cooked, did the wash up and all the work. It was supposed to be Mum's holiday. Four of us, Mum, Dad, Penny and I could sleep on board the launch, which worked well because by this time Elsa was at Bencubbin. Dad and I went in the motor dinghy to pull up cray-pots. We had fish for breakfast and tea, and crayfish for lunch. When we were tired of fish, Dad bought sausages from the local butcher; and there were fresh jam buns from the bakery. We swam over the side of the boat and, once or twice a day, we walked around to the "basin" for a swim.

Relationship with parents

Family Celebrations

Robin was much closer to her mother than to her father. She went shopping with her mother, and sometimes they went to the pictures together. When she came home from school or, later, from work she would tell her mother all that had happened during the day, but found that she could not talk to her father in the same way. She was not given pocket money, as such, but every Saturday afternoon her parents gave her two shillings to go to the Saturday matinee pictures and buy ice-creams and lollies. Her Aunty Jean thought she was spoilt. In 1991, Robin recalled:

Perhaps we were spoilt, but it didn't affect us. We had many relatives, so there were always plenty of parcels on birthdays and Christmases compared with what many children get today. Today, relatives don't seem to give children as many presents. When I was a child there would be Christmas presents from just about everybody. At Christmas all the relatives got together. Someone always took group photos and the house was decorated with balloons and streamers. Dad always carved the chook, ham, or turkey.

Entering the work-force

But childhood comes to an end and, when Robin finally gained her Junior School certificate and left school, she did not know what she wanted to do. Her mother took her into a government department where she took a test, including "some maths, some spelling, and then working through a series of little boxes and squares, where you had to mark the square with the correct pattern." The outcome was that her father enrolled her in the Metropolitan Business College to do shorthand, typing and book-keeping. Robin recalled:

I was there for twelve months but chucked up book-keeping after the second week. I couldn't understand the triple-column cash book. At the end of the year, at the age of eighteen, I took a job in a Lawyer's office in Sherwood Court, Perth. I was there for two years and then worked for a year with the refrigeration people, A.J. Baker, in Claremont.

Boyfriends

³WRAAF = Women's Royal Australian Air Force.

Joining the Air-Force

Meeting Bob Furphy

I had quite a few boyfriends while I was a teenager. Eventually I joined the WRAAF³ - as a clerk-general. I became a shorthand typist but was in the service for only 188 days as I met Bob Furphy and we became engaged. In those days, married women could not stay in the service.

Robin was sent to Point Cook in Victoria. She remembered leaving Perth in an old DC3 plane when it was freezing cold. At Point Cook she undertook basic training: learning to march, salute, and recognise the different ranks. After completing the training, she was stationed at Point Cook. Then Robin met Bob Furphy who was also in the Air-Force:

⁴ Drive-in Movie =

An open- air theatre where patrons sit in their cars and watch a movie on a large screen, with sound produced over the car radio or via a small loudspeaker placed in the car.

1960: Marriage

I went on a blind date with Bob. Another fellow wanted to take a girl, Judy, to the drive-in movies⁴, but he did not have a car. He asked Bob to take his car. Judy then asked me to join them, to make up the four. We could not get in to the drive-in, so we went to the speedway. This was in Melbourne, it was very cold, and Bob did not have a coat, so I stood in front of him to keep him warm. He thought I was a very nice girl, and I quite took to him. We then started going out together and after three or four months he asked me to marry him. We were married on 16 September 1960. We were both twenty-three years of age.

Neither Robin's family in Western Australia nor Bob's family in Queensland came to the wedding. Although Robin had become a Catholic while still at school, Bob was not a Catholic so they married in the Congregational church. Robin recalled:

Air-Force posting to Queensland:

Birth of Stephen

We were married on a Friday. There was just Bob, me, the Padre and two witnesses. It was raining. I wore a blue coat and dress outfit with a pink flower net on my head. Afterwards we went back to the Point Cook Air-Force base to load up the car. Bob put on his overalls, and went to lunch in the mess! Here was I, so excited that I couldn't eat a thing. All the girls brought me cards, boxes of chocolates and other things, and he simply turned round and went to lunch in the `mess'! Later we drove off to Queensland. Dad sent us some money and we spent our honeymoon on the Gold Coast. I met Bob's family and later lived with his mother for a few months. I had to resign from the Air-Force on being married.

