The good old days.

An acre, A cow and a Family who lived off it.

(I’m writing my mothers story , live here. Mistakes and all)

When were you born ?

On August 11th 1938 at 11:30pm. I came into the world, it wasn’t dramatic as such, but a very big SURPRISE.  My mother was expecting her 6th child, but it was not like in today's world where you are more than likely to know well beforehand that there was another one to follow.  My twin Max arrived on August 12 at around 1:30am. Naturally by date we were born on different days and subsequently celebrated our birthdays through life as such.

Apart from the surprise to all the family, my mother's sister (Aunty Maisie) was either beside herself with the arrival of new twins to her eldest sister, or wasn't aware she registered our births with a new way to spell Margeret (with 2 E's, not 2 A's).  It has been an ongoing issue throughout my life to therefore correct government departments etc as to the correct spelling of my name as registered.  Apart from all that I figured as I got older having a new way to spell Margeret was meant to be (accident or otherwise) because out of 7 children I was the only one to get 1 christian name, not 2.

Where were you brought up?

In Rochester,  a small town in Northern Victoria Australia which had a population of about 4 or 500 people at the time. Most of the families in Rochester had someone working at the Grain Silos, where the grain came in from all the farms throughout the district. Which was shipped out via the railways which was the main form of transport at that time.

What did you parents do?

My mother was a seamstress making and repairing clothes in the local community.  She also worked at a shop in Rochester making men's suits before she was married. 

My father was working as a contractor for the state electricity commission, when they were laying power to serve Rochester. During my upbringing he changed his occupation a number of times. He had his own business but when things got tough he went off shearing sheep. When that work dried up around the local area, he would go away for several weeks at a time shearing in Gippsland and places like that. 

What was your family like?

I was the youngest of the seven children, four brothers and two sisters. My older siblings helped out raising the smaller children. Unfortunately sometimes they weren't terribly reliable at looking after us. One day they took my twin brother and I, when we were babies in the pram, up the road out into the paddock region (we were the second last house on the West end of Rochester before the farms.) and they accidently tipped us out of the pram. They put us back in the pram and walked and walked us until we stopped crying. They didn't dare take us home in a crying state though fear of punishment.

What was your house like ?

Our house was a very basic one for the time. It had hedge at the front and a pathway led to the front veranda. The front door opened to a hallway with 2 small bedrooms either side. You would then walk into the lounge room at the end of the short hall which was relatively narrow.  Left was a small fireplace, with a large lounge chair where my father would smoke cigarettes  as he watch the fire before bed . To the right was a door which lead to a door into a small kitchen/dining area. Where my mother spent many hours hunched over a small wood stove cooking for the whole family.  There was really only room for a table and chairs, which would seat all 9 of us. Although Mum spent most of mealtime going backwards and forwards collecting food for the rest of the family. There was also a kitchen sink, an ice box  and a few small cupboards. The kitchen had a door which led to what was originally a back veranda and at the far right end was a small bathroom. Attached to the veranda was a sleep out to one side. It always seemed full of brassed end beds and old hard mattresses. There was some pot plants out to the right of the sleep out which had a door leading to the back yard. Outside the main feature was the cottage style garden and the clothes line with a small pathway leading to a little outside laundry and of course, a dunny.

Did you grow your own food?   

Pretty much all the food that came from the Farm was to feed the family, the only thing we purchased was tea and sugar. During the war we had ration tickets for these items and sometimes we bought potatoes.   

Originally the house block was quite large probably about an acre but as I got older, we bought another block beside it which was another acre and leased a bit in between so the whole property was about 2 or 3 acres.

On the closest one acre block,  we had a house cow which I had to help get in for milking, I would get some Lucerne and attract her into a small yard. Then Dad would milk the cow and I collected the manure , which would go on the compost heap and once broken down  it would eventually go to the vegetable patch.

