Chapter 14 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter Vol 2 = 1975

Chapter 14 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter Vol 2 = 1975

In 1975 I worked as a salesperson for Collier Duncan and Cooke, one of the leading real estate companies of the time. It was a great place to work, and I was very sorry to leave this place when it closed down only a few months after I had commenced working there, something to do with a division between the partners. 

Also in 1975 Judith finished her schooling at Cowandilla  Primary School, and the next year commenced attending  Henley High School.  

We received a letter from Ron Abel saying that he had received some charts from Jeff. He said that when he opened the  parcel he could scarcely believe his eyes, that these charts were going to help him so much in gospel extension work in Canada. 

We also received correspondence around this time from Don and Una Strempel saying that they were planning to come to Adelaide to live if they could possibly manage it. Of course they would need to sell their home at City Beach to do so.

This was the year I discovered the diary that Debbie had written as a project for school. I really enjoyed reading it because even at a very young age Debbie expressed herself really well.

This was the year we first of all attended Cumberland ecclesia, where I was very happy, and then moved to Enfield, where I was very unhappy.

The whole atmosphere at Cumberland was so different from that at the Woodville ecclesia. Everyone seemed so happy to be there. However we were only there for a few months before John and Phyl Knowles persuaded Jeff that he was needed at Enfield and so Jeff decided that we should move to Enfield. I was so unhappy there. 

I wrote a letter to Jeff about how I felt. I can’t TALK to Jeff, I can only write how I feel. I told him how unhappy I was both with his decision to go to Enfield and how I felt about our marriage, but in the end I didn’t give him the letter. 

But I think it was the beginning of the end for our marriage.

This year was also the year that Don and Una began trying to come to Adelaide to live.

 In March/April, 1975 it was Easter camp, and I drove up to the camp site with Dad and the caravan and and parked next to the Brinkerhoffs. I left the children with Mary Ann and drove back to Adelaide to collate the play. 

John Martin was going to be speaking at the camp on the book of Nehemiah. 

The hall at the camp has been built up on the flat with  walls of pinewood slats and is “air conditioned.” In other words there is plenty of gaps in between the slats for plenty of air to get in. 

The Hot Water system is a marvellous contraption consisting of three 44 gallon drums welded one on top of the other with mysterious lookig pipes coming out from all directions and underneath the drums a place for a wood fire.  This amazing and impossible piece of engineering was designed by my dad, and it successfully provided the whole camp of some 5000  people with hot water for showers and other uses throughout the camp. 

It had one main flaw, and that is that if at some time during the night someone who couldn’t sleep came out and put wood on the fire and sat by it for an hour to keep warm. The result was that there was a lot of steam and the pipes burst because there was no water running through the pipes.

Debbie was that someone at this camp! 

Thankfully they had spare pipes to fix it. 

The play went off well, and the children built models of Jerusalem. Judy got second prize in her age group and Gail got first. The Berrys and the Brinkerhoffs sang two songs that were very well received. Song of Birds, and the Cuckoo song.

Also in 1975 I commenced my own business in an office Maynard had rented at 1 First Street Brompton. He was using it for his new business “Jiffy Print” but he said I could also run my business from the premises as well. I called my business Oakridge Real Estate. 

Greg Smith was working at Maynard’s place doing some electronics during this time, and as Maynards business was just around the corner from my office, I saw Greg now and then. 

I had met Greg and Liz at Port Parham when I had been there with the kids just recently, so we had quite a bit to talk about. Greg was  living at one of HP Mansfield’s flats at West Beach. 

Jim and Marg Cowie rang up that day wanting to come around to our place to visit.

They came around that night and Jim showed us some of his slides of Queensland. They are living in Queensland now, and were hoping to persuade Jeff and I to come there to live as well, because they had a thriving Bible class going on and said the needed Jeff’s help. 

The children still remember the trip we made with Jim and Marg to the Flinders Ranges. They have a very large house in Qld so we could stay with them if we did go to Qld to live.

Jim asked some questions about happenings at Woodville and Jeff spent some time telling the story. Jim and Marg left at midnight. Then Jeff looked at me strangely, and said “Why have you got your dress inside out.” Now he tells me! I am so tired.

