Part 2 – My Dad, Maynard O’Connor Snr’s Autobiography

This is part 2 of my father, Maynard O’Connor’s story.
Upon reading through these pages again I find there is one other thing I should include. There are three things associated with the trade of blacksmithing in those far off days that need to be mentioned. They are:

1, the beautiful odours of a black coal fire,
2, the beautiful odour of the burning of a horse’s hoof when the shoes are being fitted.
3, the sound of the ring of a good anvil.

I will take them one at a time.

The Coal fire. This is best appreciated as it reaches you from a distance. There is someting about it that I always found fascinating. As a child when travelling on a steam train, I used to love to put my head out of the carriage window and smell the coal smoke.

The horse’s burning hoof. When shoeing a horse after first trimming the horse’s hoof we would then get the shoe hot and put it on the hoof and let it burn. By doing this you were always sure of getting a level fit. It did not hurt the horse in the least and was therefore the normal process.

People used to come into my shop on Glen Osmond Road and say how they loved to smell the odour of the burning horse’s hoof.

The ring of a good anvil. As a blacksmith I was always pleased if I worked on an anvil with a good ring to it. If we wanted to improve it, we would get pieces of leather and put them under the corners of the anvil on the block on which it was mounted. That way the ring could be considerably improved.

There is no sound to my mind to compare with the ring of an anvil in a quiet country town. Such a thing cannot be appreciated in the city because there is always even at the quietest of times the background roar of traffic. Perhaps we may add to that, that there ware not many sights that move one more than a big steam locomotive as it climbs a steep incline belching forth black smoke and white steam. Back in the 1930s I had a push bike with a sidecar on it. Every Easter Monday for several years, when our boys were small, I used to push the three of them from Parkside to the Unley Park railway station. Seven or eight special trains used to be run up to the races at Oakbank. I used to take the boys over there to watch the trains as they climbed up to the hills. It was a sight that would thrill any child and most adults. Such things are almost gone and it is only through the efforts of the people who are engaged in the preservation of some of the old locomotives that it is still possible occasionally to see such a sight. They are therefore worthy of all commendation for preserving such a fine heritage.

In those days there were no arc welding plants or oxy cutting torches. Everything had to be done the hard way by today’s standards. We used to also shoe horses. As well as the local trades people’s horses all the riding and buggy horses were shod. The highlight of this part of the work was when in the wheat carting season all the waggon teams would have to be shod. A farm horse was all right working on the farm, but in fact sometimes their hooves would have to be trimmed because on the soft soil of the farm they would sometimes grow too long and make it difficult for them to walk. When it came to wheat carting time however, and they were out on the hard gravel roads their hooves would quickly wear away and so they had to be shod with iron shoes.

Just a few years before this time and bullock teams were used for the wheat carting, they would have to be shod too. Their shoes were made in two halves and were nailed on in the same manner as were the horses’ shoes. I used to love this time of the year because there was always plenty of excitement when these horses were shod. Not being accustomed to being in the town or being shod the horses would play up no end. Some would have to be put in what was called the ‘Crush Pen.’ This was a timber structure in which the horse would be put if it could not be handled and shod in the normal manner. It had two wide straps which were passed under the horse so that it could not lie down. The front legs were strapped up off the ground, one at a time. When they were done, then the hind legs would be tied back to a post, also one at a time. Sometimes the whole job would take most of a day. There was certainly plenty of excitement at this time.

The head blacksmith’s name was Jimmy Hanton. He was only a small man, not quite as tall as I am and slightly built, but he was a very skilled tradesman and a very conscientious workman. In later years he became a partner in the business. Mr Koch sold out his share in the partnership and Ji9mmy bought in and the business became ‘Hanton and Sharrad.’ Jimmy is still alive today and is in the home for the aged at the Pinnaroo Hospital. He is over 95 years of age and is completely blind. His eyesight failed abouit 15 years ago. When I saw him about 10 years ago he was still very alert and we were able to have a very good talk of things we both remembered. He was a remarkable man and how he handled those big and wild horses was always a source of wonder to me and it brought forth a great admiration for him on my part both as a tradesman and his ability and patience when handling those horses.

