Chapter 1 – Fay O’Connor born 1939

Fay O’Connor as a baby. We must have kept that pram for a long time because I remember it.

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 Christadelphian ecclesias 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 II 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 shot himself in the head, thus committing suicide as a way to ease his family’s burden. His family were distraught and and his granddaughter, my Aunty Ronda was heartbroken. Ever since her mother had died, her grandfather had been her helper and comforter in trying to cope in her new family environment. Now she had to face a future without his love and support.

For my Mother and Father, 1939 was a relatively good year. My Father had his first full year’s employment since he and Mum had married. Times had been tough for them since they had left Pinnaroo to live in the city but now things for them and 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.

One thing that puzzles me and I wish my Mum was alive so I could ask her, is why there are so few photos of me before the age of four years of age. I would imagine that since I was the only daughter and the little girl Mum had always wished for, that surely someone would have taken some photos of me? All I can think of is that Mum may have separated all of the photos of me out of the rest of the photos and put them somewhere “safe” and then forgotten where she had put them. That would be very like my Mum. That is what  happened to the Dangerfield family album that I loved so much.  Whatever the reason, it remains that there are almost no photos of me. I think of all those years when I could have asked Mum about the photos and so many other things I now would love to know about, but these questions will remain unanswered because if left it too late to ask them. Such a shame!

Mum did not enjoy good health. My eldest brother Maynard was born by Cesarean 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 at my insistence, she had surgery to remove the unsightly scarring and all the hanging fatty folds that surrounded the ugly wound. Even at 65 years of age Mum was so happy to no longer be so disfigured. 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 down low over her eyes making it difficult for her to read a book. When that operation also proved 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 Mum and Dad, 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 and so to their joy, they finally discovered that Reginald had been buried in a mass grave at the Centennial Park Cemetery in Adelaide. This gave them the closure they had so badly needed. The details of Reginald’s birth, death and burial are 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 Mum spent a long time in hospital, in fact it was thought  for a time that she might die. She was unwell for a very long time, and some of it I am sure was more mental than physical. She seemed 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 but because he was just a country boy and didn’t realize that the Adelaide ecclesia would have been happy to help him out, he sent my brothers to the Salvation Army Boys home in the east of Adelaide for an extended period of time to give Mum time to recover. . I was the lucky on, because I was sent to live with Auntie Jean and Uncle Alta Wigzell (not my real Auntie and Uncle) and they cared for me for about a year and a half I believe it was. When Auntie Jean and Uncle Alta agreed to take me in they had been married for about 10 years and had seemed to be unable to have children and they were very sad about that. When Dad asked them to take me in and care for me, he told them that he was not sure how long it would be for, because Mum was so sick. They assured Dad that they were more than happy to have me permanently if Mum continued to be unable to care for me. 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, and 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 Mum was able to care for me again and I understand it was around 1944 when I returned home to my family.

My brothers were not so well looked after as I was at this time. The Salvation Army Boys Home turned out to be a very bad place for them to go. I think the home was at Norwood. My brother Maynard would have been about 9-10 years of age, Charles 8-9 years of age and Graham 6-7 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, but at the time he didn’t know anyone much in the meeting, certainly not enough, he felt, to ask anyone to mind his children.  He felt that his only option was to put them in a home.

His choice  meant that my brothers  became part of the thousands of children who were ill-treated and  abused in various religious institutions all over the world during 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. 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 family agreed to care for him. He was driven to the Highman’s home and dropped off 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 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 family that he didn’t want to go home, and made his displeasure very strongly felt by Mum and Dad. .

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,  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 in Maud Street because by the time I was four years of age, Mum and Dad 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.

“Grandpa had very strong ethics and loved his Christadelphian brothers and sisters. He used to say,

“Nobody ever says a word against any of my brothers and sisters under my roof.”

  It was one of his axiom’s for living. I heard this simple wisdom as a child and it remained with me as my ideal for the rest of my life. Grandma died in 1951 when I was only nine years old but there are so many things I remember about her and her home. Grandma and Grandpa had a pianola in their living room and I loved to play it. When grandma and grandpa lived at Uraidla in the Adelaide hills grandpa was a market gardener. He used to bring his produce down to Adelaide to the East End Market on a horse and dray. It was in 1926 when my mother was twelve years old that grandma and grandpa decided to move to the city. They had a son who would have been the one to inherit the market garden but tragically he had died and that was one of the things that decided them to move. Another reason was that his older daughters were nearing the marriageable age and the boys of the township were starting to notice them. Grandpa and grandma hoped that their daughters might find partners within the Adelaide Christadelphian community, so the family packed up and moved to live in Adelaide.

  “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.