For a short time they moved to Maidstone in Victoria and then back to Queensland, where their first child, Stephen, was born on 25 February 1961. Robin remembers living in a block of ten flats at North Ipswich:

⁵ Copper = A deep, large open-topped pot originally made of copper, with a lid, used for boiling clothes before washing them. Filled with water, the early copper was heated by a wood fire beneath, although later a gas fire was used. After being brought to the boil, the clothes were stirred with a long wooden copper-stick to the accompaniment of clouds of steam.

Establishment of the family

Postings from State to State

I came out of hospital to live in these terrible, noisy flats. They were right beside the railway line and there was a single laundry downstairs. I was always running up and down stairs, putting money in the copper⁵ to keep the thing boiling. Finally, Bob said That's it, and bought me a washing machine, so I could be upstairs and keep an eye on Stephen at the same time. It was very crowded so, after a few months, we went to a half-house at nearby Sadleir's Crossing. This was semi-detached, like a `duplex', so we virtually had the whole place to ourselves. While we were there, Valerie was born on 2 March 1962. Later we moved to Air-Force married quarters at Brassall. Bob served a period in Thailand, and I had Arlene at home in Brassall on 7 January 1964 while he was overseas.

Our fourth child, Brenda, was born on 18 March 1965. When she was six or seven weeks old we were posted to Richmond, New South Wales. We lived in Air-Force married accommodation at Windsor, near the river. Every time the river flooded it came up to our back fence; there was a sullage pit for the bath and shower, and we had an outside toilet. These houses were shocking, unhealthy places in which to live and we were always getting sick. In 1965 we bought our own house in Penrith but after several years we were posted to South Australia and then to Pearce in Western Australia.

Stephen started school in Penrith. Valerie and Arlene started in South Australia. When we came to Western Australia we lived for a while at Middle Swan. Brenda started kindergarten. Finally, in 1973, we bought a block of land in the northern-Perth suburb of Kallaroo. We built the house in 1974, and moved in. Apart from a short break, we were not to move house again until 1989. The children completed their schooling and even started university when we were at Kallaroo.

Bob leaves the Air-Force:

Western Australia

In January 1976, Bob was transferred back to Wagga in New South Wales. At first, he went by himself, but later Robin and the family joined him, finding tenants for the Kallaroo house. When Bob sought discharge from the Air-Force after almost twenty years service, the family returned to Kallaroo.Robin always felt that the constant moving about upset the children's schooling; it was hard for them to make firm, lifelong friends, but the moves did give them a broader outlook.

⁶ P & C = Parents' and Citizens' Association

⁷DOME = Acronym for Don't Overlook Mature Expertise.

⁸ CES = Commonwealth Employment Service

Working for the

Police Department

When Robin married, left the Air-Force and started a family she did not start work again for many years. She took an interest in her children's school activities, at one time being secretary of the P & C⁶ at Craigie High School in Western Australia. She also joined the Red Cross Association. Then, after she turned forty, she worked one day a week typing and answering the phone for a group called DOME⁷ that helped unemployed people over forty. Then, for eleven months she worked for a manufacturer's representative for three days a week until his business declined. Finally, through the CES⁸, in 1988 she obtained a position with the Police Department, and in 1993 still worked with them. In 1991 she said:

I became a typist and went the rounds of various departments: I've been with the Traffic Department, Recruiting, the Fraud Squad, Stores, Firearms. . . Now I'm in the Perth Regional office. I graduated from the typewriter and now do word-processing. I enjoy it, but will probably retire in 1998 after I qualify for long-service leave.

Overseas holidays

In 1981 Robin and Bob took their first overseas holiday. This was to Singapore. Since then, they have been to Bali several times, to Fiji and to Penang. On her first trip she was struck by the constant bustle, the crowds of people, and their desire to sell their wares. She was fascinated to see how other people live. She also enjoyed getting away from people, as in Penang, to swim and relax, although Bob found this a little boring.

Personal interests

Now, with the family off her hands, Robin enjoys a quiet life. She knits and does crochet work, takes part in her church, and reads. She enjoys the relaxation gained through reading mystery and romance books.

