Margaret Mosher

Born 14th of November, 1950 Sydney, Australia

Passed Away 22nd of November, 2024 Hervey Bay, Australia

My Parents

My mother, Barbara Ridge was born on the 4^th of January, 1927 in Croydon, NSW. She was the third daughter born to Gertrude Ryan and Vincent Ridge. As an infant, mum lived in a Croydon. When she was young, the family moved to a house on Paine St in Maroubra. The Ridge girls attended St Aidan’s Catholic Primary School in Maroubra Junction. My mother's father, Vincent Ridge, was a vegetables commission agent. He had a market stall at Paddy’s Market in Haymarket, Sydney. Quite often, she would accompany my grandfather for several days at a time out to areas in the Greater Western Sydney to meet with vegetable sellers. As much as she loved this time with her father, my grandmother wasn’t pleased about the time away from school. During her youth, my mum spent a lot of time at Maroubra Beach with her school friends. As a child and teenager, Barbara learned how to play the Banjo. The Ridge Family were devout Catholics, attending Mass regularly at the Holy Family Church in Maroubra. Mum and her sisters were members of the local Church group for girls called 'The Children of Mary'.

My father, Rex Casburn Mahony was the first of seven children born to Alma May Mahony nee Woods and William Henry Mahony. He was born in Barmedman, NSW, Australia on the 1st of January, 1925. As a baby, Dad's father, William was adopted by his mother, Matilda's sister and her husband. His adoptive father's surname was Mahony. The surname of William's biological mother was Warham. William never learned who his biological father was. My grandmother, Alma owned and ran a post office/general store 9 in Barmedman. My grandfather, William was a war veteran, a rugby league football coach and general handyman, working on properties in the area.

My parents first met at a CYO (Catholic Youth Organisation) Dance at the Holy Family Church Hall in Maroubra, in the mid-1940s. Barbara was with her older sister, Helen and some of her friends, including her best friend, Betty Duggan. When Barbara spoke of that fateful evening, she remembered Rex wearing trousers that were slightly ill-fitting, in that they were too short for him. So she and her girlfriends nicknamed him, ‘half-mast’ (like a flag that’s only half raised). At the time, Rex’s parents were eager for him to couple up with a friend of the family. Barbara and Rex met over several dances at the venue and developed a keenness towards one another. They then started dating. Some of their favourite haunts were The Trocadero and Oysters Bill’s. Initially, Rex’s mother, Alma (Mahony) wasn’t too happy about the courtship due to her strong allegiance to the Church of England and Barbara’s Catholicism.

Mum and Dad couldn’t get married when they first wanted to because there was a shortage of rental accommodation. This was due to the relatively recent end to the war. A huge influx of soldiers had returned, with many regional officers, seeking and obtaining jobs in Sydney. In 1947, the couple was married at the very same place they had met - The Holy Family Catholic Church in Maroubra. Barbara's sister, Helen and her best friend, Betty were the bridesmaids.

The Beginning

I was born on the 14th of November 1950, at about 6:30 in the evening at Paddington Women's Hospital. Mum went into labor during visiting hours and by the time visiting hours were finished, I was back on the ward. The ladies couldn't believe it. My parents had a bit of trouble trying to get pregnant and so I was very much a wanted baby. We lived in Kingsford, Sydney. My home was also home to my paternal grandparents as well as my father's siblings. They lived with us, on and off, throughout my childhood. Later on, in her old age, my maternal grandmother, Gertrude also lived with us. Our house was right on the suburban border. Our side of the street was in Kingsford and the other side, Maroubra.

I had an ideal life as a little kid. My father was so affectionate. I couldn't wait for him to get home from work each day. Mum was always cooking. There was always something exciting going on. Two and a half years later, my sister Cheryl arrived. And then two and a half years after that, Geoffrey arrived. So we were a family of three and a very happy one.

My father, Rex, was one of seven. My father and his brother, Billy are the only ones that have passed away so far. The ladies are all in their 90s and look like they're only in their 70s. So they're very well preserved, the little Mahony women.

My paternal grandparents who lived with us were William Henry Mahony and Alma May Mahony, nee Wood. William Henry was very quiet. My recollections don't include him living with us when I was little. Pop Mahony had travelled overseas to fight in World War 1. He was a light horseman for the Australian Imperial Forces and was a member of the 3rd Battalion. My pop also fought in World War 2, when he was in his forties. In appreciation for his services, the army gave him a land grant. He used this to buy farm land in Delungra. They raised sheep on the farm there. I remember going to the farm a lot when I was young. We always had such a good time there.

My father's side of the family were members of the Church of England. Mum's were all strict Catholics. At the time, in order to be married in a Catholic church, both the bride and groom had to be Catholic. If Dad remained a member of the Church of England, he and Mum could only have married in the Church Presbytery but not in front of the altar. So my father converted to Catholicism and in 1947, they were married at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Maroubra.

Dad was a refrigeration mechanic and worked for himself. So it was not unusual for him to head up to Delungra when the lambing was on or when there was plenty of shearing to be done. I've got lovely memories of the farm. Collecting the eggs, watching the chicks hatch, and feeding the little lambs with the glass bottles. There was a big old horse there called Tom. Poor old Tom would have about five of us kids at a time, riding on his back. But he just kept walking around with us hanging off him. It was wonderful on the farm. The house had a sleep out verandah and this was where we all slept. We would put on concerts and plays for the family. Sometimes we went there for Christmas. This was always lots of fun. Unfortunately, my nanna and my pop separated when I was young. Nanna came back to Sydney and, along with her younger children, Cherie and Kerrie, lived with us for a couple of years after that.

My Aunty Cherie was only a few years older than me so I just called her Cherie. Both Cherie and Kerry attended high school at Maroubra Junction - the school that my father had attended previously. At this point, I was still in Primary School at St Aidan's. Of Dad's siblings, the next up in age were the twins, Bill and June. Dad has an older sister named Pat. She is still with us but lives in Wisconsin in the United States. Dad also had a younger brother named Kerry. As a young man, Kerry worked for Holden Motors. He had a cadetship with the company and they put him through university. Kerry is a very clever man. He now owns one of the largest chains of preschools in South Australia. Kerry married a woman named Joan. She was working in Brisbane as a nurse and the two met when, during his mid-twenties, Kerry was transferred there with Holden.

After having saved for years, when I was about nine years of age, Mum and Dad bought a house at 270 Maroubra Road. Nanna, Cherie and Kerry all came across to live with us. After a while, with a little help from the family, Nanna Mahony was able to buy a three-story terrace house in Petersham. She had male borders there to help with the costs. I remember not being allowed to go upstairs because of all the private rooms. Her full maiden name was Alma May Wood. She was highly intelligent. As a child, my nanna won a bursary to attend a private school in Sydney. At the time, she lived in a country town in NSW, near the Victorian border. Her father wouldn't let her go because she was the eldest of the Wood family and her mother needed help with the younger children. She loved classical music, art and was a real Science enthusiast. Nanna was a great conversationalist and could talk to anyone about anything for hours. As a I child I can remember her telling me all about black holes. I had no idea what a black hole was. She was lovely, my Nanna.

My paternal grandfather's name was William Henry Mahony, although there was some confusion about his surname. We've come to learn that Pop was born with his mother's maiden name, Warham. To this day, it is unclear who William's father was. Matilda struggled with mental illness and found it hard to manage. When William was old enough to attend school, Matilda's sister and her husband, looked after William full time. Over time, in his late teens, William took on his uncle's surname of Mahony. Unfortunately, my pop died when I was about twelve years of age. He had sold the farm by then and was living with his relatives over on the North Shore in Sydney. I think he had a heart attack. He was a bright man. After high school, William studied to become a solicitor. Throughout his youth, he worked a lot with horses and as a young man, he worked as a professional horse trainer. When World War I broke out, he enlisted and served abroad as a light horseman. He never did finish his legal studies.

After the war while he was travelling through southern New South Wales, William met my nanna, Alma Wood. The two fell in love and William decided to stay there with her. William and Alma got married and then along came the children. Whilst living there, William captained the local football team and coached teams from other grades. He was quite small in stature. Not at all tall, like my dad. But he was wiry and stronger than an ox.

As he was approaching forty, the Second World War happened, and again, William enlisted. As time went on, the relationship between my grandparents became less harmonious. His experiences of war had taken their toll on him and he battled with depression. William had become quite an increasingly idiosyncratic person and my Nanna found this hard to deal with.