19750105  Debbie had been allowed to take home some Kangaroo mice from Cowandilla to look after for the weekend, and so I drove the kids to school that morning to deliver the mice back to the school. Debbie was rather  proud to have an “official” reason for me to drive my car into the school yard in the middle of all her school friends. 

19750108 I had taken a box number at the post office so that Peter Roberts could write to me and I could continue to look after his affairs even though he was back in New Zealand by this time. 

I received a letter from him in which he told me he was feeling pretty miserable about being back in New Zealand. He said he was trying to work out where to study in his digs, because the place was so crowded with other people’s stuff that there seemed to be no room for him. 

He gave me all the news: 

Barrie Mailman and Josie Barber were married last Saturday, Roger Lewis and Pauline Travers were engaged and the wedding was to be on 22nd February 1975. 

He asked me to withdraw some cash from his bank account to pay the Gores the last lot of board he owed them and said that he was expecting some cheques to come in and could I deposit them in his bank account.

That day I was working for Maynard on Revelation notes at “Jiffy Print.”  So after I had finished there, I drove out to Keith Gores place with Deb and Jesia to take the money Peter Roberts had sent me and give it to the Gores. 

The house was wide open and the lights were on but the Gores were not home. 

The kids went into Gore’s pool and had a great time swimming there. We stayed there for quite a while and the kids loved it but in the end I wrote a note and left the money on the kitchen table and drove home.

In my files I have copy of Ron Abel’s CV from when Ron was looking or work in Adelaide.

This was also the year when a photo of “our” kids, the Brinkerhoff’s and the Berry’s appeared in the local paper, as they were climbing on the gym in the school playground.

19750107 – I took out $100 to pay for the nursery for the next month or so. 

I went to Jiffy Print and got some of Graham’s old negatives and printed them off. Among them were photos of Elspeth Kennet and one of Rob Hicks. They are married now. 

I took the children to Henley pool and we swam for 1 1/2 hours. It is salt water. It is not a marvellous pool, but it is in a marvellous location, right by the sea at Henley Beach. 

Jim woke up crying in the middle of the night. Jeff went out to him and because Jim wouldn’t say clearly what was the matter, Jeff got angry and growled at him. I took the bandaid off his bottom and found that it was quite inflamed. I will have to take him to the doctor again in the morning. 

Jeff is very grumpy and it is so hot. 

Sometimes I get dreadfully lonely, just longing for some warmth and comfort from Jeff but with the heat and the pressures of work makes him a long way away from me. Jeff is not very well constituted for coping with children so the load of listening to them, talking to them and loving them falls largely to me but every now and then I get a desperate need to talk to him, and be loved and comforted but usually when I need it badly, Jeff seems quite unable to give it. 

I wonder why I keep a diary? 

Well, no need to wonder, it is because it is someone to talk to, it relieves my need to some degree, and then I don’t try so hard to talk to Jeff, or try to make him understand how I feel. The more I confide in my diary, the less I talk to Jeff. 

I think talking to Peter Roberts or Peter Scott has a similar effect, the more I talk to them, the less I talk o Jeff. One day, I can talk to Jeff and he is understanding, warm, loving and kind, another day he is harsh, unloving, difficult to talk to, critical and very distant. 

I wish I could be self-sufficient and not need anyone so desperately. I guess it is not me alone who feels this way sometimes, Earlier in the evening Peter Scott rang me and wanted to talk to me. He told me he is lonely, miserable and depressed and badly needed someone to talk to. He said that since he had fallen from a scaffolding and broken his back he has had trouble with his back. He said he used to go to Mary Ann when he was low but she seems to have been too busily lately.

19750130 – I took the children to the movies to see “Sunshine” today. The movie was about “free-love, and no strings attached which sounded free and wonderful in theory, but except that when sickness stepped in it made it unworkable. The philosophy then doesn’t work. 

Thank goodness for the Truth, for responsibility, for “in sickness or in health.” We desperately need someone to rely upon who will stay with us through good and bad, love us when we are most unlovely. If that is the world’s freedom, I don’t want to be free. 

How necessary is it for a husband and wife to stick together no matter what. We are weak and frail and need help and strength constantly. 

It was Mum’s birthday party tonight, present Jeff and Fay, Una and Don Strempel, Mary Scherney New Zealand, the Lloyds, Maynard and Roma O’Connor, Suzanne and Christine, Mary Ann and Forrest Brinkerhoff, Heidi, Dana, Gail and Sharon. 

