PEEPS INTO THE PAST
20th – 26th August 2023
100 YEARS AGO:
GROUPS: Under the auspice of the Merbein Branch of the Girl Guides, a most successful evening was held in the South Merbein Schoolroom. A party existing of the Mayoress Mrs E T Henderson, Miss McWilliams and Mrs Wellington motored from Mildura. The prizes in the Euchre Tournament were won by Mrs Krake and Mrs Trethowan. The Lake State School Committee was elected, Major F H Goncher was elected Chairman of the Committee in succession to Mr D A Walters who resigned to take up the duties of correspondent, who then instructed to forward a letter of condolence to Mrs F Woodberry. The late Mr Woodberry always took a keen interest in the affairs of the school and rendered much appreciated service. The windmill that pumped water from the underground tank for the garden is being shifted to the bank of the swimming tank to ensure a better supply. Mr Leitchfield presented “ANZAC Cove”, Mr C Mitting “Amiens Cathedral” and “Australians Entering Jerusalem” framed photos for the schoolrooms.
ITEMS: A letter received tells of the party headed by Edward Cooke that are walking to Darwin. They have divided, McGlashan having left them sometime ago, while Tomlinson and Cooke went on and reached Alice Springs – while there at a social, they met the Governor General of South Australia, Sir T Bridge and the South Australian Premier, Sir H Barwell. Tomlinson sang at the Social then pushed on alone the next day for Barrow Creek.
ANTS: In the telephone cables between the site of the new post office and the temporary post office, a leak was reported and the line foreman spent some time endeavouring to locate it. An excavation was made in the lane between Deakin Avenue and Langtree Avenue. Nine different holes were found in the lead piping, the red gum covering around the cable resembling honeycomb in appearance. Mr Giddens, cable joiner, said there were thousands of white ants in the woodwork
75 YEARS AGO
SPORT: Tomorrow and Sunday are the remaining days of the Open Golf Tournament at Riverside. It will be a Men’s Day on Sunday. An extremely close match is expected in the Mildura and District Lawn Tennis Association’s winter pennant final tomorrow between Mildura 1 and Sarnia Red. A and B Grade finals of Red Cliffs District Tennis Associations pennant competition will be played at Central courts. Mildura Amateur Cycling Club will conduct a 30-mile road race for B-Grade and an 8-mile race for B-Grade riders on Sunday. The Victorian Amateur Cycling Union has granted the club permission to conduct a 93-mile race from Renmark on October 17.
NEWS: Officials of the Wentworth Golden Jubilee Show were watching the judging on August 26, and 1500 attended. With a margin of six points, Monash House won Mildura Central School’s annual display competition at the Recreation Ground. The G W Ward Shield was presented by the headmaster, Mr G L Pentreath, to Max Boston and Beverly East, captains of the winning house. The large gathering of parents and district residents at the tree planting ceremony at Merbein Higher Elementary School demonstrated the keen interest shown in the welfare of the school – all were welcomed by the headmaster, Mr J A Findlay.
KINDERGARTEN: Our country needs well-balanced, healthy, moral and intelligent people, who can adjust themselves to their environment and live in unity with their fellow-beings. The early years of a child’s life are considered to be the formative ones and in this regard the work of the kindergarten is vital for by the time they are six years old, he has acquired habits and characteristics that will stay with him through his life.
50 YEARS AGO
HISTORY: There is a great deal of realism in the ancient Jewish law about neighbours, love, and the realism is about man’s short-sightedness. To love our neighbour might seem enough but to be loved as each of us loves himself – that is a different matter – self-love does not have to be commanded – love your neighbour as yourself means not putting yourself in another’s place.We do that all the time with dire results but putting the other in a place you normally give yourself, as Thomas Kempis said, “is a man’s most praiseworthy thing” to do. It does not come naturally – it has to be commanded. A popular word in Old English before the 10th Century was – ‘Weard’ now expressed as “warden or guardian”. In old names like Hereward and Edward shows it being used as an element – many like this are now out of use. It is now used to describe a keeper or watchman – there was a hayward for those who guarded not the hay but the enclosure. In Ancient times a man whose hair had turned grey was rarer than he would be today – it was something of a feat to survive the inevitable battles and hardship of life and live to be a senior citizen. If he did he was highly regarded and titles to address him such as Monsieur in France, Heir in Germany.
OLDEN: It took five years of painstaking work by Mr Allen Warwick to restore his 1927 Swift car. When he started restoring, all he had was the bonnet and mudguards. He used an old workshop manual and the advice of other Swift owners, attended night classes at Mildura Technical School to make parts as well as importing a new hood and parts from the USA. It once was a taxi in Red Cliffs. Wentworth GaolJail is one of the town’s biggest tourist attractions and is now nearing the end of its facelift thanks to a grant for $2000 on a dollar-for-dollar basis from the Minister For Lands, Mr Lewis. Wentworth Shire hopes to totally reconstruct and out-fit the old jail to its original condition.
PIONEERS: A link with Sunraysia’s historic past was broken with the passing of Mrs Elsie Mills. She was the 14th of 15 children born to parents in the Mount Lofty Ranges, SA and came to Mildura on the paddle steamer Gem to live with a sister who ran a Guest House in Lime Avenue. Her brother Walter Wescombe worked for the Chaffey’s as a propagationist.She married one of the city’s first bread makers, Arthur Mills, who arrived on a bicycle aged 12 and was a friend of A T Henderson, who the Park was named after. Their first home was on the corner of Pine Avenue and Eighth Street and is still standing. They moved to Williamsville near Curlwaa, then invested in land at Merbein. The family moved to Tresco near Swan Hill and lived in a tin hut with unmade floor and hessian bags to divide the rooms . The five sons shared a double bed. They moved back here in a land boom, buying land at Irymple then took over a catering business, the corner of Deakin Avenue and Eighth Street in Mildura, built Mills Court, worked 14 hours a day as caterers, with 12 hours on Sunday and often several weddings on one day.
25 YEARS AGO
ART: Irymple Secondary College classmates are shown admiring their mural handiwork on a Merbein shop – a part of the Merbein Rotary Club and Irymple Secondary College that plan to open a series of murals depicting current and historical scenes of Merbein. A group of Grade 5 students at Irymple South Primary School produced an almost life-sized replica of a Hippopotamus after reading a book and carrying out an activity relating to the story they had read – they spent the afternoon on the football oval placing pegs into the ground then wrapping toilet paper around the outline to form the shape of a hippopotamus.
AVIATOR: Long time resident of Mildura Helen Wood told of her father, air ace Lieutenant Frank Alberry DCM, Australia’s only one-legged aviator in World War I, who accounted for five or more enemy aircraft. He lost his right leg at Pozieres in 1916 and was told the War was over for him but after being fitted with an artificial leg, he became proficient in its use and sought to transfer to the Australian Flying Corp saying – “If I can’t walk, then I’ll fly” but was told only King George V could do that he raised the matter with the King when being presented with his DCM.
BEES: Pressure from the Green lobby and changes in Government policy could seriously hamper the growth of Sunraysia’s lesser known essentials – crop pollination – bee keepers face restricted access to public lands which has become popular because of the significant increase in production that can be achieved at low cost if bees are used to pollinate crops such as almonds, avocados, rock melons, pumpkins, canola, cucurbits, apples, fava beans, carrot and onion seed production even clover in pasture.