Uncle Ted, Puppa Ridge, Pop Mahony and Dad

Eventually, Nanna got to the stage where she wanted to come to Sydney, so she packed everybody up and travelled north. They rented the house on Edgar St in Kingsford, which is the house that we all ended up sharing. During the time that I was growing up there, Nanna Mahony, Cherie, Uncle Kerry, Uncle Billy and Aunty Shirley lived there for a large of it. Aunty Val, Aunty June and her daughter Jennifer were there a lot of the time too. We had such a lovely big family.

Early Memories

In my earliest memories, there was always lots of family around. Uncle Billy spent most of his time with us. He'd go up to the farm and help Grandpa and then come back down to us again. I remember he would sleep on the enclosed veranda. But then Grandpa would need more help because he was in the process of fencing the property, which was a big job. So Uncle Bill would travel back up to Delungra, clear land, get rid of rocks and continue with the fence work. Eventually, it was all finished. That homestead they built together in Delungra is still standing. My nanna had ordered a prefabricated home from an American company called Hudson Homes. It arrived in kit form and between the family, they built that house. It was a beautiful house - very similar to the one I'm living in now. It had the same sort of setup, only the verandas went all the way around three sides.

It was around June of 1959 that we moved from Edgar Street in Kingsford to 270 Maroubra Road, Maroubra. When I saw our new home I remember thinking that it was the most beautiful house I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe that we were going to be able to live there. The house was originally built back in the 1940s. It was a federation-style house, but beautifully done. The fellow that had owned it, Mr Furness, was a builder. So a lot of the furniture in the place was built in, which was quite rare in those days. This included the cupboards throughout the house and the bunk beds in Geoffrey’s room. There were beautiful leadlight windows everywhere, and all the ceilings featured ornate, plastered flowers. It was such a beautiful house, and it became a very happy one. We had a lot of fun there.

St Aidan's Primary School

As a little girl, we went to church every Sunday. I remember one Easter Sunday, I met Mother Antonio from St. Aidan's Primary School. She was one of my mother's teachers at the school when she was young. I was wearing a little royal blue velvet dress with a white lace collar, white socks and little patent leather shoes. Mother Antonio said, Oh, what a lovely little girl. Why aren't you at school? Mum said, "Oh, she's only four." Mother Antonio didn't seem concerned by this and asked, “Would you like to go to school?” And I remember saying, yes. She said, "Bring her along on Monday." Mum told her that we didn't have a uniform. Sister Antonio said, "She'll be right. Wear that pretty dress, you'll be fine."

I started school on the following Monday. I remember my mother crying as my class walked into the building. I couldn't wait to go and see what all the kids were doing. The very first person that spoke to me was the little girl that was to become my very best friend in the whole world, forever and a day, Adele. Her first words to me were, "Hello, what's your name? My name's Adele. My sister's a teacher here. We'll get more rides on the rocking horse if you're my friend. This was in 1955.

Dad was very handy with woodwork. He had made Mum a gorgeous beauty case out of wood. She tipped all her things out of it and gave it to me to use as a school case. I thought it was wonderful.

I loved school and really enjoyed certain subjects, such as Art and Religious Education. God was everything at the time. I admired the Brigidine nuns who taught us. Nearly all of them were Irish and came over together from the same part of the country. They were very young, fresh-faced and spoke with broad accents. When I think about it now, some of the nuns would probably only have been eighteen or nineteen years old. But they were lovely. Always kind to me. I never got smacked. Never got into trouble.

Through the school, I used to have weekly elocution lessons. I would then put what I was learning into practice by participating in public speaking competitions. At these events, each student had to select a piece of writing to memorise and recite. You would get a list with about five different choices. Of those, options included excerpts from a book, a poem, or some other reading. You would then learn and practice your chosen piece. On the competition day, you would get up on stage and recite your piece as evocatively as you could. It was a lot like voice acting, I guess. You had to bring your story or character to life, putting in a bit of dramatic flair and taking on the voices of characters. There would usually be about eighty competitors and their parents, from schools all over Sydney in attendance. Once you finished and came back to your seat, you had to sit and wait, listening to every other speaker. Then they would hand out the marks and give you your ranking. I was always nervous but I managed to get through and I ended up with a wall full of those lovely certificates with the big red seals on them.

Some of my closest friends today are those that I made at St Aidan's Primary School.

The Church

I enjoyed going to church as a child. When I was quite young, I'd walk all the way to our church, the Holy Family Catholic Church in Maroubra, from our house in Kingsford, which was about a kilometre away. I can't imagine parents letting young kids do that in this day and age. But when I was about nine years old and we moved into the house on Maroubra Road, it was then only a short walk to our church. I'd take Cheryl and Geoffrey. Sometimes they would refuse to come into the church, but I would never miss it. To me, it was like a mortal sin to miss Mass.

Cheryl and Geoff would go to the milk bar and have a milkshake. Mum and Dad always gave us money to donate at, with a little extra for us to buy a milkshake and the newspaper for them on the way home. There used to be a milk bar right across from the Catholic Church. It was a beautiful little milk bar. The man who ran the place was named Mick. He had these incredible handmade chocolates you could buy. So we would go there, or I would meet Cheryl and Geoffrey there, we'd have a milkshake and then head home.

One of the things I loved about the church and going to Mass was the feeling of continuity and the fact that everything was always the same. Also, I derived joy from it. I enjoyed the scripture stories. At certain times of the year, we would pray and raise money for those in need. They used to run a competition to see who would attend Mass most frequently during the month. The nuns would give us a rectangular piece of cardboard that had the calendar month drawn on it. When we went to 7 am weekday masses, that day at school, the nuns would put a pinhole in the date to signify that we had attended. At the end of the month, the person with the most pin holes received a holy card. I earned many holy cards over the years.

I was always in the church choir. Once a month, for an 8 am Sunday Mass, the choir would sing from the church loft which was located at the back of the building. For these Masses, we wore red cloaks and were called the ‘Holy Angels’.

The church had a lot of marches. We’d carry all these beautifully embroidered holy cloths with gold trimming on them and march from our school in Maroubra Junction to the catholic school at Randwick, or vice versa. We did this on different feast days. We went to Mass every Friday.

Brigidine College

In about 1963 I started high school at Brigidine College in Maroubra. The campus was located on the same street as my primary school, but was further up the hill, on the other side of the nun's convent. It wasn't a very big high school. The classrooms were demountable buildings with louver windows. So in the summer, it was very hot in the classrooms.

I have great memories of high school. My friends and I all loved music. The Beatles had a big impact. I had a lovely group of friends of whom I'm still close to today. So I'm very lucky. When we get together or talk on the phone, we laugh about things that we did back in the day. We did some funny things back then. At school we would go swimming and play tennis.

We had a musical appreciation lesson once a week. This usually involved analysing classical music. I remember we were often asked to identify instruments as they were featured within a piece of a music.

I was in a couple of choirs at school and through the parish. We used to go on buses down to the Conservatorium in the city and to Lady Macquarie's Chair. Cheryl, Adele and I were always involved in poetry reading competitions. We would have a lot of days off school to compete in these competitions. A book would be sent out and you would learn poems and read them aloud at the competitions.

Art was my favourite subject. From a young age, I attended private art classes on a Saturday. We did a lot of mosaic work with tiles in high school. There was also a strong focus on the master painters. I’ve always loved Degas. He featured many ballet dancers in his paintings and I’ve always found them to be exceptionally beautiful. I loved sketching as well. A lot of our homework for various subjects involved completing projects. For the visual aspect of these projects, we would have to draw a lot of the illustrations and diagrams ourselves. I loved this part.

The Drama department at Brigidine put on plays every year. I loved acting in the plays! My mum and dad were great supporters of the school. They didn't have a lot of money and yet would offer support by paying for the renting of costumes for the main characters in the plays. In my second year of high school, we did Wind in the Willows. I played the role of the policeman. In my third year, Brigidine put on a production of The Mikado. I played Nanki-Poo. My friend Irene Vassallo played the character Katisha, an older woman intent on marrying Nanki-Poo. Something else that probably doesn't happen too often nowadays is that my mother would often drive my teachers, the nuns, to their specialist doctor's appointments in the city.

From second year, we were put into classes that were academically differentiated. I was in the ‘A Class’, which had a strong focus on Advanced Mathematics and French. Unfortunately, these subjects clashed with the cooking and sewing courses - skills that would have been beneficial to me in the years to come.

