The Blacksmith’s Daughter, 2013 © by Fay Berry – Chapter 1 – 1939

My name is Fay Berry (O’Connor). I was born on the 28th November 1939 at the Queen’s Home, Rose Park South Australia.

My Mother and Father both came from Pinnaroo, a little country town in the Murray Mallee in South Australia. Their names were Jean and Maynard O’Connor and Dad was born in 1909 and Mum in 1914. Mum and Dad were both Christadelphians baptized on a farm at Mylor on 1st November 1932, my mother’s birthday. Mum and Dad got married on 11th April 1934. The ceremony was held at Dulwich at the home of a Mr George Rankin who was the marrying brother for the Christadelphians in Adelaide at that time. My mother was given away by her grandfather Joseph Dangerfield and her bridesmaid was her sister Connie and the groomsman’s name was Gilbert Hollamby.

After their marriage Mum and Dad lived first on a small farm at Mylor in the Adelaide Hills owned by a Mr Archie Provis. They remained there for only one year because Mum found it too lonely and out of the way. The farm was largely undeveloped and although Dad did grow some grasses for cattle feed it was not sufficient to support them. He supplemented his income mainly from odd jobs from around the district, but the country was in the grip of the great depression of the 1930s and work was difficult to find. Dad and Mum decided to move to the city.

There were some notable events that occurred in my birth year, 1939. In September, World War two commenced. Darwin was being bombed and there were American soldiers stationed just outside of Gawler at Sandy Creek. My Grandmother, Alice Maud Williams (Dangerfield) died in 1930 and after my mother and father married in 1934, my Great Grandfather, Joseph Dangerfield and my mother’s sister Ronda, who was 14 years old at the time, moved to Gawler to live with Joseph’s son and daughter-in-law, Harry and Emma Dangerfield.

1939 was the year of a great tragedy for my mother’s family. Joseph was suffering heart trouble and he became convinced that he was a burden on his son’s family. One night he took his rifle and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. His family were shocked and bewildered and his granddaughter Ronda was heartbroken. Ever since her mother had died, her grandfather had been the one to comfort her and help her to cope with her new family and environment. Now she had to face a future without his support.

For my Mother and Father, 1939 was the year my Father had his first full year’s employment since he and Mum had married. Times had been tough but now things for their little family seemed to be looking up. From the time they had married in 1934, they had three children in quick succession, a three year gap and then I was born, the daughter Mum had always wanted.

Mum did not enjoy good health. My eldest brother Maynard was born by Caesarean section and after the birth, her doctor just cobbled up her stomach like you would a wheat bag, leaving terrible scarring. Mum was only a young woman and to have such a terrible disfigurement so early in her marriage was very hard for her to bear. Many years later she had surgery to remove the unsightly scarring and all the hanging fatty folds that surrounded it and even at 65 years of age Mum was so happy to no longer be so disfigured as she was. She had one other operation in her later years that improved her quality of life and that was the shortening of her upper eyelids because they had begun to sag making it difficult for her to read. When the operation also was successful I was so happy for her.

When I was about three years old, Mum gave birth to another son, Reginald O’Connor, born 7th July, 1941.Mum hemorrhaged very badly during this birth and Reginald died when he was only 9 hours old. It was very sad for my parents, particularly as they were never given the opportunity to see their baby and did not know where he was buried until years after his death. Eventually Cemeteries were forced to reveal such details. They finally discovered that Reginald had been buried in a mass grave at the Centennial Park Cemetery in Adelaide. The details of his birth, death and burial they found were recorded in Volume 638/3345 of the records of the Dept of Births Deaths and Marriages.

Mum did not recover  very well from Reginald’s birth and she spent a long time in hospital. In fact it was thought  for a time that she might die. She became a very sick woman, completely unable to care for her children and husband. Dad was struggling to earn a living and was not able to look after his family and work at the same time. Dad looked for alternative accommodation for his children. I was the lucky one. I was sent to live with Auntie Jean and Uncle Alta Wigzell (not my real Auntie and Uncle) and they cared for me for an extended period of time, maybe a year or more. When Auntie Jean and Uncle Alta agreed to take me in they had been married for about 10 years and so far had no children. Dad asked Jean and Alta whether they would be prepared to look after me until Mum got better and was able to care for me again. Uncle Alta and Auntie Jean were more than willing to have me for as long as was needed.

There was also an expectation that Mum might not live, in which case they might have me with them for an even longer time. To everyone’s amazement and to Alta and Jean’s delight, I had only been with them for a short time when Auntie Jean became pregnant. Nine months later their only daughter Lorraine was born. The doctor suggested that looking after me might have affected Jean’s hormones in some way enabling her to conceive. At any rate Lorraine remained their only child. It was sometime after Lorraine was born that I went back home to my family, perhaps around 1942 when I was three years old.

My brothers were not so well looked after as I was at this time. They were sent to the Salvation Army Boys’ home at Norwood. My brother Maynard would have been about 7 years of age, Charles 6 years of age and Graham 5 years old. My dad told me years later all three boys were badly treated whilst they were at the home, not by the staff, but by other older boys who were also in the home. He knew now that he should have asked the ecclesia to find brothers and sisters from the meeting to look after his children. At the time he didn’t know anyone much in the meeting, certainly not enough to ask anyone to mind his children.  He felt that his only option was to put them in a home. This choice meant that my brothers  became part of the thousands of children who were ill-treated and sexually abused in various religious institutions all over the world in that pre and post war period.