Robin's attitude to her Church

Novena = A devotion consisting of prayers or services on nine consecutive days

For many years the Catholic Faith has been part of Robin's life. Although her parents were not Catholics at the time, she went to Catholic schools. When she attended Loreto she obtained religious instruction; she attended the Star of the Sea Catholic Church at Cottesloe, became a member of the choir and played the organ when necessary. She recalled:

I drifted along, I suppose. I kept going to church every Sunday because Mum went: we just got in the car and went. The Boylson's across the road were Catholics; Aunty Doll was a Catholic and became my God-Mother when I was baptised; three or four of my boyfriends were Catholics. When I joined the Air-Force I stopped going to church for a while, and I married in the Congregational Church. Along came the kids; they were baptised and I started attending again, but I did not go back to the Sacraments. I enjoy singing and playing the organ. . .

I think religion helps me: I know God's there to look after you. When I was looking for a job, I did a Novena to St.Jude - who is the Hope for the Hopeless - and I got my job. Now I enjoy going to church, singing and playing the organ. It is relaxing. Perhaps one day Bob and I will get married again - in the Catholic Church. Then I will go back to the sacraments, for I'm quite happy being a Catholic.

In 1993, Robin and Bob lived at 11 Dempster Road, Karrinyup, a northern Perth Suburb.

Summary

Jack O'Brien was lost at sea during World War II with the sinking of HMAS

Sydney.

[Quotations by Bob were made in 1991]

obert was born in Brisbane on Monday 21 June 1937. He was the son of Pearl Adams and possibly Jack O'Brien (there being no father's name on the birth certificate). Pearl had earlier married Wallace Furphy, and had three surviving children before Wallace left her. Bob was given the family name of Furphy. After he completed school he eventually joined the Air-Force where he met Robin Rumble. They married on 16 September 1960. They had four children: Stephen (b.1961), Valerie (b.1962), Arlene (b.1964), and Brenda (b.1965). Bob served both overseas and in various Australian States and sought his discharge after almost twenty years in the service. He and his family settled in Western Australia. In 1992 he was purchasing officer for CML in Perth. He was retrenched and in April 1993 worked for Active Plumbing as a storeman.

Bob was brought up in a Boys' Home

Pearl Adams found herself in great difficulty after Bob was born. Deserted by her husband, and with four children ranging from Douglas, almost fourteen years of age, down to Bob at two years of age, she found she could not cope. In 1939, keeping Douglas with her, she placed the other three children in homes.

The family split up and Bob was placed in a home for infants. At the age of five he was transferred to a boys' home in Wynnum, a suburb of Brisbane. This held about eighty boys between the ages of five and fourteen. He recalled:

Compared with today's standards, it was a pretty hard, Dickens-like place. There were big dining rooms, and we slept in dormitories. Naturally, in a place like that there was a pecking order, and to survive you had to learn to fight. The younger ones started off at the bottom of the pecking order, and we had to work our way up.

At 14 years of age he took work on a dairy farm.

When Bob reached the age of fourteen he still had not met his mother or other members of his family. He was given the choice of either working in a shop or going on to a farm, and he chose the latter. For four years he learnt dairy farming. It was hard work:

I worked seven days a week, getting up at four in the morning each day. I was given two hours off on a Sunday afternoon, given my keep and paid three dollars a week. In those days, young men did National Service in the army for two years: three months full-time in a camp and then weekend activity and lectures for the remaining time. In

1955, at the age of eighteen, I left the farm and did my National Service. Then I joined the Air-Force.

At age 16 he sought his family, meeting his mother when he was 18.

Soon after Bob started working on the farm he began thinking about his family. Did he have brothers and sisters? He wrote to the boys' home and asked them.

The next thing I know, I got a letter from Doug, saying I'm your brother, and you have two sisters and your mother, living in Brisbane. He came down to see me on the farm. Then I went up to Brisbane when I was about sixteen and met two of my sisters, but I did not see my mother until I was about eighteen. I think she might have been worried about how I would react. After I met her I started living with her until I joined the air force. Later I stayed with her when I was on leave.

At age 19, in 1957 he joined the Air-Force

It was 1957, when Bob was nineteen, that he joined the Air-Force.