When I reached the end of the Third Form, I had every intention of coming back to complete my fourth year of high school. During the end-of-year summer holidays, however, I was offered a full-time job at a printing factory. Adele, my friend Trisha and I had been working there over the holidays and we were all offered full time positions there. We all left school to join the workforce.

Working

At the end of Year 9, I took a full time job working at Seaborne Printing in Alexandria. Seaborne printed school exercise books. A friend of Adele’s worked there and they were looking for a few girls. Tricia, Adele and I applied. Tricia was lucky enough to get the job in the office - which would have been the best job. Adele and I were very happy to work alongside one another in the warehouse.

The first thing I was asked to do there was to wrap the exercise books in brown paper and write the names and addresses of the package recipients. Schools would order, say, 600 exercise books - you'd wrap that exact amount and they would be sent off to the school. After I had been doing this for a while, Adele and I were asked to complete a task together. This involved collating the pages of books together, adding the covers and then stapling it all together. As we did this, we sat side by side and could talk all day while we worked.

Not knowing that in the not-too-distant future, I would marry one, but I enjoyed watching the printers and typesetters at Seaborne doing their work. It was interesting to see how they applied different colours and the typesetting for various jobs.

But I enjoyed the work and getting paid every week was just amazing! In fact, once I started experiencing the newfound personal and financial freedom that having a job brought, I decided I didn’t want to go back to school to complete my fourth year. The expectation to finish school wasn’t there for most students back then, certainly not for girls. When I told my parents that I wanted to leave, they said that they were happy for me to do so, as long as I had a job.

After the Christmas rush was over at Seaborne Printing, they didn’t need us. So Trisha, Adele and I all went on to other jobs. I got a job at a beautiful jewellery store in Eastlakes. The store also sold dinner sets, ornaments and gifts for children. Something I loved to do there was decorate the display tables with different dinner sets. I was in my element! As I got older, they had to pay me more and the frugal manager of the store told my boss to hire someone younger. If you were under sixteen back then, employers didn’t have to pay you very much at all. On my breaks in the lunchroom, I would often chat with the staff from Gilchrist’s, the wool shop next door. We got along very well. When the manager heard that I would be looking for work, she offered me a job on the spot.

I enjoyed working at Gilchrist’s but the travel was a bit of a pain and so only stayed on there for a few months. Before leaving, I started looking at job advertisements in the paper. I’ve always loved animals and so when I saw an assistant’s position at a nearby vets, I applied for the job and got it. The veterinarian practice was on Bunnerong Road in Pagewood. - walking distance from home. The job involved taking appointment bookings, sterilising equipment, assisting the vet during operations and cleaning the kennels. I found the work very interesting. I think I was earning about $17 per week, which was pretty good back then. I was required to work a six-day week and the days were long, often running from 8:00 am to 6:30 at night. I worked there for over a year. At this point, I was seeing David Trewin and we wanted to spend more time together.

I left the vet’s and took a job at Repco on Palmer St in Kings Cross. Repco was an automotive parts wholesaler. It was here that I learned to operate a switchboard.

Then I took a position at Grace Brothers on Broadway. David was working for a printing company, further up on the same street. So we would drive in together. I worked in an office in the photographic department. Photographs of receipts, showing customer purchases made on store credit would be taken and the photos would be developed into microfiche. This meant that if customers questioned a bill they received for a purchase, we had photographic proof and could say, “Yes you do, here is your signature for the purchase.” I enjoyed the process of developing the microfiche. When the girls did all the collating of the dockets, they would bring them to us in these big drawers. I would use a special machine to put the photograph of the dockets onto pieces of microtape. And then I’d go down to the darkroom out the back and mix up the mixture. You'd have this black box and wind these little celluloid pieces onto what looked like like a movie reel. You would then develop them and hang them on a line to dry. After that, you'd put them through the fiche and make sure that they were all clear. I became the supervisor of that department. I stayed there right up until I got married. I loved working at Grace Brothers. I met a lot of great people and I made some wonderful, lifelong friends there. Two friends I met at Grace Brothers who were particularly dear to me were Jo Woods and Leonie Latter.

Young Love

After having left high school, I was still only fifteen and so my parents maintained relatively strict rules regarding when I could go out. I was seeing David Trewin, a man whom I would go on to marry. My parents allowed me to go out to the drive-in one night a week with him but I had to be home by 11:00 pm.

I met David one Saturday morning. My parents were out. The doorbell rang and I answered it. David stood there in the doorway. He was looking for my best friend, Jackie, who was over, visiting. Jackie was such a pretty little thing. It wasn’t uncommon for boys to asking after her. Not that she was promiscuous - her combined beauty and charm just meant that everyone wanted to be around her. The next day David came back again, but this time, to see me. I remember my parents were concerned at first because David was a lot older than me. He was 22 when we first started going out.

I had been out with other guys before David but it was never anything serious. I used to go to the dances on a Sunday at the CYO (Catholic Youth) at the Holy Family Church Hall. They’d have great singers and bands playing there. That’s where I first saw Little Patty perform. It was at one of these CYO dances that I met Ray Cuddy. Ray was to become my first real boyfriend. He was a very smart dresser. He always wore a gray suit with either a pale mauve, pale blue or pale pink shirt. We dated for about six or seven months but it became clear that he wasn’t what I was looking for.

Another early boyfriend was Frank Clark. He was a tow truck driver and had his own business down at Taylor Square. Frank used to race his car out at Richmond. He invited Jackie and I to go with him one night. After that, I’d often go out there with him and well, that’s how we got together. I left Frank to start seeing David but after a while, feeling torn, broke up with David and went back to Frank. But I couldn’t get David out of my head and realised that he was who I really wanted to be with. So things got serious with us and on my seventeenth birthday, we got engaged. Not quite two years later, just before my nineteenth birthday, we were married. At the time, some of my friends that were getting married were choosing to have their receptions at lavish wedding venues. My parents said that if we had the reception at home, they would pay for everything. David and I talked about it. We were so desperate to be married and so we jumped at Mum and Dad’s offer.

About eight months before we married, we decided to buy a nice car. We went down to Kings Cross and put a deposit on a 122 Volvo. We had to wait for five months for it to arrive from Sweden. It was beautiful. It was red and had black upholstery.

Married at 18

We were married at 6:00 pm on the 6th of November, 1969 at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Maroubra. The priest who married us was Father English. My mother in law, Nellie made my wedding dress. She was a professional seamstress and tailor. The dress was magnificent! I felt so beautiful in it. Cheryl, Jacqueline and my little god-daughter, Gina were my bridesmaids. Geoff Hawke and Johnny Trewin were the groomsmen.

Nellie Trewin had all the staff in the family toyshop (Trewin’s Toys) working on making these beautiful big, crepe paper flowers. We had them all around the backyard of our house. Dad and Mum hired a big red carpet to go from the back door right up to the tavern.They had tents out the side. My mother worked her fingers to the bone, doing all the catering - and the food was magnificent! Geoffrey Hawke’s mother made the wedding cake. My Auntie June lent us cutlery and dinner sets. It was a beautiful wedding.

For our honeymoon, David and I drove up to Broadbeach on the Gold Coast. We stayed at my parents’ best friends’, Roy and Nancy’s holiday house. We stayed there for seven weeks. I had only ever been to the Gold Coast as a child, when we went up there as a family and stayed in a caravan.

Just before getting married, both David and I had thrown our jobs in. David was going to work for his father, Stan at Trewin’s Toys, because his dad needed to have two knee reconstructions done. He was in a motorbike accident in his late teens. As long as I’d known him, Stan walked with a limp. So David said, “I'll finish up at my printing job and I'll come and work for you. When you’ve recovered, I'll go back to printing.” I was thinking that once we were married, I’d fall pregnant straight away and so I too handed in my resignation (at Grace Bros). I desperately wanted a baby.

It was far more common to marry young back in the 1960s. Quite a few of our closest friends married around this time. So as newlyweds, we all did a lot together, socially.When we first got married we spent the next twelve months living with my Nanna Ridge. She lived at 54 Royal Street, Maroubra. It was pretty harmonious actually. Nanna was very quiet and we had our own bedroom. She also gave us a room in which we could store things, as we saved and prepared for buying and furnishing our own house. Ever since my first job, I had made a point of buying something every pay day for my glory box. So it was pretty full at this point, with towels and sheets and a million other things. Working at Grace Brothers brought a lot of temptation in that department. I’d see things go on sale and I had to grab them or lay by them.