In 1928 as the result of bad seasons and the commencement of the great depression I left Hanton and Sharrad and took a job on a farm as a farm hand at 25 shillings a week and keep. That was no 48hour a week job. The hours were 5 am to sun down, 6 days a week and every second Sunday. I had to stay on duty, milking cows etc. while the boss had his day off. My employer was one of three brothers named Davis. He was Mel Davis. The other brothers were Hugh and Allen. Hugh’s farm adjoined Mel’s. They were all lay preachers in the Methodist Church. At the beginning of harvest I was given a set of tools for the harvester I was driving and if i lost any tools I had to pay for replacements. The country was very sandy in parts and it was very easy to lose tools if you were not very careful. That was probably why the onus was put on me to replace any that were lost. Naturally I tried to be very careful but somehow my tools seemed to disappear now and then. Sometimes a good part of my wages would have to go to replace lost tools. However, one day Mel and I had to go over to Hugh’s farm to do some repair work on a machine in the blacksmith shop and I discoverd some of my lost tools among Hugh’s. The harvesting machines were always left out in the paddock overnight until harvest was finished and so it turned out that Hugh (the lay preacher) was helping himself to my tools and I was paying for replacements. Needless to say, I did not pay for any more.

I stayed in this job for about two years. It was a hard life but a very healthy one. In those days dancing and the silent pictures were the main things that provided recreation and entertainment. To show how simple the entertainment was in those times and to verify this, I will quote from a book I have which is a record of the history of Parilla Well. Parilla Well was situated 7 miles north of Pinnaroo. ‘After sports, tea was provided and Mr Leak presided over the concert that followed. Mr G Paul provided an interesting program on his gramophone. Proceeds went toward the School Library fund.’
The farm was 11 miles out of Pinnaroo and if I wanted to go to a dance I would have to ride a horse in. We would dance until 1 am and I would ride home the 11 miles again getting home in time to change and then go out and feed and groom the horses, have breakfast and then go straight to work. In the autumn when we used to have warm sunny days, it was very difficult to stay awake after having been up dancing all the previous night. In the winter time in July and August the nights and the mornings were very frosty and extremely cold. When grooming the horses first thing in the morning I used to hold the curry comb in one hand and the other hand I used to put under the horse’s mane to get it warm. Sometimes on a cold frosty morning and we would be driving the team out to where we were ploughing, the ground which the night before had just been ploughed would be frozen and it would sound as if the horses were walking on a metal road. When I would pick up the chains to yoke the team the earth would be frozen on to the chains and a piece of earth about 3/4 of an inch thick and about a foot wide would come up with the chain.

In the wheat carting season at the end of harvest I would get up at 4 am feed and groom the waggon team, have breakfast, harness the team to the waggon which had been loaded with 100 bags of wheat the night before, take the load in to the town. A journey which would take about three hours. Horses always travel a bit faster when they know they are headed for home and the waggon of course would be empty. Of course the team always had to be fed and watered while in town. We would go to the town bore to water them and they would be fed from the nose bags which we carried on the waggon. When we got home we would have to load up again for the next day. When that was done it would be dark. About 9.30 pm in summer time. By the time we had had our tea, it was well and truly time for bed.

Referring back to the days of the silent pictures, in my school days, there were pictures every Saturday night. The Charlie Chaplin ones were our favourites. I can remember one sequence in particular which showed Charlie lying in bed asleep with his mouth wide open as he snored. It showed a big black spider that appeared to be crawling over his face and as he opened his mouth with each snore we all expected the spider to go into his mouth. Being silent pictures all you could hear was the screams of the audience as they watched in horror. I can remember the Harold Lloyd pictures too. He was noted for his horn rimmed spectacles. Harold Lloyd was the man that first introduced horn rimmed spectacles into the world. For a long time afterwards horn rimmed spectacles were referred to as ‘Harold Lloyd’s’.