Maynard had a particularly bad time of it because he kept trying to protect Graham from being harmed and was severely punished by the older boys for his efforts.  Years later my eldest brother, Maynard, told my brother Graham that at night all the staff would go home and the only person left on-site was a caretaker/gatekeeper who was located at the gatehouse.  One of the boys who slept at night in the same dormitory as Graham was a boy called Oscar. He was the younger brother of one of the head boy’s mates. At night Oscar used to whip Graham to sleep with a set of heavy braces from a pair of trousers. Graham would hide under his blanket in his bed waiting in terror for Oscar to come to torment him. Oscar would beat him through a blanket to minimize the evidence of the beatings he gave Graham. He would thrash Graham until he would fall to sleep with exhaustion. In the morning Graham would wake up covered in bruises.

Graham would tell Maynard what Oscar had done to him and Maynard would often  come and hunt Oscar away from Graham’s bed. This of course brought him into disfavor with the Head boy and Oscar’s brother who was his mate, and so they would retaliate against Maynard.  After the staff had gone home for the night the head boy would hold a “court case” and mete out punishments not only to Maynard, but  to any boy who had offended him in some way during the day. After he had “passed judgment” on the hapless boy he would make the child strip off his clothes and he and his cronies would beat or rape him. No wonder my brothers had so many problems as they grew older.

After six weeks at the Home, both Maynard and Charlie became very ill. Maynard contracted Meningitis and required a mastoid operation on his ear which removed a lot of bone. It gave him a lopsided appearance because his ear now sat very close to his head and affected his confidence in his appearance whilst he was growing up. Charlie contracted scabies and also required medical treatment. Graham was sent home as well at the same time as the other boys. He was taken home by car and the driver simply  dropped him off at the corner of Kenilworth Road and Glen Osmond Road and told him to walk home to our house which was about one block from the corner. He ran home as fast as he could and burst in through the front door like a wild thing and Mum and Dad simply could not calm him down or control him. Mum refused to have Graham back and made Dad take him back to the Home, and so Graham was in the home for another six weeks.

When Maynard and Charlie had recovered sufficiently in hospital to come home, two Christadelphian families took them in and cared for them until Mum was able to have them again. Maynard was looked after by Ern and Grace Wilson, but I am not sure who cared for Charles.

When Graham came home after another six weeks in the home, the Highman (not sure of the spelling) family agreed to care for him. He was driven to the Highman’s home and dropped there. He was like a wild creature and he snarled at anyone who came near him. He ran down the back yard and huddled on the ground under a bush.  In the end, the Highman’s daughter, Pamela, came into the backyard and began swinging on a swing in the yard. She ignored Graham completely and just kept swinging. After a while Graham got up from where he was sitting and climbed onto an adjacent  swing and began to swing alongside Pamela.

Years later, Graham told me that “Pamela won him over.” The Highman’s were all very kind to Graham and he soon settled down and gave them no further trouble. The trouble came again only when it was time for him to go home. He liked it so much with the Highman’s that he didn’t want to go home.

When Mum and Dad left the farm at Mylor and came to live in Adelaide they first of all moved to a little row house in Halifax street in the city. A short time later they moved to a house in Maud street, Unley. In Maud street there lived another Christadelphian family who were very kind to my parents. They were Nathan and Floss Cobbledick. Their daughters were Mary, Ivy, Phillis and Dossie. There had been a son, but he died whilst they were still living at Uraidla in the Adelaide hills where Nathan had a market garden. They moved from Uraidla to Maud street, Unley in 1926. Their youngest daughter Phyllis married Allan Dangerfield, my mother’s first cousin. Their children, were my second cousins or first cousin’s once removed, whichever it is, Maureen, Ian and Adrian. Maureen was born on 19th August 1942 and so was three years younger than me. I have no memory of living on Maud Street because by the time I was four years of age, we had moved to 12 Kenilworth Road, Parkside. I recently asked my cousin Maureen about her life on Maud street when she was a child. This is what she told me

“It was war time and I can remember dancing around with the little girl next door when peace was declared. We lived with my Grandma and Grandpa, Floss and Nathan Cobbledick, at 38 Maud street, Unley. I lived there from when I was born in 1942 until about 1948 when I was six years old. Then we shifted three houses east down Maud street and so, living so close to my grandparents meant that I spent a lot of time with them. I adored my grandma and grandpa. Grandpa was outgoing, even effusive, whilst grandma was gentle and kind and quiet. Grandpa loved  her for her gentle wisdom and always took her advice.

“I had wonderful Aunties. I loved my Auntie Mary Wallace very much. She was a very warm, kind and loving lady. I remember when my brother Ian was born I stayed with my Auntie Ivy Thompson for a while. I first went to the infant school at Unley and then to the Unley Primary School. I have very vivid memories of Brian Luke, my first cousin, as a dear kind little boy with whom I “got on like a house on fire” and we did lots of things together. Christmases at grandma and grandpa’s place were wonderful and all the cousins would be there. Grandpa oversaw with gusto everything that was happening. We would go up to Fred and Amy Cobbledick’s place (Grandpa’s brother) the week before Xmas to cut down the Xmas tree. Grampy often took us out for drives in his car, maybe to get meat from uncle Malcolm Wallace’s  place and he would take us along for the ride. I can remember being very wide-eyed at the drama of my twin sisters dying. I was too young to feel too much sadness but noted everything that happened. My Mum was determined not to get depressed over the deaths but to get on with life and I was old enough to think “that’s what you do when something bad happens.” I used to pick up principles from observing those around me and I carried them through into my own life. My Mum was supremely sensible and so she didn’t let herself even have a few days of grieving for the twins. Our family lived in Maud street right up until my marriage in 1981.”

So that was my cousin Maureen’s story about Maud street Unley, where my parents, Jean and Maynard O’Connor lived for one or two years when they first came to Adelaide.