During the time we lived with my Nanna, I worked for my friends Gladys and Peter Faulkner at the Esron Motel. For five days a week, I’d be behind the desk from three in the afternoon until eleven at night. The Esron was located on the corner of St. Paul and Dudley Street in Randwick and it overlooked Coogee Beach. The view was beautiful. In the late 1960s the Vietnam War was in full swing. We often had a lot of American military servicemen, who were on R & R, staying at the motel. I met some interesting characters during this time. There were pool tables and the boys would be out there playing, smoking and drinking until I closed up. So at eleven o’clock, I'd lock everything up, put the keys in the safe and drive our little Mach 2 Zephyr home.

After we married, David did his promised stint, working at his parents’ toy shop. But when Stan returned after his recovery, David decided to stay on at the shop. I remember he would ride his fancy microfibre bike to and from work. David was a bit of a health freak. He played a lot of squash. He was always doing something.

We were finally ready to buy a house. We wanted to borrow as little as possible from my mother in law and so we sold the Volvo and bought a Toyota Crown. Later on down the track, we bought another Volvo - a 144 Volvo. We had this until we separated.

David’s Aunty Gladys was the matriarch of the Carr family (David's mother's side of the family) and we just loved her. Aunty Gladys had been married but divorced and they didn’t have children. She was a mad golfer and drove this little, grey Austin A35. Gladys was a buyer for Myer, purchasing high-end ladies' wear like fur coats. She would often travel overseas for work, which was a rare thing back in those days.

Shortly after we returned from our honeymoon, Auntie Gladys passed away, quite suddenly. She had owned a lot of stocks and in her will, left quite a substantial amount of money to David and his siblings. The money from Glady’s inheritance brought us close to being able to put down a substantial deposit on a home of our own. We decided to sell the Volvo and buy a less expensive car - a Toyota Crown. With a little extra help from David’s parents we finally had enough money for the bank loan deposit and we bought our first home. She left us with enough money so that with the inheritance, and a little extra financial help from David’s parents, we had enough money to put a big deposit on a house at 109 Paine Street in Maroubra.

I'm a Mum! - Adam

At this point, all I wanted out of life was to get married and have children. I was surprised when we didn’t fall pregnant straight away. Out of all of our friends, we were the first to get married. All of my friends started having kids and before long, I was asked to babysit. I was so eager to be a mother.

Eventually, we sought medical advice. My Mum took me to see her gynecologist. We saw a range of doctors who carried out tests, not only me but also on David. During this time, I decided that I wanted to foster a child or some children. I’m not working, I thought. I can look after one or two kids, if they’re siblings.That would be amazing! Welfare came to meet with me and said that I was too young to foster a child. They also felt that because I didn’t have any other children, there was a good chance that I would become too attached to any child I fostered, and if it was a shorter-term foster situation, it would be hard on me. They asked if I had considered adopting. I said that I hadn’t because up until then I was sure that I would be able to fall pregnant and have a baby. They left some paperwork with me and told me to discuss the possibility with David. When I spoke to him he suggested that we fill in the paperwork and see what happens. So we did.

Around this time, some of the tests that David had revealed he had a varicose vein wrapped around one of his testicles. This was significantly lowering his sperm count, and therefore affecting our ability to conceive. He had to go into hospital and have a procedure to remove the varicose vein. It was very painful for him but following the surgery, his sperm count increased considerably.

I told my gynecologist that I would cancel the adoption application. His advice was to leave it and see what happens because there was still no guarantee that I would fall pregnant.

Adopting Adam was the most joyful thing I had ever experienced in my life. When David and I got home after picking him up, we sat on the floor of his bedroom, staring at him in his little colonial cradle all night. We never went to bed. We just sat there staring at him. We couldn't believe it.

Originally, I had given my preference to adopt a baby girl. There was a shop in Maroubra called Guys and Dolls. I spent about $160 there, which would have been a lot of money in those days. I had laybuyed pink nappies, pink dresses, and pink socks. All this beautiful stuff for a little girl. I would go down every time I got paid and pay some off the laybuy.

The welfare department used to have someone come out and check on us all the time. I guess to make sure we were good people. I remember on this one occasion they asked David why we wanted to adopt a girl . His response was, looking in my direction, “Because she said we have to.” And so of course then I'm trying to cover it up. I said, “Well, no, it's not that, it's just that the form asks you to select a boy or girl. And so if I have to choose one of the two, my preference would be a girl. And they said that if you were pregnant and having a baby, you wouldn't know what you are having.” Then she said, “Why don't you put either?” I'm thinking of all these frilly dresses hanging up in the wardrobe that I would have to take back. I said, “Well okay then.” If you do that you might be able to adopt sooner. So beside the word girl, we added boy and initialled it.

I was given the advice to ring up from time to time to ‘check and see how you’re going’. When I rang up, they said, “Oh yes, you're down for a boy.” I said, “Hang on, wasn't it either?” And she said, “No, you are down for a boy.” I said, “Oh, okay. That’s right.” I just left it because I didn't want to be taken off the list or lose our spot. So then I had to take all those girl-specific baby items back. We had already wallpapered the nursery with pink rabbits and little blue bows. We had the hugest crossover curtains, like the Queen Mother would have.

In the interim, I took on a lot of part-time work for a company called Centercom. I was getting a lot of work at the Esso oil company in Botany. I ended up becoming permanent on the switchboard there. The management knew that I was waiting to become a mother and that the adoption could happen at any time. They said, “Stay with us until they call you and leave that day. We will still pay you up for the week. And that's what I did.

I got a phone call from David on a Wednesday, and he said, “There's a lady from the Welfare that is going to ring you.”

And I said, “Oh what does she wants.” He wouldn’t tell me anything.

He said, “Oh, she's just gonna ring you. I've given her your number, but I thought I'd let you know.” And he wouldn't tell me any more about it. But he knew what was happening. She had told him.” He said he’d see me at my parent’s place after work. I hung up and then the phone rang. It was the lady from welfare. She told me that my little son had been born. She told me that he was born on the South Coast in a place called Pambula on the 7th of January (1974). She also told me how much he weighed at birth. She explained that David and I needed to go into her office the next day to sign all the paperwork. Once this was done, we could drive down and pick him up the next day.

So when I got back to my parents’ place, mum and dad had organised for everybody to go down to Pambula to meet our little boy. And so even though I would have liked to have just experienced this with David, you know, on our own, it turned out much better the way it happened.

My Dad drove. David and I were in the front with him. David’s mother, Nellie was in the back and my mother was on the other side. We left right after the paperwork was signed and headed to Bateman’s Bay. This meant it was only a short drive the next morning to get to Pambula. We stayed at a motel named ‘Zorba the Greek’.

The next morning we drove on to the hospital in Pambula. The nurses brought our baby out to us. The staff had named him Matthew. I looked at him and straight away I could see that he was just the perfect baby. He was such a happy little baby. I couldn't have gotten a better baby in the whole world. It was meant to be.

On the way back home, with Adam travelling between his two grandmothers, I can remember Mum saying to me, “If she pulls that Moses basket closer to her again, I'm going to have words with her! She keeps pulling him over to her side.”

We were so happy and so my concerns about not being able to fall pregnant fell by the wayside. Jackie had heard about a specialist by the name of Dr. Graham Bosch, at Paddington Hospital who was helping couples to have breakthroughs in falling pregnant. She cut out an article and gave it to me. She begged me to ring him up and arrange to go and see him. So I did.

The first thing Dr Bosch had me do was to monitor my temperature to see when I was most fertile and try to conceive at these times. Before I knew it, I had fallen pregnant. I couldn't believe it! Everything was going well with the pregnancy but then at nineteen weeks and a half weeks, I lost the baby. It was a little girl. The umbilical cord had gotten stuck around her neck and she died. Losing a baby at this more advanced stage of pregnancy was just before you had to have an official burial.

Graeme

Not too far down the track, in 1976 we were in the process of moving house to a bigger place, around the corner, on Nagle Avenue. I was working part-time on the switchboard for a delivery company. Adele was minding Adam while I was at work. I didn’t know it then but I was pregnant. I took my temperature and it stayed up. I rang the doctor and he said, “Do nothing.” The pregnancy went smoothly, and then, coming in two weeks early, on the 9th of August, our son, Graeme was born.