We just ate whatever we could grow or catch on the small acreage and the surrounding paddocks. We never had a great variety or knew what a banana or an orange was, until Dad grew an orange tree many years later. So our diet consisted of mainly veggies out of the patch,  fruit and nuts off the trees like a Granny Smith apple and almonds for example and whatever rabbits and fish the boys could catch. Dad mostly picked the veggies and then Mum would do all the washing and preparing. Of course sometimes Mum needed some supplies for that day and the garden was just there so you couldn't get fresher than that.

Who grew all the vegetables ?

My father mainly, he worked on the railways for many years and straight after finishing work he would go out to the vegetable patch which the family relied on for most of their food. Dad finished work at 4:15pm and by 4:30 he was in the vegetable patch until dark every evening. After that he would have dinner and go to bed then do it all again tomorrow.

On the weekends he spent all his time in the vegetable patch. He grew all kinds of seasonal vegetables including

Winter peas, beans, silverbeet, rhubarb, potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, etc

Summer included tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, spinach, Jam melons, carrots, parsnips and all those kind of things.

Without his effort we wouldn't have eaten. Nowadays people can just run to the shop, with no more than a few minutes of forethought. Dad had to plan months and weeks in advance to feed his family.

He did all the harvesting of the potatoes by hand digging them with the shovel.

He worked consistently every night in the garden, he seemed to be always hoeing and weeding. The area dedicated to vegetables was about twice the size of a normal house block in today terms. Plus he grew the pumpkins outside of that space so they can spread over to the paddock, which mainly grew lucerne for the cow. 

What were some veggie growing tips from the war days?

My father used to roll the potato sprouts in Ash from the fire before planting them for a source of potash. It would act like a fungicide to stop them going rotten from the cut that was made. 

He used to soak the bean seeds overnight before planting, if he was in a hurry to get them going. 

He would keep the cow manure from the cow paddock and mix it with old residue and hay from the vegetable patch to make compost.  It would take 2 or 3 months before it was broken down properly.

Were you ever short of food?

During the winter when there wasn't much in the vegetable patch the boys would catch rabbits as a protein source and we would eat the lots of bread with jam, pickles,chutneys from the summer production mum had preserved.

What about rabbiting, how did that work?

Some of my earliest memories were following my brother's around rabbiting during winter and early spring.  When dad was contract sharing he could spend weeks away in Gippsland and the Western district. Not knowing at the time, things were pretty tight financially but later I realised it helped the family budget to catch rabbits and sell them.  

The boys would set the traps after school Friday and then go back around them at about 9pm. Then they would get up early Saturday morning check them again and the same Saturday night and Sunday morning. Later that morning they would clean the rabbits, skin them, soak them in salt and stretch the skins over wire to dry. When the skins were completely cured they were sold at the local Ice-works down the street for extra cash. There was an Ice Works at the end of the street.

I think they were shipped off to England to make things like hats, coat, collar and glove linings plus trim for clothing. 

Rabbits were a main source of meat for two or three months of the year. When dad was home, he would go shearing on the weekends and instead of cash payment he would receive a lamb to kill for meat.

How many rabbits would you get on a weekend?

It would be nothing to get 25 to 30 at night. My sister Elaine had a photo of brother Max which showed how he would thread the rabbits legs through long sticks and put them on his handlebars and sometimes on the back of his bike. 

This allowed him to transport them all home. Rabbits were an excellent source of food until the myxomatosis came along and then we couldn't eat them anymore.

How much money would you get for a rabbitting? 

One shilling and Sixpence a pair. Which is about $0.15 cents

This was a pretty good price in those days. So 30 rabbits times 15c equals 40 shilling or 4 pound. 

It wasn't very much but it all helped in those days.

The income from the rabbits and the veggie patch would go to buy other food. The main things that we bought were sugar, tea, flour, rice, golden syrup,  soap and we would buy a big bag of broken biscuits for sixpence (they were cheap which was a bit of a treat). Matches and tobacco for my father.