Maynard had a new camera and he took photos of me and Jesia and a couple of Debbie. I want as many as I can get of Deb Because  she is about to have bands on her teeth. I asked Maynard about his printing business and he says they have got their first real job. I asked whether he would have room for me. He said he would. He is going to teach me to take photos and print them and I can help him with the typing and the printing. If it works out it will mean I can go to Uni and fit it around work and take one subject this year. I don’t know about court reporting now. I wish I knew what is the better direction for me to travel. 

 

Maynard told me that the money he used to establish “Jiffy print” is money that he had set aside to build his house so Roma is far from happy with him at the moment.  Maynard’s business is not doing too well at the moment, and money is tight.

I drove out to Keith Gores with Deb and Jesia to pay them some money from Peter Roberts. Daphne and Keith weren’t home, but the children went in for a swim anyway. The house was wide open and the lights were on. In the end I wrote a note and left the money on the kitchen table. Jesia went into the pool with Debbie and loved every minute of it.

  19750131 – Jeff took the children fishing today. It was apparently a perfect day for it, calm and still. The children could see the fish swimming near their lines and they all caught something. 

Una Strempel from Perth, and Dotty Manser and her children arrived for lunch. We drove to Torrens Park Teacher’s college to pick up Don Strempel who has been with the special education lecturer there trying to beg borrow or steal copies of his notes for lectures on Special Education. Don is doing studies in Special Education and he will be lecturing in it this year. Whilst he was there he noticed some filing cabinets and desks and chairs  which had apparently been damaged in a fire at the school. He is going to contact one of the chaps in charge there to see if he can purchase some of the stuff. We could use another filing cabinet. 

Una’s son Jeffery is going stay in Adelaide for a year. Una is going to try to persuade Don to come to Adelaide in two years time to live. David Strempel is having a hard time trying to persuade Don to let him stay in Adelaide now instead of going back to Perth. If he stays it is going to cost him $1,000 bond money to the Perth Teacher’s college. I think he is interested in a girl over here.

19750131 – Letter to Peter Roberts. By now you will have been back in NZ about 5 days. Do you really know how to build a house? I have never recovered from reading “Swiss family Robinson.” If I were washed up onto a desert island I could not build a house in a tree, run fast enough to catch and milk a goat, make basins for food, make flax into material or any of the ingenious things spoken of in the book, and so I would sit on the sand and quietly die. I can’t even catch a fish. But then again, I get very hungry. Maybe necessity is the master of invention. 

It is very difficult writing a diary in a busy house, it is hard to find a private place to sit and think and write. I need signs saying “private,” and “keep out.” I think there is a lot to be said for two huge separate bedrooms each with a double bed, instead of one bedroom only. 

I did enjoy the cemetery. Some of my happiest times have been spent in cemeteries.When I was a child I had a friend who lived next to the Mitcham cemetery and we used to play in the cemetery and I used to find myself a quiet grassy grave and lie down there and read a book. 

The kids really enjoyed the week they spent at he Caravan park and I would like to have gone back for another week there.

The farm was enjoyable too I remember that night we spent out on the hill I remember the time we went to that disused quarry at willunga  where he first settlement used to be. All that is there now are broken down old houses an old roofless church a creek and not much else. The last time I was there the grass was dry but it was a lovely sunny day and I loved it there. 

19750201 – Saturday – we are invited for lunch tomorrow at the Curtins. The Brinkerhoffs wanted to go to the outing, so I agreed to take them, but didn’t know where it was being held so would need to call on Lily Lund and ask her the location. 

When I arrived at Mary Anne and Forest’s place, I found them outside washing the bean sprouts and looking pretty glum. They lamented that apparently they had not properly sterilised the barrels and the beans had been affected with a fungus. Forrest is just going to give them to his customers for free, this week, because they are not good enough to sell. We had dinner with the Plants at Mum’s house. Jeff helped Michelle Plant write a CV. She is a very shy and self-effacing girl.

19750202 – Sunday – I got a bit worried about the cut in Jimmy’s bottom where they took the splinter out of his bottom, because it was healing very well. I decided I needed to take him back to the hospital for them to look at it. Jeff took the children to the meeting at Cumberland, and I arrived at the meeting just after it had finished. 

Forrest wanted me to take the Brinkerhoff’s home after Sunday School, but I couldn’t help him because we were going next door to dinner at the Curtin’s place. 