I had been looking after my baby niece, Desiree, who was born in January of that year. So she was about eight months old. I'd said to my sister, Cheryl, “I'll need a couple of weeks to get everything ready for the baby.” So she organised for Jackie to look after Desiree for what was going to be the last two weeks of my pregnancy. I was sure I was going to be having a little girl. I was set on having my ‘Amanda’. There was a lot of clothes shopping and general preparation to be done for my little Amanda. So I had baby Desi up until the Friday of that week.

That Sunday afternoon Adam, David and I were at the park. David was flying his model aeroplanes. When we got home, I started to feel a bit funny. I went to bed, telling David that I felt a bit off. I got into bed - a water bed, which was all the rage back then and my water broke! David sprang into action. My parents were away on holidays, down the south coast for a wedding and so we took little Adam to David’s parents, who lived in the same street as us. We raced over to the Royal Hospital for Women in Paddington. I really didn’t know what to expect. It was a long and painful labour but I gave birth at about 8:00 am the next day. Graeme was beautiful and healthy, but massive, weighing 11 pounds and three ounces at birth. Back in those days, unless they suspected there was a problem, you didn’t have an ultrasound. So we had no idea that Graeme would be as big as he was. I remember the doctor apologising, saying, “Oh my goodness, I didn’t know he’d be this big!” Due to the stitches I needed, I had to stay in the hospital for ten days.

The day after Graeme was born, my parents came to see him. They were so excited! They came with a lovely little silver bracelet for him - and because he had flaming red hair, Mum had the name ‘Little Red’ engraved on it. Her nickname was Big Red.

Life was exciting. We had just moved into a new house, which was bigger. Lots of my friends had babies. The street was full of young parents with kids. I’d take Adam to playgroup every week. I was a full-time Mum and it was lovely. We had a nice pool at our new house and so we swam every day.

A couple of months after Graeme was born, I found out that I was pregnant again. My doctor had said that if we wanted to have more children, not to take precautions because there was a greater chance of falling pregnant after recently having had a baby. I was thrilled!

And Then There Were Three

A couple of weeks later, out of the blue, David and I were sitting on the couch - little Graeme was on my lap and he said, “I don’t know what we’re doing here anymore.” I didn’t understand what he meant and I asked him if he wanted us to sell the house and move. Did he want to change jobs? He said he wasn’t happy and that it wasn’t me - it was him. It turns out he was having an affair with one of the ladies who worked at the toy shop. She was a relatively good friend of mine and used to cut my hair. David used to service her car as well.

So that was the end of my marriage to David. I thought I’d never get over it. Not long after this, I lost the baby.

We had to sell the house, which was also devastating for me. This was a very difficult time in my life. But I got through it and my life got better. With the little bit of money that I got after we sold the house, I was able to buy a semi on Neilsen Avenue in Hillsdale. My boys and I lived there happily for the next few years.

Philip

My boys and I were living in Hillsdale. Since the divorce, I had been on a couple of dates but wasn’t overly enamoured with anyone - until that is, I met Philip Walker. He had been in the army. My sister, Cheryl, had worked in the accounts section for a branch of the defence force that supported personnel and veterans, offering household items that they could have and pay off, without needing to pay interest. While Cheryl was working there, she met Philip Walker. Thinking he and I might get along, she invited him over for a drink at Mum and Dad’s tavern one night. Philip stayed there til after midnight, drinking and having a great old time. He and I got along well but Philip and my mother really hit it off.

At the time, Philip was living in Balmain and was working as a delivery driver, providing various necessities to takeaway shops all over Sydney. When he was in the eastern suburbs, he would drop in and visit Mum. One day I dropped baby Graeme off to be babysat at Mum’s because I had a specialist appointment. Philip was there. As I left I said goodbye and told Philip that I’d see him next time. He said, “Oh no. I’ll still be here when you get back.” I was having a party at my place that night. When I arrived back at Mum’s to pick Graeme up, I invited Philip to the party. He came along. We had a great time. Being too drunk to drive home, he slept over on the couch. The next day, Philip took the day off work and we hung out together. He took the day after that off too and we discovered that we liked spending time together.

Mum was very protective of me after David and I had separated. So I was apprehensive to tell her about Philip and I. I needn’t have worried though. Mum was thrilled, as was my Dad.

Soon enough, Philip moved from Balmain and moved into our semi in Hillsdale. He didn’t get along very well with one of our next-door neighbours. Philip was a truck driver and would often park his truck in our smallish street. This aggravated the neighbour and Philip, being the stubborn man he could be, continued to park where he pleased.

We were happy for quite a long time but in the end, we were just too different. He was a big drinker and storyteller. In hindsight, I think I was a bit gullible. But ultimately, we were just too different.

Kurnell

One day my sister, Cheryl phoned and told me about some affordable houses she’d seen in Kurnell. She asked if I’d be interested in taking the day off to go and have a look. As children, my parents often took us to Kurnell for holidays. They had a friend who worked at the Doncaster Hotel in Kensington who owned a holiday house on Silver Beach Road, overlooking Botany Bay. Back then you could take a ferry across the bay from La Perouse across to Kurnell. Jackie would often come with us. In our teens, friends would catch the ferry across to meet us. We’d explore and play in the park and then get Hamburgers for lunch. The holidays in Kurnell were wonderful.

Cheryl and I met with a local real estate agent and she took us around to look at about six or seven houses. None of them really grabbed me. Asking if she had anything else, she took us to this big house located at the top of the hill on Reserve Road. It was a five-bedroom, two-storey house with the most beautiful views of Botany Bay. As soon as we walked in, I thought, I want this house. The problem was that until I was able to sell the house in Hillsdale, I wouldn’t have the deposit for the house in Kurnell. I spoke to my parents and they loaned me the deposit. We moved into 17 Reserve Road, Kurnell on what used to be Fire Cracker Night, on the long weekend of June, 1980.

Philip was working for a trucking company in Mascot. His workmate, Nick Reese lived in Kurnell. Nick was married to Georgina. She and I became good friends and still are to this day. Georgina has three girls, close in age to my boys. While we were still waiting til we could move into the house, we popped into the Reeses’ for a cup of coffee. They took us on a walk. I found Georgina to be a lovely person and Nick seemed very nice. They told us about how great the local public school was. At this point, Adam was in Year One at St Agnes’ in Matraville. It would have been too tricky to get him along to the nearest catholic school every day, which was in Cronulla and so we enrolled him to start at Kurnell Public School. We enrolled Graeme into Kurnell Pre-School.

It felt like we were living in a little country town. We continued to make regular trips during the week to see my parents in Maroubra and I would still do my shopping over there. Another couple we became friends with after moving into Kurnell were Peter and Julie George. For a bit of extra money, I would look after their children, Lyndal and Rebecca, before and after school.

Once both of my boys were in primary school, I started to work again. I would work as a casual telephonist on the switchboard at Custom Credit. So if someone was away or was going on holiday leave, I would come in and cover their role while they were away. From there I was offered a position with National General Custom Credit in Edgecliff, calculating quotes for vehicle insurance. I worked there for a long time.

Desiree & Graeme at Kurnell Public School

We became good friends with our neighbours on both sides. Dorothy, or ‘Dot’ as we called her, lived at number 15. She had a small house, situated at the back of her block of land. Dot was elderly and couldn’t walk too far. Nearly every day, she’d ask me to go down to the pub and buy her a longneck of beer and drop it over to her. Often of an afternoon, when Philip got home from work, he and Dot would sit on our verandah, look out at the bay and have a couple of drinks.

She told me one day that she was thinking of selling her house. She didn’t want a lot of money for it. I think it was something like $22,000. It was a small, two-bedroom house with a kitchen and a little dining area. Philip and I talked about the prospect of buying it to increase our land size. Philip could park his trucks there and build a garage on it. I was so excited and told my sister, Cheryl about it. Her voice sort of dropped. She said that it would be an ideal place for Gerry, the kids and her and it would be something they could afford. So Cheryl got the finance and they moved in. Cheryl’s place became party central. She had a big bar in the house, a dentist’s chair and loads of funny hats. Cheryl and Gerry often had American friends over for parties.

Cheryl and Gerry were in the process of painting the house. They were up to working on the back area of the house. They had been invited up to see friends for the weekend in Richmond. Gerry said that he would leave the paint to dry and had left all of the paint cans out. He was going to put them all away when they got back.