The tea was in half pound packets, sugar was by the pound and when dad didn't have any potatoes growing we would buy potatoes from somewhere from Harcourt which was which was just past Bendigo. There would be a truck come up from Hardcourt once or twice a year and we would buy a bucket of apples and potatoes.

You mentioned you had a house cow?

We always had a cow in the paddock which was our main source of fresh milk and we made butter and cream as well, but sometimes it would go dry when she was having her calf.

We had a Lucerne patch growing for the cow and we would cut that with hand shear  and place it in her milking area which would bring her in from the paddock. It was like a little reward and a reason for coming in.

Mum was at home alone for weeks on end as mentioned before during early autumn/spring. So the 7 children who were taught to do our chores at an early age. In the winter we would have to take the cow out on the roadside grazing as the grass would run out in the house paddock and sometimes they would see the local goanna .

How did you separate the cream?

We had our own separator made by A company called Lister which had 22 separator cups in it and was hand driven. We would pour the milk from the cow in the top and out one funnel skim milk would come out and the other cream. After they had finished separating you would have to pull it all apart and wash all the cups.  We had about 10 to 20 litre of milk a day from the cows 9 months of the year and it all went into custard, rice pudding, junket, ice cream, butter, cream and we drank a lot of it.

How did you churn the butter?

Nanna used a hand beater until it got too thick and then she would need and salt it by hand which would help preserve it. She would wash it 3 times in salt and water which would balance the salt and patted into pound lots with 2 wooden paddles. 

What did you do when you run out of butter from the cow?

Mum would always save the rendered fat in a tin from the cooking of the meat and we would have it on our toast with Pepper and Salt. I still love it today which is contrary to popular thinking. I remember Dons Aunty Queenie used to like the same thing who recently passed away at age 102.

What did you do as kids?

When dad was away at work Mum would be left on her own to look after 7 children aged from about 3 to 12 .  We all had our chores to do. I did things like gathering wood and putting it into different sizes because the cooking oven was so small, that it only would fit the small bits of wood. The bigger pieces went in the open fire in the lounge room. I gather eggs then fed the chooks which there was about 20 of them. They provided the family with eggs and chicken meat. In the autumn I collected almonds from the almond tree plus shelled them.

Everyone else had their own choirs to do, as teenagers we would have to wash our own clothes and look after our own personal hygiene etc. I mainly got the dishes as the two older girls were studying at the time and had homework to do. 

How did you get the things you couldn’t grow?

The groceries would we got from the local store but it would take five trips on my bike to get the weeks supply home. The main things we really purchased were Rice, Flour, Tea and velvet soap depending on our budget. We sometimes had various home deliveries of certain things, like the butcher (who came on a bike), the baker and the milkman. The milkman would come in a horse and cart everyday and he would fill up the Billy, as they called it which we left outside. They eventually went over to milk bottles which had a coil lead and continued until the 60s and early 70s.

This was around the time of World War 2 and we are a lot less than people eat now.

Dad was the only money earn it in the family and the first thing was paid for was the mortgage on the house and land a roof over our heads and depending on his weekly earnings at that time if there was nothing left we went rabbiting for meat eggs from the chooks milk from a cow we had fruit from our trees and  vegetables from our  patch the Dad grew. Actually I realised later in life that whilst mom was serving as all she sometimes picked and tasted from cooking but she never said down to a meal for herself perhaps she went to bed with little or nothing

What was your average food you would have in a day?

Dad would set the fire before we went to bed so it was easy to light in the morning before breakfast. So breakfast was always oatmeal porridge or a product called easy meal. I didn't really know what it was but I think it was some kind of grain which was ground finely and had a lovely nutty flavour. You would have that with sugar and milk it was quite a bright coloured brown, it was really nice. When we couldn't afford the oatmeal or the easy meal, we had bread with warm milk which I did not like at all. Other options included toast from homemade bread and our own butter with Jams and preserves Mum had made in the summer. Then when things were really tough we couldn't afford oatmeal and easy meal Dad would grind the wheat that he feed the chooks normally you soak it overnight and then he would cook it.