Those who were present for lunch were Jeffrey STREMPEL; Judy, Sue, David and Anne, Jeff and Fay Berry, and Deb, Jude, Jim, Helen and Jesia, Leigh and Sheree Samwell, Leanne Curtin and Colin Story, Chris Curtin and Sue Richardson, Bro Shugg and Barbar Shugg, Br Lund Snr, Bro and Sis Curtin and their youngest son and Judith Clothier, Wow, it was quite a crowd. We had a buffet lunch out in the garden.

Leigh asked me if I would like to see the farm after lunch. He drove me up in the ute. It was Keith Merrick’s farm, and he has it up for sale, and Don and Una wanted to have a look at it. The farm looked pretty good, but rather neglected. Their was a beautiful view, a dam and sprinkler system over the whole property. 

Una and I walked down to the house, and Keith Merrick came to the door. I asked him if he had met Una Strempel and was about to introduce them when he looked at me rather strangely and said “You do know our situation, don’t you?” I didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about. I looked at him dumbly, and then Una spoke and told me that she had heard their property was for sale and had come to look at it. 

Suddenly it dawned on me that he was one of the brothers who had gone out with Roger Stokes and Ari Valtenberg, and joined Highbury, and therefore regarded himself as “out of fellowship with us,” I had clean forgotten. I explained the situation to Don and Una. Then we all talked about the farm and the price for a while and then Don said, that it was understandable that they had felt the need to pause and consider things, but that it was a very serious thing to separate oneself and one’s family from the body. 

Keith then told us that he no longer even belonged to Highbury, but that he believed that all Christadelphians were astray and they did not feel that there was anyone left amongst us who believed the Truth. Don asked him why he believed himself to be “out of fellowship” and he asked us whether we believed in an external or an internal tempter of Christ. We said we believed in an external tempter. He said that he too believed it was an external tempter, but many Christadelhians do not. We said that we did not believe it was a fellowship matter anyway. He said that he believed it was, and so that, and other issues meant that he had withdrawn fellowship from us. O dear!!

Keith and Daphne Gore say that they are occasionally feeling the effects of the Woodville business. Relationships between them and others  not what they used to be. I guess the repercussions will continue for years and years.

I arrived home at 12.00 pm. Jeff was asleep, so I went into the lounge to write up my diary. Baby woke up so gave her a bottle. She is a beautiful child and I love her. 

 19750204 – I woke up at 4.00 and I went to the loo and found that I was passing blood. I checked on a medical book and found that it was as the result mostly likely of stress. I rang up Maynard in the morning and told him that I would not be coming in to work that day. I have only one more week to decide whether I will do music 1a uni this year, and whether I will take singing lessson. I feel that I could fit the lectures in but not sure about the tutorials. I went to the doctor and he told me that I needed to drink more water. 

 19750207 – Received a letter from Phyl Matthews, things she admires about me, well, that was at first but she followed It with all the things she didn’t like about me!

19750207 – Thursday – Drove Jesia to the nursery, Maynard set me to work on Enfield’s newsletter, Reg Smith was still working on the dishwasher to fix it for Maynard. I have enjoyed working on Enfield’s newsletter. The amount of reading and re-reading I have had to do has meant that I have absorbed a lot of it. 

I rang up Vicki Williamson (Raeburn)  who used to be Robbie Berry’s old girlfriend. I met her at Jeff’s dad’s funeral. She had invited me to her place to swim in the pool, so I decided to take her up on her offer. 

She lives in Jamaica Avenue Fulham. The pool was beautiful, fibre glass. Jesia who is 21 months old, kept me busy. She kept getting onto the edge of the pool and jumping into my arms. The Williamson’s have a little girl about 11 years old who is completely deaf. Jeff came round for a while as well and he and Vicki’s husband talked about solar panels. 

Just before we left theRe Deb and Judy gave the two little girls the saris they had been wearing, beause the little girls were so taken with them. I was quite glad they had done this, particularly since while I had had my back turned, Jesia had broken the leg off a spinning wheel they had in the family room. 

19750208 – Letter to Peter Roberts. Jeff and I not sure we are going to join Cumberland yet. I have been depressed and miserable.

19750208 – I have been feeling very depressed and low. I told Jeff how lonely and miserable I was, but he didn’t understand. 