I was posted to Richmond in New South Wales, then to Amberley in Queensland for about nine months. Next I was sent to Wagga in New South Wales, to do a Fabric Worker's Course. In those days, aircraft had fabric covers and I carried out repair work on them. Our course then extended to cover safety equipment - parachutes, Mae Wests, Dinghies. Then they started fitting planes with ejector seats, and other sophisticated survival equipment. The Air-Force needed trained people for this, so I went down to Laverton in Victoria. I did a course there and ended up at Point Cook in Victoria. I was also interested in surface finishing of aircraft: painting and corrosion control. It was then that I met Robin who was on a rookie's course. My hut overlooked hers.

He met Robin Rumble.

They married on

16 September 1960

Bob and Robin were married on 16 September 1960. Soon after, they were transferred back to Amberley, Queensland, but were quite often on the move. He was attached to Richmond, New South Wales a few times, and spent six months attached to Thailand. As Bob recalled:

Posted to Thailand

¹SEATO = South East Asian Treaty Organisation

I went there because Australia had obligations under SEATO¹ to protect Thailand from being invaded by the Chinese. The Vietnam war was in progress, and we were sending aircraft into North Vietnam from Thailand. I didn't get to Vietnam myself. I was in North-East Thailand, up near the Cambodian-Laotian border. I went by myself.

Further postings:

Edinborough, South Australia

Richmond, Williamstown

Pearce, Western Australia

Bob returned to Richmond. When he was with a Maritime Reconnaissance Squadron, it was transferred to the Edinborough base in South Australia, so the family went there for eighteen months. Then he requested a transfer to Pearce in Western Australia and went there in 1969. By this time he and Robin had four children ranging in age from eight down to four. In 1975 he was transferred again: back to Richmond, to Williamstown and then to Wagga.

After 20 years, discharge:

1977: settled in Perth.

After almost twenty years on the move, which was disruptive for the family, especially for the children's schooling, Bob decided to leave the Air-Force, and nominated Western Australia for his discharge. He and his family spent Christmas 1976 in Perth, and his discharge came through in January 1977.

After his discharge Bob was happy to live for a while on his savings and to set up his house and garden. The Air-Force provided a Defence Force Retirement scheme, but after twenty years in the service the pension was not enough on which to live. In 1991, Bob recalled:

Civilian life

²Boans = a long established Western Australian department store that eventually was sold to Myers, a national company, and so changed its name.

Initially, I wasn't really looking for a job. I had enough to do around the house. Then, after about four months, I found a position as Dispatch Supervisor at Boans² department store, Innaloo. I was there for two and a half years. Then they cut back on staff, and increased my workload. I decided on a change and became the Purchasing Officer at Colonial Mutual Life Association in Perth. I've been there ever since. I will retire in about six years from now.

However, in April, 1992 Bob was retrenched from his position at CML. He and Robin moved house from 13 Maynard Way to 11 Dempster Road, Karrinyup and in April 1993 he gained employment with Active Plumbing as a storeman.

With the constant moving from post to post during his Air-Force career, Bob found little opportunity to develop special interests or hobbies. Raising a family of four, closely-spaced children left little time. While in the Air-Force he played cricket, net-ball and badminton often, on a social basis. After leaving the Service and settling in Perth he and Robin joined the North Beach (Lawn) Bowling Club, but their commitment to it is intermittent.

{Quotations given below were made by Tim's wife Penny in September 1990.}

Tim was born in Singapore to Chinese parents.

He went to an English school.

imothy, the son of Chin Wah Tay and Quek Cheng Tan, was born on 15 October 1937 in Singapore. It was his father's second marriage, and by this marriage Tim also had five sisters, but he was the only son. Both his parents were English-speaking and his father believed in English schools. So Tim's early education in Singapore was at an English school. Consequently, although Tim could speak Chinese, he could not write it.

At 16 years of age he came to Perth to complete his secondary education and study at the University

He did not study sufficiently to be successful at the University

When he was sixteen he was sent to Perth in Western Australia to complete his education. He took his Leaving Certificate examination and then entered the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Western Australia following his father's wishes. Engineering did not appeal to him and he found it difficult to study. He failed his year, so changed to Economics and studied that for two years, but was again unsuccessful. At the time he became a bit of a gambler, liked to go to the horses, and he played Mah Jong.

A friend suggested that he join the army. This he did.

During his University vacations he worked on the wheat bins in the country as a tally clerk during harvest time when the farmers brought their crops to the railway sidings to be weighed, recorded and stored for later shipment to the coast. This was a traditional job for university students in Western Australia. He also did some taxi driving. He had a friend who had a scholarship to the army, but did not want it. The friend suggested that he join the army. This he did.

