Chapter 11.1 – The Scrapings of the Pot

In 1877 Joseph Dangerfield 2 married Margaret Thoday the daughter of my great-great grandparents, Henry and Maria Thoday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward Howard (Howard), or as he humorously described himself “The Scrapings of the Pot.”

In 1913 Howard married Charlotte Maud (Lottie) Offler, and they spent the next 50 years together and enjoyed a very happy marriage. On 25th May 1963, sadly, Howard’s beloved wife died and Howard was bereft!

It is the 23rd July 1963 and almost 2 months since Howard’s wife Lottie died.

Today I am visiting Howard at his little home which must feel so empty with no Lottie in his life. Howard is 74 years old this year and was married for 50 of those years.

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I am 24 years of age and have been married to Jeff Berry for three years. I am the granddaughter of Howard’s sister Alice Maud Dangerfield, so he is my great uncle.

“Good morning, Uncle Howard. I am so pleased to see you.”

“Come in Fay, and thank you for coming to visit. I can certainly do with some company. It is very lonely without my Lottie. Everyone has been so good to me. So many visits and gifts of meals for the freezer.”

“We all care about you Uncle.”

“Yes, I know, but in the end everyone has their own life; they have to get on with their’s and I have to get on with mine. Lottie has been gone for two months now and I really can’t seem to get my head around it. Every time I hear a sound I think it is her and my heart leaps into my chest and then when it is not her I feel overwhelmed with this deep sense of loss and loneliness.”

“That is so sad and I know you miss her so much. Uncle I am wondering whether you would feel like telling me some of your story about your early life and how you met Lottie? Of course if it is too painful, then that’s okay too.”

“Actually I would love to talk about Lottie and my life with her. That’s one of the things I am finding so difficult. After a while people stop mentioning my Lottie, it’s like they are afraid of breaking some ‘taboo,’ and yet all I want to do is talk about her, to hold her to myself for a little longer.”

“I do understand, Uncle Howard, I’d love to hear all about your life Uncle. ”

“Why don’t I make you a cup of tea and then we can sit in the lounge and take our time?”

“Why not? I’ll make the tea, Uncle, you stay where you are.” I boiled the kettle and poured a pot of tea and brought it into the lounge. I poured us two cups of the steaming brown liquid and then settled myself into a comfortable chair opposite Howard and waited expectantly.

“Well, my name is Edward Howard Dangerfield and I was born on 29th Sep 1889 at Port Broughton. I was baptized as a Christadelphian on 14th Oct 1930. I married Charlotte (Tot or Lottie) Maud Dangerfield (Offler) on 14th March 1913. Lottie was born in 1894 and baptized on 4th Nov 1930. Lottie died on 25th May 1963 and my to me, it is as if my life ended on that day.

“That is certainly how it must have felt.”

“Do you want the short version or the long version of my story?”

“I would prefer the very long version, if you are willing.” Howard settled himself more comfortably in his chair and began to talk.

“I was born in a house a mile or so north of the then little town of Clare, on the lower north of South Australia. This happened because Joseph Dangerfield 2 and Margaret Thoday, daughter of Henry and Maria Thoday, had decided to marry, some thirteen years before, and I was the final result of their success in adding to the population of South Australia.

My entry upon the scene seems to have been somewhat noisy even though I was born tongue-tied. But in the small hours of the morning, some of my brothers and sisters thought from the sounds they heard that possibly there was a possum in the rafters of the roof.”

I smiled to myself, I could tell already that this was going to be an enjoyable morning and Howard was an interesting and talented storyteller.

“I was born into quite a goodly number of relatives so it would seem.

My father, Joseph Dangerfield Jnr was born at McLaren Flat, south of Adelaide. He had brothers named Henry, Charlie, Bert, Jim, Edward and Tom, also sisters, Sarah, Susan, Rose, Ellen, Emma and Annie (Maryanne).

Granddad Dangerfield, Joseph 2, was an Englishman but of what county am not sure, but he had been in the British Navy and lived to be pretty close up to the century.

As far as I know, Grandma Dangerfield’s maiden name was Sarah Elliott and her people hailed from McLaren Vale way and she also lived to a great old age.

Of my mother’s people – her parents also hailed from England – grandfather Henry Thoday from Cambridge and grandma Maria Thoday (Cooke) a Cockney, being born within sound of the Bow Bells.

My mother Margaret’s brothers were named Sam, Nat, Henry, William, Alf, John, Joe and George; sisters were Sarah, Lizie, Alice and Emma, and I believe all this crowd also had families of their own, though I met but a few of them, they amounted to a fair throng of cousins.”

“How quickly families multiply, Howard,” I commented “no wonder we lose track of each other within one or two generations.”