Lunch

When we had school we always took our lunches which mum made for all 7 of us.

Sometimes we might of had a cooked chop or salad, sometimes cold meat and veggies from the night before, we didn't have sandwiches in those days they were pretty much unheard of. There was no chips or anything like that, it was just good plain food. The menu was always pretty much the same week in, week out. 

Dinner

At dinner time we always had a hot meal because Dad came home from work very hungry after a hard days labour. It would be meat, like a grilled chop, stew, dumplings, corned beef and veggies from the garden.

We used to have bread toast and dripping for dinner when things got a bit tough and the cows out when there was no butter. We might have fried bread just put a slice of bread in fat on the stove and some salt. It's a wonder we weren't like the side of elephants. But we worked very hard and we walked absolutely everywhere to school, shooting rabbits, going shopping, everything was walking or riding the bike.

After school we had bread and jam and cream.

Some of the things we purchased were Sago, Rice, Oatmeal and Easy meal.

What would you have for lunch when going to school ?

We walked home from school which was about 1 mile then after lunch would have to walk back again. We would have toast for lunch or with an egg, leftover from last nights dinner and then we have a piece of fruit and would walk back to school.

On a wet day if it was raining at lunchtime rather than have six children come home, Mum would cut our lunch and bring it up to the school buy walking with an umbrella. Rather than be 6 pairs of wet shoes there would only be one.

In the winter we had a lot of soup and we had rice pudding and junket anything it was made out of the milk from the cow

We also had dumplings a fair bit which was basically flour and water with golden syrup on top

What was your weekly diet like in those times ?

Mum had routine when there was plenty of food.

Monday night was shepherd's pie if there was any cold meat left over from the Sunday Roast and that was for lunch as well

Tuesday was perhaps corned beef  and eggs mostly

Wednesday and  Thursday was rabbits in various forms. 

Friday was fish. She used to buy some cod. 

Saturday was rabbits as well.

If Dad did some shearing work on the weekend, he used to take a lamb for his work and he would kill that on Saturday and we would have it on Sunday.

But if not I was back to rabbits again.

Having our own chooks meant eggs were plentiful and we would occasionally have roast chicken .

We made our own milk butter and cream plus eggs meant custards and puddings were made for desert.

We had about 11 almond trees and in later years we had an orange and lemon trees plus a Granny Smith apple. Grape vines were grown over the footpath that led to the veggie garden so fruit and nuts were consumed at the end of some meals.

What would a food preparation look in those times?

We didn't have a refrigerator until I was about 12,  just an ice chest in the dining room and a Coolgardie safe at the back door.

We would have to go on our bikes to the Ice Works at the end of the street to get the half a block if ice every day in the summertime. Which cost about 9 pence or around ten cents. 

The blocks were about 2ft long 1 ft high and 10 inches across roughly. We would ride our bike down to the ice works every 2 days or so in the winter and put it in a jute bag (like hessian) then balance it between the curly handle bars on the bike on the top bar on the boy bike. It was quite the job but I don’t think i ever dropped it. In the Ice Safe it had a tray in it where there would be ice left over and almost melted on so we would have to chip it off to get the new block to fit.

Our veggies were always freshly grown and picked from the patch then used and consumed straight away. The meat was just put on the ice in the ice chest. 

Some of the fruit was from the garden, we had a couple of apricot trees, rhubarb, grapevines, quince trees and others. Seasonally neighbours would give you a bit of excess that they had from their garden. Sometimes we would buy it from local orchardists and they would sell it in half a case lots. Mum would preserved all this produce by making jams, chutney and pickles. 

