Chapter 12 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter – Vol 2 – 1973-1974 New Zealand

The night before our daughter, Jesia Gail Berry was born, at midnight Jeff and I stopped long enough to try to choose a name for her. Of course not knowing whether our baby would be a boy or a girl, we needed to choose two names.  There were charts being painted at our house, and a bunch of young people were sitting on the lounge floor helping us with the painting. My sister-in-law Beth had just had her baby 3 months previously and called her baby Danielle Ami.

We chose the names at midnight, Jesia Gail if she was a girl, or Jonathan Michael if a boy. Well, it wasn’t that easy. Jeff and I could not agree for ages on suitable names, even though he had consulted his concordances to find biblical names. In the end I simply got too tired to be bothered any more, so I accepted the least dislikable names and the job was done.

Our daughter, Jesia Gail, was born on 27th April 1973, weighing 9 lb 7 oz. It looked as thought she would be born in a similarly rapid fashion to most of my previous births, but it did not end that way. Instead of my expected four hours from first contraction to birth, it took 17 hours for my baby to be born. I wasn’t concerned at how long the birth was taking, because I was convinced that it was going to be a boy, and therefore somehow expected that the birth might be “different.” What I did not understand was why my doctor kept checking my baby’s heartbeat much more frequently than what I had come to expect and it was only when my little Jesia was born, not Johnathan Michael as I was expecting, that Dr Thatcher told me that it was because my baby was born “face present” that it had taken such a long time to be born. He said that he should have given me a C-section to be safer, but knew how much I wanted to deliver naturally and so decided to let nature take its course. One other thing I had thought was “odd” at the time was that just before the actual birth, a whole troop of doctors entered the room and sat themselves around the perimeter of the birthing room, sitting on chairs and benches to watch proceedings. Dr Thatcher told me later that they had all come to watch a “face present” birth which was going to be achieved “naturally” and not as a C-section. Well, Jesia Gail was born and when I saw her face emerge “the wrong way up” I finally worked out what all the fuss was about and why so many doctors were there to watch me give birth.

It was in 1973 that the Brinkerhoff’s came back to Adelaide and I was delighted. I determined to find the Brinkerhoff’s a place to rent that was nearby and if possible even closer to the beach. I looked at every property that came up for rental and finally found a place right on the seafront at Henley Beach. It was Number 70 Esplanade Henley Beach and it was just perfect! The rent was affordable and the location simply marvelous. We resumed our friendship seamlessly and it was as if they had never left Australia at all. Their Henley Beach house had a big lounge and an enclosed veranda with glass picture windows overlooking the sea. Our combined children spent many hours in the sand hills and beach in front of the Brinkerhoff home and it was alway such a pleasure to enter their home and hear Forrest say, “Hello, Fay Berry, how about making me a cup of tea.” He would sit comfortably there in the lounge room with his feet up on a table or chair and regale me with his latest ideas and tell me what he had been teaching the children at the school that day. Forest loved to cook so he might tell me how he was making Spanish Rice for dinner that night. When the children would arrive home from school, at whichever house, they would go straight to the kitchen and make themselves vegemite sandwiches if they were Australian, or peanut butter and jelly if they were American! The Brinkerhoff children resumed their schooling at Cowandilla along with ours and so they all saw each other every day. After school, they would all come to our place or to their place. At night time Mary Ann and I would check to see which children were at which house, and to make sure that we had a full complement of kids between us.

One Sunday night in October, 1973, Jeff and I and the kids called in to see Peter Weller. We were too late for the lecture that night and Jeff knew that Peter was going to be home minding his kids whilst Shirley was at the lecture. The children went up into the children’s bedroom to play and Jeff and I went into Peter’s study to chat with him. As we were leaving, Peter said, “Oh dear. I hope Fay’s not pregnant, because our kids have got German Measles and I was supposed to tell you not to go into the children’s bedroom.” Well, Peter’s words gave me a moment of uneasiness, because it so happened that my period was about two days overdue and since I was usually as regular as a clockwork, I had been wondering if I just might be…. Well, the days passed and my period didn’t come and I knew that I was pregnant and I was delighted. One afternoon I and the children all walked across the paddock one visit Grandma and Grandpa and as we walked I told the children that it was possible that I might be pregnant and the children were all delighted. After visiting with Grandma and Grandpa we were walked back across the paddock to our home when Jimmy said, “Mum, I’m not feeling too well.” From that moment on, one by one, each of the children began to have ‘flu symptoms. I was not worried about it because I was sure it WAS just the ‘flue, but then when Jeff became sick too, it was different, because he was covered form head to toe with an ugly rash even on his feet. It was German Measles.