“Yes we do indeed,” Howard replied. “Well, the Dangerfield men were big men. Uncle Henry was well over six feet and weighed 17 stone of bone and muscle and was a powerful man.

Joseph 2, my father, was just over six feet tall and weighed 15 stone at 17 years of age. Dad grew up the hard way. He was driving bullocks at the age of six years, but at that age he found it hard to handle the whip, so I was told. He was a teamster in the upper regions of South Australia before the northern railway was laid and he carted wool to Port Augusta from those far northern stations such as Oraparinna and Aroona. He was born with itchy feet which he maintained right up to middle age.”

“Yes, my grandmother Maud used to talk to my mother about how the Dangerfields moved from place to place in search of work or to take up a new farm. ”

“Yes, we moved around a lot in those early years. After wool carting by team was finished due to the advent of the railway, Dad engaged in farming pursuits mainly in the lower north of South Australia and upper York Peninsula.

He took up a farm at Bookabie near Fowler’s Bay on the Great Australian Bite and travelled overland to it from Port Broughton in 1892. He had a wagon and team and a horse and dray, the latter driven by brother Charlie who was then 15 years old.

Charlie was the eldest of the children, and then came Maud, Harry, Bessie, Elijah, Mary and Martha were twins, but died in infancy, then Howard who is yours truly, “the scrapings of the pot” my family used to call me.

“That was not very polite of them,” I commented.

“Have you ever known siblings to be polite to each other?” Howard laughed. “Dad, due to wide experience, was very proficient in the handling of horse teams and even on the his safari to Fowler’s Bay he was instrumental in helping another teamster from Port Broughton by the name of Gray who was experiencing difficulties on the trip.

The rest of our family went to Fowler’s Bay in the steamer “Ferret.” Being born very late, I had only reached the age of three years at this time but my memories begin at Bookabie. I can remember the wild camels that used to come into Fowler’s Bay for water. I can still see brother Lige running for safety after calling Bess a liar for saying he was playing with the water in the barrel that constituted the household supply. But Dad, taking off his belt as he pursued Lige, was too fast for the lad, who copped the belt where it did the most good.

“I can still see Charles being hauled up from the well by means of the windlass with a bucket and rope in the usual manner, but with Charl in the bucket was also a snake which he had killed down in the well.

I can still hear the roar of the surf at the Nantabee Beach though it was several miles away from where we lived. The sea was seldom calm in the Bight. Perhaps best of all, I can remember Sander’s donkey, whose braying used to scare the living daylights out of me. My haven of refuge was under the bed, as fast as I could make it.

Sambo, the chief of the local blacks, I’d also seen on occasions.” Howard paused for a moment and took a sip of his tea. His eyes seemed to be looking far away into another time and place. His words had reminded me of stories my mother had told me of my grandma’s memories of Fowler’s Bay.

“One thing I do not remember, not being present when it happened, but heard about it many times, was when Dad and Charl went out shooting with the horse called Turp in the shafts of the spring dray. They saw a wild turkey skulking among the bushes within shooting distance, stopped the horse, took aim and fired at the turkey. Turp, startled at the gun blast, bounded forward clean out of the harness, causing the dray to tip its shafts into the air and spilling the occupants out of the back and onto the ground. To cap it all, the turkey flew away. I’m sorry I missed that lot!”

“I am sure that would make a good picture in something like ‘Footrot Flats,’” I laughed.

“That it would,”Howard chuckled to himself.

“We were only there about two years and then returned to Port Broughton, traveling on the steamer “Helen Nicole.” Here Dad with a partner named Ned Campbell took a contract lumping wheat from farmer’s wagons and loading lighters which took the wheat out to vessels waiting at anchorage out in the gulf. It was here that Dad for a bet carried a four-bushel bag of wheat with a man sitting atop of it to the top of the wheat stack. I tell you he was a powerful man! I’m happy to say I never had the experience of feeling the weight of his foot inside his number nine boots.”

I laughed at the picture his words conjured up – another one for ‘Footrot Flats,’ I thought. I was fascinated by Howard’s description of my grandfather Joseph, I had heard many stories about him from my mother and my Aunty Ronda Critchley (Williams) but Howard’s story was helping me to piece it all together.

“It was at Port Broughton that I started my school-going career. A pretty hectic start it was too. At that time my sister Bess was assistant teacher there, with Evan Thomas as head master. The scholars’ desks and forms were immovably joined together being carried on a unit-type base and were long enough to accommodate six pupils. Pupils were seated boy and girl alternately. I don’t know if the idea was to obtain increased decorum on the part of the scholars, but it sure suited me very well. I was seated between Claria Gardiner on the one side and Minnie Eley on the other All this is preliminary to the episode which made my schooling have a hectic start at six years of age.