During my second sojourn in the employ of Mel Davis I played football for Parilla Well and was instrumental in helping them win their first ever Premiership. The following extract from the book ‘History of Parilla Well’ will show on page 21. ‘In 1931 Parilla Well won their first Premiership in very exciting circumstandces. ‘Wels’ were two or 3 points behind and needed a goal to win. Maynard O’Connor marked the ball a good way out, a second before the final bell rang. An excellent and accurate kick just cleared the goal mouth and gave ‘Wells’ the Premiership after the bell had gone. In the competition were Pinnaroo South, Pinnaroo North, Rovers, NGallo and Parilla Wells.’

After two years in the employ of Mel Davis I went to Port Lincoln where my sister Florrie was living. Her husband, Henry Obst was a guard in the railways. He was later killed in a shunting accident at Tailem Bend. This was in the depth of the Great Depression. Work was hard to find. I obtained a few days work on the wharf helping to unload a timber ship which had brought Oregon from Canada. I had my 21st birthday in Pt Lincoln. After a few weeks in Lincoln I got a job on a farm in Minnipa in central Eyres Peninsular. This was a the time of the commencement of the first air service to WA. It used to take two days for the trip to Perth.They would fly to Forrest and stay overnight and then fly the rest of the journey next day. The planes used were three engined Hercules.

I stayed in this job about three months. My main occupation was picking lime stone. It is very stony country and the stones were brought to the surface by cultivation. I then had to go out with the horse and dray and pick up the stone which was then dumped in heaps. There was no way of getting rid of it so the crops had to be planted around the heaps of stone. After this job I came back to Port Lincoln again but there was still no work available so when my savings were used up I wrote to Mel Davis and he sent my fare to me and I went back to work for him again. I forget how long I stayed with him this time. When I finished working for Mel I bought a 1926 model Chev 4 truck, S.H and did one season carting wheat. I carted 5000 bags at 25 bags a load.

After that I took up buying pigs and sending them down to Foggit Jones Bacon Factory at Littlehampton in the Adeladie Hills. It was about this time that I began keeping company with Jean Williams who later became my wife. Her mother was a Christadelphian and it was through this association that I eventually became a Christadelphian too. We were both baptised on Jean’s 18th birthday. We were baptised by the late Bro Charlie Briggs after examination by brethren Charlie Briggs, Archie Provis, James Mansfield and Malcolm Wauchop on the farm occupied by Bro and Sis Perce and Lill Terrell. That was on Nov 1 1932.

When I first began to learn the truth and began to be convinced that it was the truth, I ceased attending the Catholic Church. After I had left school there had been established a Convent School in Pinnaroo to serve the catholics of the district. Sometime after I had stopped attending church I was sent for by the sisters of the convent school. They wanted to know why I had not been attending Mass. In previous times I had been the most consistent one in going to Mass of my whole family. in fact I was held in such high regard that on one occasion I was asked by the priest if I had ever thought of becoming a priest or a brother. On being called before the sisters I told of my new beliefs and of course they denied the truth of what I told them. I told then that I believed that the Bible taught what I had now come to believe. The mother superior then said that she did not believe in the bible. I replied that I did and that was the end of the interview and I have not at any time been in a catholic church since that day. My mother and father were both buried as catholics and are in the Enfield Evergreetn Cemetery in the Catholic Section. However because of my obvious Irish name, I still occasionally get an appeal in the post from some catholic institution or other for funds.

The strange part was that my father was the one born a catholic but I had never known him to go to church in all my life at home except on the occasion of my brother Arthur’s death. My mother was born and brought up a Methodist and she turned catholic on her marriage to Dad and she was the one who saw that we all went to church regularly as well as going herself. When I told Dad that I was not going to attend the Catholic church any more and why, he said it didn’t cut any ice with him and I could please myself what i did. My mother on the other hand blew her top and called me all sorts of things. However time healed our relationships, partly because about two years later Jean and I were married and came to live in Adelaide and so there was no close contact between us and our family. Jean’s mother had also died in the interim and it was therefore convenient for us to leave Pinnaroo.