Jeff insisted that I go for a blood test, so I did, but then forgot all about it and continued on feeling sure that everything was okay because I hadn’t got the ‘flu symptoms or any spots. A week later the phone rang, and Dr Thatcher asked me to come in and visit him. He told me that my blood was full of antibodies and I that since the antibodies were present in my body within the first two weeks of my pregnancy, I should have the baby aborted. I was horrified. How could that be? I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel unwell. I refused the idea of an abortion, saying that I wasn’t sick, that it would be okay, that we would leave it up to God. Well, the rest of my family did not agree with me, even the children. The weeks that followed were hell for me. I so wanted this baby and everyone around me wanted me to have an abortion. I was ten weeks pregnant and my doctor called me up again and asked me to come in and see him. He was sitting at his desk with a pile of books in front of him. He opened them up and showed me what happened with German measles and a pregnancy. He said that I could go ahead and have the baby if I liked, and if everything turned out okay, I could say “I told you so!” But if I was wrong and the baby was affected then every member of my family would have to “wear it.” With the whole world it seemed against me, I had the abortion, but I was NOT happy.

The abortion was achieved without any problems, but after that I simply went to bed and stayed there. I refused to get out of bed. I refused to eat and just lay there and mourned the loss of my little boy. No, I did not know that it was a boy, I just believed that it was a boy, and I had so wanted a little boy to complete our family. I got thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker. In the meantime Jeff was preparing for a special effort in New Zealand. I had told him I was not going with him and he had better book a plane flight because I was not driving with him to Sydney. Jeff being Jeff refused to book the plane ticket because he believed that eventually I would be forced to drive with him to Sydney because he couldn’t drive all that way alone.

Around this time not only did Jeff have to think about the loss of our baby, but the Woodvile ecclesia had a problem it was dealing with. A sister had made an complaint against a brother and his “inappropriate behaviour” towards her, and Jeff had been given the job of “sorting” the matter, because he was an AB at the time. The brother concerned was a prominent brother in the Woodville ecclesia, and the AB had asked him to step down from his ecclesial offices until the matter had been resolved. The brother refused to resign his positions,and so several AB meetings later and the issue still not being resolved, an ecclesial business meeting was called for the whole ecclesia to hear about the problem and hopefully sort out the matter. The meeting was a failure and the brother concerned would not resign his positions. It was right at this stage that Jeff had to leave for New Zealand so Jeff had to walk away from the problem and leave it still unsolved until he returned from NZ.

The day before Jeff was to leave for Sydney, it became obvious to me that he was expecting me to go with him. It was useless me fighting, because he could not drive all that way alone, so on 22nd December, 1973 I climbed out of bed and drove with Jeff and the children on our way to Sydney. I left Jesia, newly weaned, home with grandma to mind. We called in briefly and visited with Colin and Chris Hollamby at Waikerie, and then drove on towards Hay. All went well until we got to the Hay plains where we had a broken water hose. We sent a message via a caravan going to Goolgowie and they sent a tow truck back and we were towed to Goolgowie. We tried to get a room at the Royal Mail Hotel but the only room they had available was one with just a 3/4 single bed in it. We took the room and put mattresses down on the floor for the children to sleep on and Jeff and I made the best of it in the 3/4 single bed. The best part about our stay at the Royal Mail hotel was the beautiful big bath they had there. We filled it almost to the brim with hot water, and Deb and Judy and I got into it all together. It was delicious. When I sat up in the bath, the water came up to my shoulders and the water stayed hot for such a long time. It was simply wonderful. I have never forgotten that bath in the all the years since. I took the children to a playground that we found in the township, and we all swung on the swings and slid down the slippery dip. I sang my head off while I was there, much to the children’s embarrassment. “Mum, don’t sing, what will people think?” they said. I really didn’t care what they thought. It was just such a pleasant break there waiting for our car to be fixed and I wanted to make the most of it. When finally the car was fixed, we drove the rest of the way to Sydney without event and arriving at Lugarno, we had breakfast with Kay and Phillip Russell who lived there. We visited Garnet and Reneira Alchin and then went to Fran and Marg Ryan’s place and stayed the night at their home in Warner’s Bay.