When Philip and I separated, I wasn’t coping very well. I realised that I really needed to be home with you kids and so I left my job. I starting running the school canteen at the boy’s primary school. I did this for a few years.

One Big Happy Family

Around this time, Gerry’s sister in Texas became unwell and was diagnosed with cancer. He went back to Texas to see her. While he was over there, she passed away. Gerry stayed on for months afterwards to support his family there. Cheryl was on her own with the two kids and was working full time. We sat down together. We were both on our own, parenting full time and working. It made sense to all live together. This way we could pool our money, share the bills and pay off all our debts. And so that’s what we did. Cheryl, Shane and Desiree moved in with us.

Cheryl was such a hard worker. She worked Monday to Friday on the switchboard at Custom Credit and on Friday and Saturday nights she had a job in the kitchen at the drive-in movie theatre in Caringbah. Mine and Cheryl’s kids would jump in the car and go with her to her work at the drive-in. She’d get there early and reverse her car into a good position in front of the movie screen so the kids could all watch the movies while she worked. In between movies, the kids would go and see her in the shop there and get treats. Living together worked out really well. There were never any dramas and by coming together we were able to get on top of things. When Gerry came back to Sydney, things were a lot more settled.

My next job was at the Museum. It was really close to home, being located inside the ‘Kamay’ National Park in Kurnell. I worked there as a cleaner, three mornings a week from 4:30 am to 9:00 am. This brought in enough income for us to live quite comfortably.

Reg

I first met Reg in 1986. I went to a Friday night dance with some girlfriends. My friend Barbara brought a male friend from her tennis group along. She asked if we minded, telling us, “He’s single.” It just so happened that when I arrived at the dance, the only vacant seat was next to Reg. I said hello and introduced myself. Making conversation I said, “Do you like to dance? I love to dance!”

“No, I don’t dance,” was his reply.

I thought. “Oh, ok.” We got to talking though. He told me about his kids and I told him all about mine. He told me about his love of tennis and cars. He asked if my kids played tennis and I said that they did. He suggested that we get together and play. We didn’t exchange numbers that night. He phoned Barbara and told her that he thought I was nice and he asked if I had asked her about him. I did like him but I hadn’t spoken to Barbara about him. He asked Barbara for my number.

Reggie called me and asked me out for dinner. I was so nervous because I hadn’t been dating very much. That night as I was getting ready to go out, both my boys were sitting on my bed. I opened my wardrobe and I must have tried on about nine different outfits. Graeme said, “No, no. Not that one. The other one.” And Adam said, “No Mum, this one!”

He arrived that night in this big, loud, sporty car! It was white with two blue stripes running vertically along the centre of the car. The boys were very impressed! When I got into the car, I noticed that he had installed a protective, racing roll cage in it. I quickly put my seatbelt on. Surprisingly, he was a very cautious driver. For our first date, Reggie took me to the Bamboo Gardens Chinese Restaurant in Sans Souci. The date couldn’t have gone better. We started seeing one another from that point on.

Unfortunately, Reg never got to meet my mother because she had recently passed by then. But he became firm friends with my Dad. Reg is a mechanic by trade and worked for the NRMA for a long time. When he was working in the area, he would pop in to visit Dad to say hi and would often help tinker with anything that needed fixing on his car. As long as I’ve known Reggie, he’s never been a drinker - but he loved to hang out with Dad in the ‘Ye Oldee Koldee Tavern’ and have a soft drink.

A couple of years later we got engaged. We celebrated with a huge party at Dad’s place. We spent a great deal of time together but Reggie still lived in his unit in Randwick. He looked after his kids a lot and with shift work for the NRMA being based around the Eastern suburbs, it made sense.

Unfortunately issues between my kids and Reg’s emerged. One afternoon Reg’s son Gary and my son Adam, had an argument which became physical. Gary picked up a wooden deck chair and hit Adam over the head with it. Adam wasn’t seriously injured but, it gave me a big scare.The tension and the problems with our kids continued, however, and with the deck chair incident in the back of my mind, it ended up becoming the tipping point. A few months later, we broke up. It was a very painful time. I really loved Reggie.

A couple of months later my dad passed away. Although we weren’t together anymore, Reggie was by my side through it all.

After Dad died, Cheryl, Gerry and the kids moved to San Antonio, Texas. Geoff at this point, was living on Dunk Island, working as the General Manager there. We looked into selling the house on Maroubra Road. We were advised that because the house had ‘duel frontage’, with DA approval, we could sell it more easily and at a better price, as a property with approval for the building of an apartment block. So I had to go to an architect, who drew up plans for a building design. This design was then presented to the council. It took three attempts for it to be passed by the council.

I had to get a bank loan to pay for the architect, D.A and the real estate agent’s costs for advertising and running the auction. 1989 was a very tough year.

I had always wanted to take the kids to America and so just before the start of the Christmas holidays, we did just that. Adele and her Melissa came with us. It was a wonderful holiday! We flew to Los Angeles and went to Disneyland, Knotsberry Farm and Universal Studios. We even crossed the border into Mexico to check out Tijuana.From there we flew to see Cheryl, Gerry, Shane and Desiree in San Antonio. We had the best time there! As a thank you gift, I bought the Hansens a huge Christmas tree. To accommodate the huge number of Hansens coming over for Christmas, we hired tables and chairs. We ate roast pork and lamb. It was a wonderful Christmas, with every member of the extended Hansen family there. On our way home, we stopped for a few beautiful days in Honululu, Hawaii. It was a really special family holiday.

Losing Mum

Throughout our time living in Kurnell, our week always involved driving back and forth to Mum and Dad’s in Maroubra. In 1984, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Her appetite had been waning for some time. She knew something was wrong but was putting off looking into it. It was my father’s 60th Birthday on the 1st of January that year. Mum had her appointment with the doctor in February. She was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. They believed the mass to be very small and operable. She went in to St Luke’s Hospital in Kings Cross for the surgery. I remember sitting at home and worrying. I thought, I can’t just sit here. And so I jumped in the car and drove to the hospital. I went up to her room and I’m so glad I did because she was very nervous about the operation. We sat and talked for a while, which I think helped. She gave me instructions about what to do if there were complications during the surgery. Mum would get a few very small hairs that would grow on her chin. She said, “Your father doesn’t know I get these and so make sure you pluck them so he doesn’t see them.”

During the operation, the surgeon discovered that the cancer was much more widespread than first thought. Cancer was harder to determine in those days. She came home from the operation with three broken ribs and was in a lot of pain. Over the next five months she never really got out of bed.

We lost Mum on the 30th of June that year. It was a Sunday morning. Dad called me quite early and said, “I think you should come over.” I dropped my two over to Adele’s place. She passed away at about 7:00 am that morning. I was massaging her feet when she went. Dad was so overcome with grief that he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

We had to organise the funeral. We had a friend who owned a funeral parlour in Bondi and so he looked after us. We chose the same type of coffin that Mum had chosen for her Mum because we knew she had liked that one.

The whole dynamic within our family changed. We clung tightly to Dad, spending a lot more time with him. Dad had been diagnosed with a heart condition when he was in his 50s. It turns out that he was born with a leaking heart valve but had never known about it. If it wasn’t for a very good friend of Mum and Dad’s, Cedric, the diagnosis might have come too late. Cedric was a prominent heart surgeon. Dad had been feeling tired all the time and Cedric told him to come into the Royal North Shore Hospital for a check up. And that's when they discovered the leaking valve.

Losing Dad

Dad needed to have open heart surgery. Mum and Dad’s friend, Cedric performed the surgery himself. He was a handy friend to have. When Mum had her operation at St Luke’s, it was Cedric who had organised for the specialist surgeon to do the procedure.

He got through the surgery. The recuperation afterwards took about six months. Luckily, Dad had his own business and so he could choose his hours while still making sure he was bringing in enough money to cover his bills. Even after Dad was back working again, he would often say to me, “l don't feel the same.” He said, “I can hear the new valve clicking all the time.” He said it really spooked him.

Dad’s sister Pat lives in Wisconsin in the U.S. In 1989 she came over for a holiday. She and her new husband stayed with Dad at the house in Maroubra. This was good for Dad. He really loved his sisters and brothers. Because he was the eldest, they all looked up to him. Whenever they'd visit, they would all sit around the silver tea pot and drink copious amounts of tea all day, talking their heads off.