As I have already said, Jean and I were baptised at a farm which was leased by Bro Perce Terrell. This farm was owned b a Sister Hecker who lived in Adelaide. In those days there was an ecclesia centred at Walpeup in Victoria in the Victorian Mallee about 75 miles from Pinnaroo. Details of this ecclesia are contained in an article I wrote which was published in the September 1980 issue of the Good Company Magazine which domes with Logos every second month. Jean had been speaking to me of her beliefs as they had been passed on to her by her mother. I had very little to do with Jean’s mother during our courting days, partly because her mother did not approve of me because I was a Catholic but mainly because she was suffering from a terminal illness. It was when she died that I first came in contact with other Christadelphians.

A Brother Charles Briggs came up to Pinnaroo to conduct the burial service together with some of Jean’s mother’s relatives in the Truth.rThey were mainly the Dangerfields who were Jean’s mother’s brothers. I was introduced to Uncle Charlie Dangerfield. He was a great Uncle of brethren Roger, Bruce, Trevor and Kevin Gore and he was a very prominent speaker in the Adelaide Ecclesia at that time. We had some long talks on the Truth and it was during this time that I learned of the existence of The Mallee Ecclesia. Subsequent contact was made with Brother James Mansfield (father of Bro HP Mansfield). He used to provide transport for the regular visits which were made by Adelaide brethren to the Mallee Ecclesia. We were later put in contact with Bro & Sis Perce and Lill Terrell and from that time we used to regularly visit their farm and thus I learned the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ and we were both baptised at the farm on Jean’s 18th birthday on November 1 1932. Two years later, April 11 1934 we were married at the home of Bro George Rankin who was the marrying brother for the Adelaide ecclesia and lived at 11 Scott St Dulwich. Jean was given away by her grandfather Bro Joseph Dangerfield. The Bridesmaid was Jean’s second sister Connie and the groomsman was the late Bro Gilbert Hollamby.

It was Bro Perce Terrell who was mainly responsible for teaching me the truth. He was a very good teacher and on the weekends that we were able to visit the farm he and I used to go for long walks around the farm with him holding forth on the Promises made to Abraham etc. I can still visualise us walking through the wheat fields discussing the fundamentals of the Christadelphian beliefs. Unfortunately bro Terrell in his later years left his wife and the Truth. He was received back into fellowship in later years in Melbourne and he fell asleep some 8 – 10 years ago. It seemed so out of character to me that a brother who seemed to understand the Truth so well and was so fluent in teaching it could fall by the wayside as he did. Unfortunately such a thing does occasionally happen.

When Jean and I were married we went to live on a small farm at Mylor in the Adelaide Hills. The farm was owned by Bro Archie Provis. We stayed there for one year. This was in the depth of the great depression of the 1930’s. The farm was largely undeveloped and as a consequence our income came from odd jobs wherever I could find them. I found work for a little while on a farm nearby raking Subterranian Clover. At this stage we had a Buick six car which we bought from Jean’s Uncle before leaving Pinnaroo. This car I had converted to a buckboard. To do this, the rear half of the body was cut off and a tray was built where the rear half had been. In those days there were many wood fires in the city and mountain gum roots were used a lot as fuel. I used to dig the mountain gum roots out of the ground by hand and cut them up so that they would go through a 10″ ring and then load them on to the buckboard and transport them to a wood yard situated near the Tower Hotel at Magill a distance of 18 miles for the princely sum of 18 shillings a ton.

In the apple season I used to buy the windfall apples for 1/6 per case, go into the orchard and pick them up and put them into 1 bushel cases and then set off for near country towns including as far away as Wallaroo and sell them from house to house for 4/6 per case. That year on the farm was not a very great success and we came off it with an overdraft at the bank of 60 pound. That overdraft was like a millstone arround our necks for several years until we were relieved of it in rather wonderful circumstances which I will relate a little later.

This story continues in Part 3.which follows.