19750429 Judy Berry received an invitation to Government House Grounds to witness the departure of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips leave the grounds  of government house.

19750506 HP Mansfield lecture.

19750525 – Wednesday This evening it was the baptisms of all of Kier’s contacts, Tina Willingham, Sue Barr, Trevor Mills and David Maslin. Kier has done a marvellous job with them and he is such a tremendous example to us all. 

I am doing casual work with a Barrister, C.J Legoe. I have a small office and even access to a kitchen, so I can make myself cups of coffee whenever I want. 

9750528 – People like Kier are a tremendous example to me. 

Mum and Dad go away on their holiday tomorrow. I feel so inferior to someone like Kier Riseley who has brought so many people into the truth. 

19750704 – James costume

This is last day for me to have his costume finished for the play at Enfield. I worked at Maynards to finish the magazine and it worked out at 24 pages.

Had some work from Western Girl.

19750706 –  I went to the meeting with Judy, Jim and Helan and Jeff and Deb stayed home. 

Jeff was so miserable and so he stayed home. 

I went to the Hanns for lunch. Deb and Brian came too. Brian took the children to Sunday School, I was feeling miserable because Jeff was miserable. 

19750708 – Visited Mary Ann. I went to Cowandilla Primary School to see Jim’s teacher.  

19750709 – I went to Maynard’s today and worked. I went to bed early I was very tired. 

19750710 – Jeff was unhappy because I had chucked out some of the 15 years of newspapers he has stored up. Sometimes I feel like separating my money from his and running everything separately. Judy has a bad cough ever since she had her teeth in bands. 

19750712 The Brinkerhoff’s asked me to take them to the outing at Salisbury tis afternoon. I took them, only to find that they had got the date wrong and the outing is not until next week. I then went to Peter Scotts for a while.

19750716 I called on Jan Hacket this morning.

19750721- Glen Shera  We stayed in bed until about 12.00 then in the afternoon we drove to Glen Shera, Aunty Rhonda met us at the car. 

At first I thought she was not being very friendly and nice but soon found that this was not so. 

Then I suggested that I would go down with the children to where the men were working. I could see that she had no intention of inviting us into the house. 

We walked down past the shearing shed and up to the gate. We turned right along he path made by the cars. Jim was thirsty and became a thorough pain in the neck. I was getting tired of Helen whining too. 

Then Uncle John came up in the van and the children all got on board. Uncle John’s son, John was there too. Somehow I think this will be the last time I get to see Glen Shera. 

The country side was lush and beautiful, this place where I used to spend so many happy hours. It is obvious that Aunty Rhonda doesn’t wish to see any more of our family, well at present anyway.

19750723 This afternoon was Debbie’s singing concert. Her singing teacher was putting on a small concert for her students.Deb was first on the program, and she sang Linden Lea, Pico Pico, Serenito; She looked good and sang quite well. 

I picked up all the rest of the children from Mary Anne’s and then called in next door  to see Cheryl, she says her husband had rung up and asked to take her out to dinner. She has rung up in a quandry wondering whether they should get back together. He is the father of her two children,  Andrew and Bobby. 

She then got out her Bible and asked me to read to her. She chose Jeremiah about chapters 30-45. Then she read Psa 60. I told her how God wants people to give up idolatry and worship him in Spirit and in Truth. She told me that she is really interested in the truth, but fears that she won’t be strong enough to face life without a man, and so until she gets a divorce or is back with her husband, she doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of the Truth. Time will tell.

19750724 I worked with the typesetting machine this morning. After dinner, Debbie and I went to Jan Hackets place to try to have a singing practice, but she can’t play fast enought, but still, it was fun. We arrived home and I went over to see Cheryl. Jeff was over there talking to her. I gather that she had told him about Andrew, her husband, She had told him that he had rung her but later admitted that she had rung him. She said she wanted to learn the truth.

19750727 – Cumberland’s Family evening. I went to Mary Ann’s and made Jim’s Costume at her place. That might at Cumberland I arrived in time for Debbie’s item and she played beautiuflly.

19750728 – Went to Mary Anne’s place before I went to work at Maynards. Then went to Valugraphics and worked on the typesetting machine. 

19751101- Contract for change that Don has organised for Jeff and Fay signed by both Fay and Jeff. We’ll see how that goes.