He was in the army for 27 years, rising to the rank of Major.

He was in the army for twenty-seven years, working through the ranks. In 1968/69 he served a year in Vietnam. When he returned, an officer said to him, "I think you should go to Queensland for a commissioned officer's course."

He was worried about this, but came sixth out of fifty-four people. Within three years he was a Captain, and two or three years later he became a Major. He served three years in Singapore but finally he had had enough of army life because he felt that each successive Government allowed the Army to lower its standards. He retired at the age of 51.

He married Penny Rumble on 9 July, 1960.

He met Penny Rumble in Perth and married her on 9 July 1960 after they had known each other for about a year. When he joined the army he undertook his initial three-months training at Wagga Wagga.

They spent time in Adelaide, Sydney and then five years in Melbourne.

Later he went to Vietnam and they spent three years in Singapore.

Tim was then sent to Adelaide for three or four months and Penny flew from Perth to join him. From there they went to Sydney, and lived in flats for a while. Next they spent two years in Melbourne. After his one year stint in Vietnam, during which time Penny and the family stayed in Melbourne, they all went to Singapore. Tim enjoyed this and was happy, as his parents were there.

He and Penny raised a family of twelve children, including a retarded son.

In the army Tim did ordnance - administration - work. In May 1988 he retired from the army, but still wanted work. By this time he had a large family of twelve children, including a retarded son, and he needed work for financial reasons as well as for interest. Penny said:

On retirement from the army at age 51, it was not easy to get a job. He took casual work at a youth detention centre and got on well with the kids - but it was shift work.

We don't seem to be able to get away from children, Tim and I. We went for a holiday as he intended having three months off. Tim had applied for a few jobs but, being Chinese and fifty-one, it was not easy. At this time a friend of ours was working as a casual at a detention centre not far from us. He said to Tim, `look, they're always wanting casuals. How about doing that while you're looking for something else?'

So that is what he did. It was at a detention centre for State Wards. This job paid quite well, especially as he often took weekend work, or worked at night. He stuck with it because he was good with the kids.

A few of the kids really looked up to him and I teased him by saying `It won't be long before you bring one of them home.' - which he did one day to show off his twins. Tim's a great stirrer and teaser, and he's got a great sense of humour. . . Tim also took a three-month youth worker course.

Eventually he changed to a nine to five office job, but would like to retire completely.

About eighteen months later he was able to change to an office job that was nine to five, but with less money. In 1990 he was still engaged in this clerical work. He would like to retire completely and go fishing but, with the youngest child being only five, he feels he must continue working for a few years.

He loves reading, fishing, football, and sport generally.

Tim loves to read, and is very well read. Penny says he is a very bright, intelligent person with an excellent retention:

He can talk on any subject. It's amazing. He also knows all the cricketers and footballers, and who's doing what.

He is a good cook, and helps in the house.

For relaxation he enjoys fishing and football or simply reading the sports section of the paper. He enjoys his large family and became very helpful around the house, becoming the main cook, and helping with domestic chores. Penny said that in his early years he was sometimes very aggressive but that over the years he has mellowed, just as she has slowly moved the other way.

Penny was born in October 1942.

enny, the youngest daughter of Eric Rumble and Lydia Bassett was born on 29 October 1942. She married Timothy Tay on 2 July 1960 and spent most of her life in the Eastern States of Australia. She and Tim have a family of twelve children.

She was much younger than her sisters, and grew up a shy girl.

Penny was brought up with her parents and two older sisters at 2 Webb Street, Cottesloe, Western Australia. As a child she felt very much alone and was very shy. Her sister Robin was five years older than she, while Elsa was eleven years older, marrying when Penny was only ten. So her sisters were not really companions, and she felt that Robin often bossed her around. Looking back to her own childhood, she said:

With her older parents she felt she had no real family as a young girl.

There was no real family life compared with the family of my own children. I felt that I was very much bossed by Robin. I remember running down the stairs crying `Mum, Mum. She's going to hit me.' She would have thumped me, too, but then maybe I was going through her diary or something awful.