When I got to high school, preserving equipment became available so she used to preserve fruit. It was the fowlers company who came out with that.  Some people like our neighbour Mrs Wolf next door would just used to use a big copper over a fire and jars then heat them all up like that.  We preserved rhubarb, beans, peaches, plums and apricots.

Max and i elaine and doug was still home. Ian was 15 when he left home because he got an apprenticeship on the rail . Fred was 18-19 when he went . Uncle Doug was still a builder in 

town. 

She got a refrigerator  when I was 12.

Milk …

We used to get milk from the house cow but when it was dry (for 3 months of the year),we had milk delivered to the door and the butcher came as well. But in latter years when I was about  10 y/o if we ran short of  meat, Mum went down the street to buy sausage meat sometimes. When we were smaller she never bought those sort of things because we just couldn’t afford them .

Bread…

In the early days Mum would bake her own bread but sometimes we would go down on

Sunday night to the local Bakery and get bread when it would be just fresh out of the oven. It smelt so lovely and tasted so good we used to eat the crusts on the way home. Of course we got growled at but it was so good it was worth it.

What chores did you have to do at home in the 1940s ?

As a kids we would always have to make our beds. Then we would get home from school at 4 o'clock we’d put our lunch box on the sink and then take your bag to your room. 

I would ride the bike up the street and do all the shopping on pay night which was every second Thursday and Saturday.It was nothing for me, to go up and down the street five times to get all the shopping back. Because I couldn't carry it all on the bike I had to string bag full and then take those home and went back and got another two. 

Some of the other chores we had to do was sweep the gutter because the grey water would build up. The water from the baths when out into the paddock but the water from the sink went to the front gate.We were never allowed to put too much water down the sink because it would lay out the front of the house and go smelly. Every Friday Mum would wash the floors and do the cleaning and there would always be disinfectant in the gutter which she would sweep out to keep everything bacteria free.

We we never had toilet paper we only had torn up newspaper. That's another job we had to do, we used to have to cut the newspaper or the phone book up into strips and put them on a piece of string to hang in the loo. It wasn't till after I left school that they got toilet paper. 

Rochester had sewerage when they Mum and Dad got married but it wasn’t until the early 50s that it  got out to the outskirts like McKenzie street. We had the outside old dunny with a can and a door at the back where someone would come a take the can every week.

They would have their own choice to do like when they were teenagers they would have to wash their own clothes and look after their own personal hygiene etc.

Margaret mainly got the dishes as the two older girls were studying at the time and had homework to do.

I also had the job of feeding the chooks there was about 20 of them which provided the family with eggs and chicken meat. I would collect almonds from the almond tree and then shell them plus any other seasonal fruit that was growing at the time.

What did you do with the excess vegetables?

Dad used to grow extra vegetables to make more money and my brother Ian would go from house to house to sell them. After the first time he did it, he had regular clients. Sometimes we used to have to help pack things like, peas and beans.

(Mmmm… it seems that growing and selling veggies direct runs deep in the family genetics. Lol)

Ian was allowed to have Monday morning off from school which they had to get permission from the education department for him to take the rabbits off to market.

He had could go and sell the rabbits then because we didn't have refrigeration so they had to go off in quickly Monday morning after catching them on Sunday.

What was Nannas special recipes?

Mum used to make her famous apple cake from the stewed apples encased in a thick crusty shortbread outer . 

Some of her other favourite recipes were Anzac biscuits and Easter eggs covered in icing chocolate.

Green tomato pickles

Apricot jam was really good and Quinces were another thing we had a lot of

because the kids used to pick them off the trees on the way home from school

Dumplings for stew

She was a good cook in general everything was fresh from the garden.

They didn't have all the ingredients that they do in today's world you would just see what you had and make something out of it.

“A good cook is one who can make something GREAT out of hardly anything.”

What do you remember of the 2nd World War ?