“When the task assigned by the teacher was finished on this specific occasion I propped my knees up against the rear edge of the desk, a not very comfortable position I’ll admit, but it suited me fine to do so. Bess, being assistant teacher of my class, ordered me to put my knees down. That was a mistake! If I had been kindly asked, that might have had different results. But ordering! There my knees remained.

“Bess went and complained to the Head and he came along and ordered removal with similar results – nothing doing! So he ‘did his alley.’ There was only one way to shift me and that was sideways, but I was seated third from the aisle. He gave me an almighty sideways shove toward the aisle end of the desk sliding me not very gently over the end. The two seated nearer the end, of course, reached there first and me on top of them, spread-eagle in the aisle. But that gave him a chance to get his cane into action, which he did with a right good will. He walloped me all the way to the lobby and continued the treatment there. I received it back and legs and of course voiced my complaint full volume. But all good things come to an end and probably he became tired anyway.

“Preparatory to me going to bed at night, my mother used to adjust my pajamas and hear my prayers at her knee. It was then that she noticed the bruises left by the cane upon my legs, thighs and back. O yes! If sparing the rod spoils the child, this child at the moment was not spoiled. However, mum showed the marks to Dad who straightway went to Mr Eley.

Mr Eley was chairman of the school board and also the district council. I have mentioned that I was seated as were all boys between two girls, one of whom was Minnie Eley. She, together with another boy, was between me and the end of the form and so formed part of the heap of three bodies on the floor of the aisle when I was pushed violently to the end of the form and into that aisle. Doubtless Minnie would tell her father of the affair and together with the evidence of my condition, would have sufficient proof of brutality to have the teacher transferred elsewhere – per agreement of the school committee and another teacher, Mr Harford, took his place.”

“That’s awful, Howard. Because of your bad behavior that poor teacher lost his position at the school!”

“I know, and I’m not proud of it – now, looking back, though at the time I felt quite jubilant about it. Teachers in those days could be very harsh. At Port Broughton there used to be a small almost square barge with slightly sloping sides about two feet high and a flat bottom. This was used for little odd jobs about the jetty and was kept, when out of use, moored to the jetty. The kids from the school used to make use of this little vessel to play in, yes, and on occasion even sail in.

A row of piles, remnants from a dismantled jetty, were left standing not far from the jetty which was in use. These piles would be covered by water when the tide was on the rise and high, but above the surface at low tide. On one occasion, a number of kids got into the barge, hoisted the big sail and hoped to go places but the wind blew the outfit over the top of one of said piles and there it stuck fast, like a toffee apple on a stick. The kids of course got out to swim back to the jetty which allowed the barge to float free of the pile and so be moored again in its place at the jetty.

“You must have had such fun there as kids.” I had stayed at Port Broughton with my father and mother in the late 40’s and knew the jetty and could picture everything Howard was saying.

“We truly did, so much fun! On another occasion the barge was beached and the inside of it tarred because of a tendency to leak. Brother Charlie got into it, not realizing the tar had not yet set and dried. The consequence was black tar stuck to his feet. He was seated on the beach trying to scrape the tar off with a stick when another kid came along, saw the state of his feet and said, ‘You dirty beast.’

“If you can’t talk better than that, clear out,” was Charlie’s reply. On another occasion, the kids went sailing in the barge to take some of the others home from school as they lived near the beach. But as the vessel was sailing so well, they kept going right on past the home of the kids to the head of the inlet only to find that they could not sail back. As I’ve said, the barge had a flat bottom and the thing wouldn’t tack but only drift with the wind. The going was good with the wind behind on the way out but to come back, well, they just had to leave the barge and walk home. Time was when brother Harry, Henry Excill and Carmen borrowed the yacht “Chrisanthe” and went out into the gulf from Port Broughton on a fishing trip. But an unnoticed squall overturned the yacht while they were five miles out and Carmen was not a local lad and couldn’t swim. However, the other two got him onto the upturned hull where he felt safe but the wind was blowing the yacht further out to sea so there was no use staying with it. There was only one thing to do, strip off and swim for it, with the two swimmers helping the non-swimmer. An occasional sand bank across which they could walk eased the position quite a bit but it was still quite a feat for two swimmers to bring in a non-swimmer five miles. Then they had to hire a power launch to go out and bring in the yacht which had in the meantime drifted out some distance. They could all swim like fish – otherwise the capers they used to get up to with the barge would have had half of them drowned.”

“It’s a wonder they all lived to grow up,” I commented.