I was always a very shy person. As a child I remember holding on to my mother's skirt just hoping that no one would speak to me, because I wouldn't know what to say. When I was nine or ten I would knock back an invitation to someone's place for a meal. I was frightened, and would worry about what they would give me to eat. At home my mother was a most plain cook. I grew up with plain food, and was not made to eat what I did not like.

She had a good relationship with her mother but when her sisters were at boarding school, life was dull.

Penny had a good relationship with her mother, but her father was not often around. Sometimes he was away on the weekends, or out sailing his boat. At one time her two sisters were both at boarding school. Life was very quiet for Penny with only her parents in the house. She recalled:

If we were at the dinner table, I would just sit there, and they would do their crossword puzzles. Occasionally a head would be lifted to ask me to pass something. There was no real conversation. Every afternoon my mother would read and have a rest. Compared with what I had to do in life she had it very, very easy.

"The trouble is, you've got older parents" was the excuse for everything.

When Penny was ten years old her father, Eric, was sixty-one and her mother, forty-three. Eric's oldest boy, Jim, by his first marriage had been born in 1917. Her mother, Lydia, was always conscious of this age gap and was constantly apologising to her. `The trouble is, you've got older parents,' she would say, as though this excused her lack of understanding.

Sometimes they had holidays on the boat - such as three weeks spent living aboard at Rottnest Island. Even then she was conscious of their age as her parents would take an afternoon nap, and she would sit there thinking, `When are they going to wake up, so we can go ashore?' Sometimes she found it boring but, looking back, she now realises how lucky she was.

Her parents did not encourage her in her school work: She was only a girl, so it didn't matter.

For most of her school life Penny went to nearby Loreto Convent, as did her sister Robin. She did not regard herself as a good student. She liked English, but Maths was her downfall. She recalled:

Sometimes I would be studying at the table and I would be in tears because I could not get the maths right.

Her parents did little to encourage her by building up her confidence. Their attitude was to dismiss the problem as though it was unimportant, instead of explaining how to do the sum. Her mother's attitude was always, `It doesn't matter, you're only a girl, and you don't have to worry about that.'

She was always near the bottom of the class at school and had no self-esteem.

In primary school they had tests every Friday and a list of results was kept inside the door numbered from 1 to 25 - from top to bottom. Penny said:

It was always the same girls at the top, and I was always in the bottom five. I got the feeling that I was never going to rise up. At home there was no pressure to strive, I was pretty well spoilt, and the attitude of my parents did not teach me self-discipline.

She had to learn self-discipline for herself in later years.

Penny grew up with feelings of low self-esteem, and an inferiority complex. It took some years to learn self-discipline for herself. This she found hard, but learn it she did and, in later life, her husband Tim thought she was the most stable of people. Penny said:

Today nothing really gets me down. The little things might upset me more now than the big things. With the big things I just get in there and fix them up.

But she did learn some important qualities from her parents.

^* Het-up = Anxious, worried

She learnt some important qualities from her parents. Her father was a very affectionate man, and her mother would never hear or say an unkind word about anybody. Years later, Tim would say: `Why are you always defending everybody, making excuses for them?' Penny's attitude was that it was better to look at things that way, than to get all het-up^*. She took a philosophical view. `Well, there's my side, there's your side, and there's the right side,' she would say.

With a girl-friend she liked holidaying on Elsa's farm.

As a girl Penny developed several friendships. Her older married sister, Elsa, lived on a farm and sometimes Penny took a friend with her for a holiday there. She loved that. She enjoyed tennis, and played with a friend who lived at Peppermint Grove. When she was thirteen, a close friend wanted to leave school and become a hairdresser. Penny thought she would do the same, but her parents would have nothing to do with it. Thinking her girl-friend was having too much influence on her, they sent her to St.Gertrude's boarding school at New Norcia for a year. Penny had painful memories of this:

Her parents sent her to boarding school for a year. She hated it.

I can remember being on the bus and seeing my mother looking up. I turned away and refused to look back and wave goodbye. I was so hurt at being sent to this boarding school.

She did a business course, started work, and had a trip with her parents by ship to the Eastern States.

Through her girl friends she met Tim Tay, and they fell in love.

¹ A brand of cigarettes

The hateful year passed, she left school, took a business course and started work in Perth. At about this time she also went on trip with her parents and Robin to the Eastern States on the Kanimbla, an old coastal steamer.