I was born just as it started so of course that was pre memory. I remembered the war ending when I was about 7 or 8 years old in 1945  so i don’t remember much except for the daily life which I have expressed in these pages. Being at such a young age it just seemed normal, i didn’t really know anything else, It wasn’t until later years I realised how tough it was. Some parts of the year were very tough to get food, especially when the cow wasn't milking so we couldn't make things like butter, custard and all the things that go with milk. 

In the war years tea, sugar and butter were in short supply and consequently rationed, so we would swap coupons with mum's sister Auntie Leleah for tea coupons (Mum was the only tea drinker at that stage)  because we had heaps of butter (having a house cow) and we swap those coupon for tea. I was talking to someone the other day and he still had some old coupons. Mum always used to buy curry powder, pepper and salt. She could always afford white pepper but not black pepper they were different for some reason.

Did things improve after the war ended?

Not quickly anyway and not to any great extent, but to mark the occasion I got a doll. The rations finished pretty quickly and we didn't seem to have any terrible financial troubles the family might have been experiencing. They didn’t talk about things like that as they do nowadays. Mum and Dad would talk by themselves at the table and if any visitors came we were sent outside. “Children should be seen and not heard was the attitude in those days”.

There was an Ice Works at the end of the street. The rabbits that they didn't eat or couldn't sell they would take to the Ice Works which they would pay them for and they would be shipped off from Rochester.. mum said to England for the skins or the meat? Check this 

What about personal grooming and hygiene products?

In the early days Mum made her own soap but when velvet soap came around, it was like the soap for everything. They used it for cleaning themselves, use it for shampoo, washing floors and clothes. It was the first real all purpose cleaner, unlike today where we have a cleaner for every damn thing.

Eventually when washing machines came out, a product called Rinso was used to wash the clothes.

Dad used to cut the boys hair to save money and the girls have very long hair which they hardly ever cut. I had my first cut when I was 12. It was it was way down past my behind at the top of my legs. Auntie Leilas’ friend used to cut Mum’s hair if not she would do it herself.

Mum used to plait your hair before we went to school I really don't know how she did it all for those seven children.

How about clothes ?

We didn't have any money to buy clothes. Mum used to make all her own clothing being a tailoress. Her mother used to run a boarding house (because she had to raise 5 children on her own because her husband was killed in the First World War) when the borders of the house used to throw trousers and overcoats away, Nan would unpick them then wash all the pieces of material and send them up to Mum. She would then make pants, shirts and coats for the boys, even school clothes. Only having a limited supply of clothing meant mum would be washing clothes everyday. On the weekend, she would catch up with our school clothes,  dry and iron them all, so they were ready for Monday morning.

We didn't have weekend clothes so mum made them as well. We were doing all kinds of things including dirty jobs like rabbiting so she made outdoor clothes from old sugar bags, We used to buy sugar in 40 lb bags which were made of Jute (like a hessian). She would wash them in hot water and they would go soft. Then she would trim the clothes with floral material made from curtains or the old bits of clothing she got from Nan. So they were jute on the outside and bits of soft floral material on the inside. They were comfortable but didn’t look great.

She seem to be ironing in all the time we were never allowed to turn the iron on certainly while dad was around. We had to use the black irons which you would hate on the wood stove.

Mum also made her own starch because we used to starch the clothes in those days. Especially when they are in petticoats and aprons.

Go to Swan Hill Museum and get photos

On days that we're not particularly sunny or windy mum would have to go out the clothes lines several times a day to turn the washing over towards the sunlight and adjust it on the line for adequate drying. There was not enough room around the fireplace sometimes to dry washing and this was before the clothes horse and Hills Hoist wasn't invented. The Hills Hoist was came about when I was about 14 years old. Which was in the early 50s.

When they became available she got a hills hoist and a clothes wringer. She never had a wringer for all those years she would ring everything by hand. As a result, mum's wrist had creases in them where the wrist bone met the joint of her hand. The wrinkles were a good quarter inch high.

What clothes did your mother  have?