Jeff flew of to NZ and I went to the Rathmines Bible School where I could rest and recover because I was still feeling very listless and weak. Judy had to go to the dentist to have a tooth removed which had become abscessed and she was in a lot of pain. As soon as the tooth was removed, the pain ceased and Judy was so happy. For the first few days at the school, I didn’t go to any of the studies. I was still most unhappy about having lost my baby and felt decidedly anti-social. One day there was a boat trip organized for any who would like to go, and my sister-in-law Beth mentioned that if she didn’t have her baby to look after she would love to go on the boat trip. I said that I would be happy to mind her baby for her if she liked, so Beth left me with Danielle and went on the boat.

Well, the inevitable happened. The boat ran aground somewhere along the way, and instead of the trip taking two hours, the boat did not return until early evening. Beth’s baby was breast-fed so there was no milk made up for me to give her a bottle, so I did the only thing I knew to do, I breast fed Danielle myself because I still had milk from having fed Jesia. When Beth returned she was in quite a panic wondering how her baby had fared. She was most upset about being away from her baby for so long, but was quite amazed when she was greeted by one contented sleeping baby instead of the crying fractious one she expected. I have always smiled to myself since, knowing that Danielle’s growth included two meals from me!

Half way through the week, Jeff contacted me and asked me if I was feeling well enough to come to the Rangiora Bible School in New Zealand. I agreed to go, and so arranged for the children to stay on at the school and then with friends while I was in NZ, and then I flew to New Zealand and the Rangiora Bible School. While we were in NZ we received a letter from Jim which read,

Dear Daddy, I am now at the Bible School. I am staying in room 30. It has two bunks and one bed which Mum sleeps on. There is a lake by the Bible School, and I can swim from one end of the jetty to the other. Love Jimmy.

I met some wonderful people at the Rangiora school, but I never did take enough notice of their names so I really lost the benefit of that trip. Since then I have taken a lot of notice of people’s names because they are so important if you want to be able to remember the good memories from life which are all associated with the people we care about. In later years I found the names of those I met in New Zealand but I can’t attach to many faces to those names I am sad to day. Nonetheless, here are the names of the lovely people we met in NZ.
Some of the people we met were Dave and Carolyn, Tony and Esther, Robyn and Jeremy Slattery, Graham and Shirley Clover, Roger Lewis, Barry Mailman, Ruth Shekell, Wayne Deadman, Peter Roberts, Anthony, Peter and Ray, Jason King and Katherine Leith. I know names and faces of Roger Lewis, Wayne Deadman and Peter Roberts from later years, but the others I can not place their names with their faces.

After the Bible School, Jeff and I stayed with Beulah and Don Edwards for a few days and we had a lovely time there. Don and Beulah very kindly loaned us their car and we were able to go sight-seeing around New Zealand for a week or so after the school. We had a wonderful time traveling in the Edward’s car and we were so grateful to them for its use. I was so impressed with the beauty of New Zealand, so much so, that I decided that I wanted to live there and suggested to Jeff that he get a transfer to NZ with his work. Jeff told me that the only way we could do that is if I would be prepared to live in Wellington where there was a branch and so could get a transfer there. Well, when we flew into Wellington I was so disappointed. I did not like “windy Wellington,” and would not want to live there. So that idea went out of the window. We stayed with the O’Grady’s in Wellington and Jeff did some studies there. We did some more sight-seeing and visited Auckland, and I soon found that I didn’t want to live there either. The only place I would have wanted to live was in Christchurch, so living in New Zealand was “out” for me in the end. In Dunedin we met Dennis Brady who eventually came to Australia and to Adelaide to live and we became good friends there.

We flew home to Australia and back to Sydney and stayed in Sydney for some time after that. An event happened in Sydney that impacted on our lives very greatly thereafter, but it isn’t really something that I can write about. However, to leave it out means that it leaves out the “why” of so many things that happened thereafter. Still, that is how it must be, so I will just have to see how the story unfolds from here without it.