Dad and Auntie Pat had planned a road trip down to Albury, where they had all grown up. I popped in to see Dad the night before they left to make sure he had everything packed. They left the following morning. The next day, which would have been the 16th of February, 1989, I got a phone call, letting me know that Dad had been taken to Albury Hospital because he was having heart problems. Since Dad’s initial heart surgery, he had problems with fluid building up around the heart and he would often have to go into hospital to have it drained. So we didn’t think his admittance into the hospital in Albury was particularly serious. We figured he’d be in there for a few days and then he’d be out. Dad would need to fly home when he got out and we’d need to bring his car back for him. We booked train tickets to head down to Albury.

The next day we got a phone call to let us know that Dad had died. It was the 17th of February, 1989. It was such a terrible shock! We couldn’t believe he was gone. Dad and my Uncle Bill are the only siblings that have passed away. His sisters are now all in their 90s and are going strong.

Ron

I had no interest in meeting anyone new after Reg and I went our separate ways. Out of the blue, I got a phone call one day from Ron. He was friend of Adele’s husband at the time, Steve. Ron and Steve had worked at the same company. He told me he had separated from his wife and that they were getting a divorce. Ron was really unsure and anxious aboutabout what may lay ahead for him, legally and emotionally, and having been through it all, I shared some of my experiences with him. The talk seemed to help. Ron asked me if I’d be interested in going out for dinner like to . He was so lovely to talk to and I could tell he was a kind hearted man and so I said yes.

Soon after that we met up for dinner. I found that I really enjoyed his company. I never stopped laughing the whole night. He was very well educated, well read and overall, just a very funny man.

At what was a real time of limbo for Ron, he was living in a hired caravan, the van residing at the premises of the trucking company he worked for. After seeing Ron a few more times, and in learning of his living situation, I knew he was going to have to find a more long term place to live. He was paying child maintenance for his three children and financially, he was doing it pretty tough. This was a short time before the kids, Adele, Melissa and I were due to fly out to the states for our big holiday to the U.S. I offered our house as a place for him to stay in while we were away for the next six weeks. He was grateful and accepted the offer. Funnily enough, my ex-husband, David, was also living at our house at the time.

About a year earlier, David phoned. He spoke to Adam and after a while, Adam said, “Mum, Dad wants to speak to you.” David told me that without warning, his wife, Robin had left him. He was absolutely devastated.He had come home from work that day, only to discover that she had moved out, completely emptying the house in the process. All she left was a spoon, a blanket, a pillow (minus the pillow case). She even took the draws out of the built in wardrobes. He was devastated and could barely string two words together. He said, “I don’t suppose you and the boys could come over?” So we went over. That year, David had to sell the house and split the money with Robin. While he was looking for a new place to buy, we had a spare room and so I offered to let him stay at our place. He did. With the advent of big international toy shops coming into the country, business had been very tough for Trewin’s toys and David had to close down the shop his parents established almost fifty years earlier. David, being the active man he was back then, never stopped. He became our resident handyman, helping with minor renovations and fixing anything and everything that didn’t operate like clockwork. I remember David and the boys spending weeks fixing a drainage issue we had out the front. They dug trenches and layed pipes out to the road. David stayed with us for close to a year and then bought an apartment in Eastlakes. When we arrived back from the states in the Summer of 1990, Ron and I continued to see each other. Before long, we were very much an item.

Finally the D.A for approval to build apartments at my parents’ place went through. We weren’t quite ready to sell and so we rented the house out to Adele and her husband Steve at a minimal rate. Eventually we sold the house. I used my share of the inheritance from the house to pay off my mortgage in Kurnell and to pay off all other debts. I was sure that with the money left over, I would have enough to renovate my house at Kurnell. So we started the renovations. I took the advice of the builder, but in hindsight, I shouldn’t have. He said that rather than give me a quote for the whole renovation, the cheapest way to do it would be for me to pay the builders’ wages every Friday. He said that they would give me the receipts for the materials as they bought them. But it didn’t work out to be cheaper. It was a much more expensive way to do things because they took a lot longer. Also, I’m not certain that all of the materials I was paying for actually came to my house because I was working every day and couldn’t be there to oversee it all. The money went like water. As my money disappeared without the finishing line for the completion of the renovation in sight, it became an increasingly stressful experience. Eventually I ran out of money and we couldn’t finish the renovation.Then we made another mistake. We took out another mortgage so that we could finish the house.

Around this time, Ron and I had been over to the U.S together. We went with Ron’s brother Alan and Emily. While we were away, Ron told me about his dream of opening up his own freighting/trucking business. His brother had gone into a similar type of business himself, years earlier, and was making very good money from it. It sounded very promising. So we got together enough money to start the business. He called it R.A.S Freighters. Ron particularly loved the business name because it had two meanings. The first being that RAS were his initials (Ronald Austin Sullivan) and the second being, ‘Road, Air and Sea’ - covering the terrain that his transport business covered in importing and exporting products. Alan gave us offices in his building in Mascot. After that Ron hired two subcontractors.

In 1990, one of Adam’s long-time school friends, Karl, came to live with us. We had known him since he was really young. Karl was doing a carpentry apprenticeship. He had moved out of home but was having a hard time finding a place to live. Adam spoke to Ron and I about it. We offered to let Karl move in with us and he so he did. We had an empty caravan in our backyard and so Karl moved in there. This wasn’t long before Adam moved to Northern Queensland to work for my brother Geoff on Dunk Island. Karl was a welcome edition and before long, he was like one of the family. Karl has a great sense of humour and is quite the character and strong connections were built between him and all of us. A few years later, Adam had moved across to work on Brampton Island. He had told a few of his mates back in Sydney, including Karl, about how much fun he was having working up there. Before long, Karl and another friend of theirs, Wayne, moved up there to work.

Unfortunately, and we didn’t know at the time, but Ron had emphysema. As time wore on, he was so unwell that when he would get to work, he felt so tired he would fall asleep on his desk. The frequency of this inactivity continued and as a result, before long, we weren’t making much money at all. Around this time the Reserve bank raised the interest rates from about 4.5 to 16 percent. This meant that our mortgage was costing us about an extra thousand dollars per month. We struggled to make those mortgage repayments. I didn’t know this at the time though, because I thought Ron had been making the house payments. Soon enough, a letter threatening eviction came in the mail. Ron hid the letters from, I’m assuming because he was holding out for a miracle. But by the time he told me, it was too late.

One Friday night, we were all sitting at the dining room table and there was a knock at the door. I answered it and two sheriff’s officers stood in the doorway. They came to assess the value of the contents of the house. So they went through everything in the house, writing down the estimated value of all that we owned. This was so that if they sold the house and didn’t recoup enough money to cover our mortgage with the bank, they could take as much of our household contents as they needed to cover the debt. I have never been so humiliated in my life. We had lived there at the house at the top of Reserve Road in Kurnell for eighteen years. I had every intention of spending the rest of my life there. I loved that house and the community we were a part of there. There was nothing we could do. I had no choice but to sell the house before the bank foreclosed and sold it for peanuts. We sold the house for as much as we could, but due to the urgency of the sale, we didn’t get the best price for it.

Sylvania

Right up until the day we moved out of Kurnell, I wasn’t sure whether Ron and I would stay together or not. I had found a nice, two-bedroom semi to rent at 14 Formosa Street, Sylvania. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted him to move in there with Graeme and I. The morning we had to move out of the house, Ron and I had an argument. I was very upset by the reality of leaving the house for the last time and he said some very mean things. I decided then and there that I didn’t want to be together anymore.

Ron went to live with his mother for a while. Then he rented a unit with a mate of his. Ron was a heavy smoker all his adult life. He had been diagnosed with emphysema but even after periodically needing oxygen, he continued to smoke and his condition worsened. I would often visit Ron and we’d have coffee. Occasionally we’d go out for a chinese meal. At this stage Ron was driving buses for the Department of Transport. So we stayed in touch and I was glad we were able to remain friends. Sadly, Ron’s emphysema progressed over time and sadly, he passed away in 2005.

Having my marriage to Ron end the way it did, and losing our family home took a great toll on me. As time went on, I started to build myself up again. What I realised was that despite losing what I had lost, I was still an incredibly fortunate person. I had an amazing family, wonderful friends and my health.