She might have had two dresses, one for special occasions. Mainly only one and should wear a skirt and her jumpers were handknitted. Nan and Mum used to hand knit a lot of jumpers for us. Nothing was bought.

Mark … I remember she knitted a lot of  cardigans scarves and jumpers for us I think even gloves. She was knitting all the time

What sort of chores did Nana have to do?

Dad would set the fire before we went to bed so it was easy to light in the morning for breakfast. As soon as we were all off to school and work she would have to heat up the copper so that she could get the washing started. Having seven children and only having one or perhaps two items of clothing for everyone, meant that washing was done and had to be dried everyday. (so it could be used the next day or night for example in the case of sheets etc).

We didn't have a washing machine until I left school (which was about 15 years old) so all the washing was done by hand.  Once the water was heated in the copper the washing would be put in and she would boil it all (this was to kill any bacteria). Then she would have to ring it out all by hand and hanging out on the line. Of course in those days there were no dryers so getting washing dry was quite the chore.Sunday night routine was darning socks or elbows in jumpers or mending jumpers and other clothing.

What about bedding?

Prior to mattresses having springs in them, they were made out of a thing called Kapok (it was kind of a tree-cotton made to stuff mattresses). It was like old pieces of cotton thread and fluffy bits which if you didn't fluff up occasionally it would compress down and go solid. So once or twice a year for every mattress, Mum would undo the mattress seam and empty all the Kapok out. Then she would wash it, rinse it and put it on a bed frame out in the sun to dry. Then she would be in and out of the house all day long, tossing and turning the Kapok so it would dry properly. The same sort of thing would be done for all the pillows. So there were 6 mattresses and 6 pillows to do. It was a pretty tedious job but it made the beds more comfortable and would get rid of any bacteria etc. 

What about shoes ?

Shoes was the only thing that we had of our own, everything else was handed down. Dad believed that everybody should have their own shoes because everyone had individual feet.

So somehow they managed to purchase a pair of shoes for each of us,  mind you we went barefoot in the summer months when we weren’t at school. We had knitted bed socks for slippers in the winter time and Dad used to resoled and reheel our shoes. He would buy a sheet of leather and repair them on the weekends with a tool which was like a foot made out of steel that you put upside down on the workbench and hammer the shoes into shape and then put them together usually with small tacks. Occasionally he might put a tack in the wrong place then you would feel it and ask him to reposition it in the shoe.

It seems veggie growing runs in the family?

My eldest brother Fred grew tomatoes as one of his first businesses. The tomato business was situated at a place called Cotter and he had one White horse that pulled a cart and he used to do all his weeding and cultivating with it, I think. I am unsure how many acres he had under tomatoes but maybe it was enough that Fred and Dad to pick. 

During the tomato season, they used to stay out at the block in these old caravans. Sometimes we would go out and visit him. It must have been very hot in the summer time sleeping out there, not to mention putting up with the flies and mosquitoes

The tomatoes were picked into wooden crates and then taken off the patch to be sold at Heinz, where they were processed. 

Did anyone else grow vegetables?

My twin brother Max grew vegetables too, he worked for Heinz with Dad on what was an experimental plot where they would try out different tomato varieties. They had a depot just behind our house block where 7 or 8 people worked. It was like a research farm, where they would grow seedling plants for them, grow them out to record yields, disease problems and other production related issues. Then from the information they collected they would choose those varieties to be grown out on the farms for sauce production. I remember Dad spending the winter months repairing wooden seedling trays and cases ...no plastic in those days.

The whole yard was lined (which was about an acre from memory) with wooden cases and trays, hundreds if not thousands of them, Across the east boundary road and front gate, lived our family friends the Maroneys, who had several boys in the family. On the weekends and after school they would get into these wooden crate piles, make cubby houses, long tunnels and have a great time. Dad would have to constantly chase them out, as he was concerned they would hurt themselves with boxes falling in on them etc.