Returning to work in Perth, she and some girl-friends would go to a little coffee shop called the Sabrina at the bottom of London Court. There they pretended to be so sophisticated, `smoking the old Rothmans¹.' It was there that she met Tim Tay, the boy-friend of one of her girl friends. Tim's home was in Singapore but he was studying in Perth. He was five years older than Penny, and soon they were going out together, and fell in love.

Penny's parents got on well with Tim. Tim was different to anyone else with whom she had been out, and her father Eric said he had the best manners of anyone she had ever brought home. Her mother produced from her ottoman the photo of a young Chinese boy neatly dressed in a 1900s suit. She said that the boy was the son of the local market gardener and that, as a young girl, she had been secretly in love with him.

Tim wrote a long letter to her father saying he would look after Penny, and they were married in July, 1960. She was eighteen.

Early in 1960, Penny fell pregnant. She recalled:

I didn't know how to tell my parents. Tim wrote them a three page letter on how he would take care of me and look after me. Fortunately Tim and my father got on well.

As might be expected, there were various reactions from family members, but Tim and Penny married on 12 July 1960.

After unsuccessful studies, Tim joined the Australian army. Their first child, Amanda, was born in December, 1960.

Penny joined him in

Adelaide.

Tim was unsuccessful in his university studies and a friend persuaded him to join the Australian army. Amanda, the first of Penny's twelve children, was born on New Year's Eve, 1960. Tim was posted to Adelaide, and in 1962 at the age of twenty, Penny left Perth. She recalled:

When I first left Western Australia, I remember walking across the tarmac to the plane with Amanda on my hip. I knew my parents were over at the fence. Holding back the tears, I turned around and looked back - not like the time I was sent to boarding school - and I waved.

He was sent to Sydney, Melbourne, Vietnam, Singapore, and back to Sydney. He retired from the army in 1988.

Tim's army career saw them posted to Sydney for five years, then to Melbourne for two years. Tim served a year in Vietnam and was then posted to Singapore for three years. Back in Sydney he remained with the army until 1988 when, at the age of 51, he retired from the service.

In Adelaide, when she first left home, Penny was lonely. In 1963 her mother died.

At first, when Penny went to Adelaide in 1962, she was very lonely for a period. In 1963 her mother became ill and her father said `Keep writing to Mum.' Penny did not realise how serious was the illness so, when she received a telegram saying her mother had died on 4 February 1963, it came as a shock.

When I got the telegram I froze at first, then shed a few tears. My girl-friend from the flat upstairs was there, and we were going to the shops. She said, `Are you OK?' I said, `Yes. Let's go.' So off we went. When I had to pass the news on to Tim, it was a bit upsetting, but he still thought I was handling it very well. Then I got a letter from one of Mum's neighbours. She described my mother's last days with stomach cancer. This I found most upsetting.

Her father stayed with her in Sydney.

Not long after this, her father came over to Sydney and stayed with them for a while.

Daniel was born in August, 1963. Her father died in 1965. Between then and 1985 they completed their family of twelve children.

It was in August of that year, 1963, that her second child, Daniel, was born. Almost two years later her father, Eric, died in a car accident in February 1965. By this time Penny and Tim were establishing a strong family unit of their own. Stephanie was born in May 1965. Then followed Richard in September 1966 and Robert in July 1968. Madeline was born in Singapore in December 1969 and then, back in Australia, there followed Christine in February, 1973, Michael in February 1976, Susan in August 1978 and Gemma in October 1981. Finally they had twin boys - Patrick and Alex - in April 1985.

Penny reflected on the social aspect of her life as an army wife:

During his army life, Penny and her family usually lived in "Civvy Street," except when they were in Melbourne and he went to Vietnam.

Tim preferred us not to live in camps. He always liked us to be out in Civvy Street. Even when we went to Singapore, we went out into Civvy Street. We had some Indonesians living one side, and some Americans on the other. In all our army life we only ever had one army home. That was when we went to Victoria. There we were in a brand new home, so we had to put in the grass and the garden. It was in a small cul-de-sac, near the beach. There were three army families there, while the other people were just locals. It was a good spot to be when Tim went to Vietnam in 1968 becauseI had five other young people who were nearby, and I had support from the other Army people. However, in general, Tim thought that mixing closely with the army during off-duty hours was not good.