“Our parents thought so. But now Dad’s feet began to itch again and probably he was feeling like a change from wrestling with bags of wheat. So he took over a market garden near Carey’s Gully about 12 miles westward of Uraidla. I had a 1 ½ mile walk around the road to attend the Uraidla school until some of the local children showed me a shortcut through private property which shortened the distance by about a half mile. The most I remember about that school is that my teacher was named Miss Payne, but I don’t remember her transmitting such pain to me as I received at Port Broughton school. Also the headmaster’s name was James Phillips who wore a seemingly permanent plaster on the side of his nose. The local kids had an uncomplimentary rhyme concerning him which won’t bear repeating here, but I didn’t fall foul of him either.

“22nd June 1897 was Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and as a scholar of Uraidla school I received a medal to commemorate the occasion, then staying the night with people named Hart out Norwood way. Most of what else comes to my mind of this period of market gardening is misty mornings and drizzling rain. At one time we didn’t see the sun for three weeks due to weather conditions. These conditions by no means suited mother and so it was decided to move to a drier clime. For a time we lived behind Burden’s old shop at Kadina near the railway station, then moved to a house on Taylor Street and I attended the Kadina Public School. But to reach there it was necessary to pass the Catholic School which was something of a problem as there was quite active enmity between scholars of the two schools. This meant ‘running the gauntlet’ on more than one occasion, but my feet were fast enough to prevent my face from getting hurt.

“I can remember my brothers and I experienced the same sort of thing in the 1950s during our early years at 118 Glen Osmond Road Parkside.” I smiled with the remembrance. “We lived two doors up from the “Little Sisters of the Poor” convent school. The rear entrance to the school opened out onto Macklin Lane behind our house and factory and at lunch times and after school we used to stand at the entrance of the convent and chant some not very polite doggerel at them and then run like mad back home with a crowd of angry Catholic students pelting after us.”

“There certainly was a great antipathy between Catholics and Protestants in those days. While the rest of the family moved to Broken Hill, Maud, Bess and I were left in Kadina till suitable accommodation for us all was found in Broken Hill. I stayed for a time with Uncle George and Aunt Emma Thomas at a suburb of Kadina called Newtown. They, at that time had one boy called Georgie who was a dream. That is, he went by opposites. Tell him not to do something and he’s sure enough to do it and vice versa. To say he was a spoiled brat would be to praise him. One time, to teach him a lesson, his mother tied him to a table leg by means of a strap around his waist. But he complained that it was choking him and his mother always let him go. I guess it gave her respite for a few minutes. Then for a time I stayed with Uncle George Thoday and Aunt Edie. It was then that I learned the art of ‘wagging’ it from school but was found out because Maud and Bess went to school to see me but I wasn’t there. I was tickling spiders and such like interesting things out in the park lands with other boys whose names I have forgotten. So when I reached Uncle’s place that evening I was confronted by my two sisters and the game was up. However, the reason they had come looking for me in the first place is because they wanted to tell me we were to prepare to move to Broken Hill, a move which was made shortly after.

“In Broken Hill we made quite a number of shifts from one house to another, but I don’t think it was with the purpose of dodging the rent collector, but rather to get a more suitable type of dwelling or place with lower rental. First we lived in Crystal Street opposite Block 14 mine, then moved to a slightly larger house at the corner of Argent and Iodide streets and from here I started to attend the North Broken Hill Public School which entailed a rather long walk. Then we shifted to Mica Street address, near Iodide Street and that shortened my school walk somewhat but the house was too small so we shifted to a place known as Renowden’s in Iodide Street and close to Mica Street. This place proved too large and so two rooms were sublet to other tenants. We found this was not a very good idea so we moved to a place a little further down Iodide Street. Here we stayed for a time till Dad made the buying of a place in Lane Street North Broken Hill between the North Post Office and Murton Street. Here we remained till Dad was allotted a scrub farm in the Koppio area of Eyre Peninsula about five miles west of Yallunda Flat. But the Lane Street home made my school walk quite short as the school was in Chapel Street only one street away. I had birthdays in Broken Hill from my ninth to 14th.

“That was probably about the longest time you stayed in one place, wasn’t it?” I queried.

“I think it might have been. At any rate, these years constituted the main portion of my schooling experience and a miserable time it was and that schooling still leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. For most of that period I was in classes under the supervision of the headmaster, a redheaded Irishman by the name of John Conley, a man who believed in a liberal application of the cane to drive education into the mind of his unfortunate scholars. But with me it was not successful. So much so that I finally shot through after I had gained my leaving certificate and refused to go back. There are still a number of cuts of the cane due to me over that lot, but I’d no intention of going back to collect. You see I consider I had more than my share of cuts as it stood, without them.