What did you do when leaving school? 

I went to  Rochester Primary/High School. I left school in 1956 at age 15 and had various jobs. In the 1950s was a time when married women came into the workforce which didn't leave a lot of jobs in a small place like Rochester for school leavers. It was very hard to find jobs in smaller towns unless you were prepared to leave home or travel. My own transport was not an option for me at that time.

I spent 3 years in retail and decided that wasn't for me, so did 2 smaller jobs ironing 2/3 nights for a neighbour and usherette at the local theatre 2 or 3 nights.  I started at the hospital doing domestic duties and this enabled her to save 1 pound 6 shillings a week to learn bookkeeping and typing (which i got certificates in both) at night school at the local convent. This was the only place to learn out of retail hours.  As a result of that, I then got a job at Victorian Producers which was like a stock and station agent in town, doing book work and office duties.

.Then I got a job at the butter factory in Rochester and then later moved to Shepparton when I was 21. My Brother Fred, also worked at the local butter factory whereby he completed his Milk and Cream Testers Certificate. I remember him telling me that one time a large mouse or rat drowned itself in one of the cream vats, so the workers picked it up but before tossing it away they carefully stripped all the cream off the animals back into the vat so as not to waste any of the cream.( Ewwww) I am sure the food safety standards have improved since then.

When ice cream came to town ?

Ice cream came out when Fred was about 18 years old around 1955. It was available at the Ice Works in Rochester. After doing well at his tomato business Fred moved to Swifts Creek to go into business for himself. Peter's Ice Cream made an ice cream brick which came in a cardboard box and Fred used to sell it in his cafe to the workers who used to come in from the Timber mills and they would eat a brick each after work. It was about 3 shillings for a brick and it was over a litre of ice cream.

When did you leave home?

I decided to leave home at 20, when a job became available at Goldsborough Mort (an agricultural business involved in wool trade) in Shepparton.  I boarded at the local Shepparton YWCA and then found private board. I havent eaten brussel sprouts since the YWCA.  “ I think they must have boiled them for about a month!” she said.  “Revolting.”

What did you do for leisure?

In amongst all of that I enjoyed playing sport including Tennis and basketball as it was called in those days (now netball) and gymnastics.  I was a member of the local CWA Youngerset.  I loved dancing and this was where I met Don at a local Young Farmers dance, in 1959. Don had a car and the dances were the main social interaction of people in those days although I did meet many nice people at the theatre, where I was an usherette. Don and I became engaged in 1960.  

When did you get married?

I was married in 1961. Mind you, this girl was never going to marry one of those whingeing farmers who only spoke of bad weather and production prices.  She learnt a lot working for 3 years amongst them, but low and behold I did just that. But for those of you who know Don well, he was an exception.

It wasn't until after I was married and raising my own family. I realised that my mother wouldn’t sit at the table while we ate and run backwards and forwards to get what was needed but can't remember her actually eating her own meal sometimes. (perhaps there was not enough to go around)  

She never used to eat much at all, she loved bread, butter and gravy of the stew but she wouldn't eat much meat. She may have just tasted here and there whilst cooking but probably didn't eat much because she was always very thin. I am thinking now she went without, when food was a bit short to feed her hard working husband and seven growing children. 

She would pretty much live off bread and butter. (even up to just before she died)

She did have stomach ulcers and had them operated on, so she couldn't consume much of food as it was too hard on her digestive system. When she came home from the hospital she was told to eat small amounts and often . When she was asked if she was going to have some food she will always reply “ just a speck”.

Apart from that she was fairly well,  she had a lot of stress in her life but was in pretty good health. In latter years she used to have one stout and lemonade some evenings. The Stout used to come in big beer bottles, which was stored in the ice chest of the fridge with a cork in it and have a with her own lemonade, she also made ginger beer and a cordial called 50/50. 

To be completed.

C Copyright Mark Rathbone 12/12/24.