Penny was not a socialite and did not feel a typical officer's wife.

Of course, I was not a terribly social person and did not go out much because I was always home looking after the children. When Tim became an officer and we had to go to formal dinners, I found that a little off-putting, but I managed. I never felt like the typical officer's wife.

Their son Robert proved to be retarded and required special care.

In 1980 he went into a private home.

An added problem was that Robert, born in 1968, was a retarded child. He was fourteen months old when they went to Singapore. He was tested in the army clinics, but this was not the equal of a civilian hospital. Penny felt that he did not get the right treatment or medication. When they returned to Australia Robert was four and a half. Penny and Tim looked after Robert at home until he was twelve. Then they found a good private home that could care for retarded people, and he went there in 1980. This cost about $100 per week in addition to his pension and put some financial strain on the family.

Penny started doing day-care work.

Penny was tied to her home because of the children so, in 1982, she started day-care work for children in her home. Penny commented on this:

Some people can organise themselves enough to go out to work, but I like being at home. I don't like rushing by the clock, so I thought I would do day-care. I've been taking in children for the last eight years. This year I cut it down to four days a week. I enjoy that. The first child is dropped at my house at eight in the morning. The last leaves at six at night. All my kids enjoy them too. It helps if you've got a husband who doesn't mind extras in the house, and your own children get on with them. That makes the job much easier.

Today, 1990, she copes with most things easily, but feels she may be too easy on the children.

Today, Penny copes easily with most things. As she said:

I think I do very well. I'm organised enough in the things I know I have to get done, and that's how I get by. Sometimes when I do have things tidy, and I try to keep it that way, I become a bit of a nagger.

Tim is the main cook in the family, and he also helps her with household chores.

Tim is mainly the cook in our family. And when he's watching the football he often says, `bring me the ironing board.' He pulls that up, and while he's watching the footy he'll do some ironing on a Sunday night. I don't know if he enjoys it, but he does it to make my life easier. He reckons I'd never find anyone like him. . .

Once, when Tim's mother came to visit them, she bought a house nearby and some of the older children live there.

In 1990 Penny looked back on her life with Tim and realised that there had been problems through different cultural outlooks, and through racial prejudice in the community.

True to tradition, Tim puts value on Status and position. He values paying respect to one's parents.

Learning from his parents' traditional values, Tim put emphasis on achieving status and position. His mother would like his children to become doctors and lawyers, or, better still, "specialists." His parents had hoped Tim would become an engineer and were disappointed when he went into the army.

He also valued the tradition of paying respect to one's parents. Penny said:

There's nothing wrong with respect for your parents, but Tim is stronger on that with the children than me. Saving face is also important to him. I often think it a shame that Tim's mother didn't follow through with the prediction of a fortune teller that shewent to with Tim when he was a baby. She was told that Tim would have a military career. She didn't believe that, and he was pushed into a university course. He ended up having his military career in Australia. Had it been in Singapore maybe he might have got higher up the ladder. . .

Penny is more concerned with the quality of family and of friendship.

² 1990

Penny has different values. Status, position, money are not important to her. What is important to her?

Having my family around. Being able to see them. Yes, that's important to me. Having friends, sitting down with them and having a cuppa.

Today², Penny and Tim live at 54 Pembroke Street Epping, New South Wales. Tim has retired from the army but with their youngest children still only five, and many years of schooling to complete, they cannot fully retire, even though the older children have grown up and some have left home.

Penny feels there are advantages in being a member of a big family.

Now, as the family grows, Penny sees the advantages of being part of a big family. As she said:

Everyone will always have company, or someone to go to if they've got a problem. The older ones who have left home are starting to get back together a bit now. Maybe only every second or third weekend. They're starting to ring each other and say, "Let's all have dinner." So the girl-friends and boy-friends all get together, and we have them all at home, at least once a month. There's always a birthday about every month. . . and everyone rolls up. . .

Tim's children are very important to him.

When she first left home and her family was small, she felt isolated. Other people had aunts and uncles. Other people had grand-parents. They had only themselves. Penny always wanted a normal family life but, leaving home when she was just twenty years of age, and being plunged into an army life, with probably twelve different addresses in fifteen years, was anything but normal. Today her family has become very important to her. She said:

It's very important to Tim. His life is his kids, and he'd put them all in his pocket if he could, and carry them around.