We had a lot of great times at Formosa St. Graeme and I lived there together. We’d often have friends over. Adam had been living in Canada, working at Ski Resorts. After that he travelled around the world with a group of his mates. When he returned to Australia, he and some of the boys he had been travelling with, moved in with us. So at one point, we had Adam, Kain, Gavin, Graeme, and I, all living in this two bedroom semi. Life was certainly never dull! Graeme was playing in the band he had formed after high school. He was also working a couple of jobs teaching drums and working as a telemarketer. We had a huge surprise 21st birthday party for him at the house in Sylvania.

Since finishing up on the islands, Karl had also been travelling abroad and was living in England. When he came back to Sydney, he moved in with us. At first he slept under the dining table in the living room. We had a lot of fun there at our house in Sylvania. We’d all eat dinner together in the lounge room and watch ‘Friends’ together on the tv. Having my boys, their friends and so many of my family friends around so often was wonderful and it did wonders in helping to heal my heart and soul, after all that had happened. Adam, now in his mid twenties, decided he needed a place of his own. He and Kain rented an apartment in Dolls Point. Gavin headed back up north to Queensland.

Reggie Returns!

One day I was looking through my old teledex - the old personal phone books with the alphabetical index on the front. Reg’s home phone number from all those years ago was still in there. I had no idea where he was living at this point and thought the chance of it still being his current number was slim. Anyway, I phoned the number and low and behold, he answered! It had been a very long time since we had spoken. It was only a quick chat but we arranged to catch up in person. I invited him over to the house in Sylvania. For all I knew, Reggie could have been married at this point. Maybe he had had more kids. All these thoughts were rushing through my head. From time to time, over the years, Adele saw him when he came into the Westpac bank she worked at. She would tell me that Reg would ask how I was doing.

On the day we organised to meet up, Reg arrived at my place at about five o’clock in the afternoon. It was so great to see him! We talked and talked. So much had happened in our lives since we had last seen one another that we didn’t stop talking til about three o’clock the next morning. I walked him down to his car and he asked me if I’d like to go out for dinner the next night. We’ve been together ever since.

Sanctuary Point

Adam and his friend Kain had moved out at this point and it was just Graeme and I living at the house in Sylvania. Months later, Reg moved in with us. It was wonderful living together. He was on the verge of retiring. His mother was very unwell with emphysema and he wanted to be able to be there to take care of her. He told me that he wanted to buy a house with his retirement money. I didn’t know that he wanted to buy a house for us. I thought that the sole reason for buying the house was because he wanted his mother to move in with him. He was interested in looking around the suburb of Dapto. We went together and every place we looked at was horrid. I said to him, “Have you thought about looking a little bit further down the coast around St Georges Basin or Sanctuary Point?” You could get a much nicer house down there for the same price. He said, “We’ll go and have a look.” For my birthday in November that year, we went away for a week and stayed at a motel in Huskisson. That week we looked at a lot of houses. We saw a house in Cammeray Drive that wasn’t quite finished. Even though the kitchen was being installed, I fell in love with the place. Unfortunately, it was out of the price range by about fifteen thousand dollars.The plan was to buy the house outright because we didn’t want to take on a mortgage.

Around this time, Reg received another retirement payout that he was entitled to. He phoned me one day and said, “You know I’ve been thinking about that blue house. Do you still want it? I thought he was about to make a joke.

I said, “Yes, you know I do, but we can’t afford it.”

Then he said, “It just so happens that we’ve got enough. Can you ring the real estate agent and tell them that we’re going to take it?” I was so excited!

To help with all the costs, I withdrew my superannuation and put it towards the house and moving expenses. We moved into our new home in Sanctuary Point in February of 1998. A few days later, Reg’s sister, Faye and her husband, Kevin brought his mother down to live with us. After Reg’s Mum passed away, a friend of mine that I used to work with called. I told her that Reg and I were engaged but that I needed to get a new job so that I could save money for the wedding expenses. She was working in the IT department at ING and told me that they were looking for someone to issue keyless entry system cards to staff members. It sounded straight forward enough, the pay was good and she said they were offering plenty of overtime. So I jumped at it. While I was working there, I stayed with Adam, Graeme and Karl. They were renting a flat in South Cronulla, right on the Esplanade, overlooking the ocean. Sometimes Reggie would come up and do some mechanical work for his mate Kerry.

We were married at our house at 69 Cammeray Drive in Sanctuary Point on the 14th of November, 2000. This also happened to be my fiftieth birthday! All our family and friends were there. It was a beautiful day.

I was so happy living in our house at Sanctuary Point! I had never lived in a brand new house before and was so proud of it! My sister Cheryl, Gerry, my close friend, Terry and Gerry’s mate, Jack - all came over from the states to visit us that Easter. We had so much fun during their visit.

Not long after this, Adele and her husband, Matt moved down and bought a house in Sanctuary Point. He had just retired. Adele’s sister, Margaret was already living in the area as well. A short time after that, Adele’s daughter, Melissa, who is a niece to me, moved down with her husband, Ross and they bought a place in Sanctuary Point. It was wonderful having them so close by.

During this time, I continued to work for ING in Sydney. Being away from Reg for most of each week was becoming increasingly difficult. So I finished up there so that I could be home with Reg and help to look after his mum.

The government had recently made changes to retirement legislation and this affected Reg’s retirement payments considerably. We needed to bring in more money and so I looked for a job. In 2001, Adele was working in a management position at the Westpac back down there. She spoke to her boss and found out that they were in need of bank tellers. I applied for and got a position at Westpac Bank. I worked there for four years.

Maryborough

We had been coming up to Hervey Bay for holidays, staying at the Kondari Resort that Geoff was running. We loved it up there. Adam had recently moved to Brisbane, for work and Graeme and his partner at the time, Millie, were planning on moving to Brisbane at the end of the year, when Graeme completed his teaching degree and with Geoff, Deb and their boys (Bryce and Liam) being so close by, we continued to look for a place up there.

I had a look every day at houses that were on the market in Maryborough. I asked Geoff to have a look at a house at 217 Tooley Street in Maryborough for me. It looked perfect - A classic Queenslander on a quiet street. The problem was, however, that it was out of our price range. I rang the real estate agent there and said, “I really like this house but it’s more than we can spend. Do you have anything similar, but for less?” I told him how much we could afford. I also mentioned that we had a loan with the bank in place. He said, “I’ll call the owners and offer them the figure you’ve given me.” Ten minutes later he called back and said, “They’ll accept your offer!” He asked if we were coming up to have a look at the house. I said we would. Now, all of this had happened while Reggie had been out getting some groceries. So when he got home, I had some serious explaining to do. I didn’t want him to feel rushed but this thing had escalated very quickly. Mind you, we hadn’t signed on the dotted line or anything. It seemed like the perfect place and if we were able to buy it at the price agreed, it would be a bargain. We booked tickets to fly up and have a look. The next day, Reg, Chris, the grandkids and I drove up to Goulburn racecourse so Reg could race his car. Meanwhile Geoff had met with the agent to look at the place. He called me up while we were at the track and said, “Margaret this house has got your name all over it!” He told me all about it and said, “It’s even got Mickey Mouse head shapes cut into the interior of the balusters as you walk up the stairs to the front entrance.”

We flew up to Hervey Bay. Geoff met us and drove us to Maryborough to see the house. Reg’s first impression wasn’t a good one. Having a garage was important to him and it didn’t have one. In fact, what became his makeshift garage, under the house, didn’t seem possible at the time because there poles blocking the entry. We looked at other houses that day. There were some nice places but they all had small dining rooms. I love to entertain and have family and friends over for celebrations and dinners. My father made a beautiful dining room table that we all sat at for many years at my parents’ house in Maroubra. I inherited the table and treasure it. This had to be able to fit in the dining room of wherever we lived. We looked at the pros and cons of the houses we had looked at. I really loved the house on Tooley St. We looked at ways to solve or fix any problems we saw with the house and we bought it! The house had two good bedrooms and a smaller bedroom that I was going to use as a craft room.

It took a while to sell the ‘Blue House’ in Sanctuary Point and we rented the house out until it was sold. It sold almost a year later. Reg and his son, Chris are very close. Chris and his wife, Haia, decided to make the move up to Maryborough as well. The children were all still quite young so changing schools wasn’t going to be a problem. So they moved up as well and rented a nice house nearby. Together Chris and Reg modified the big space under the house and converted it into a workshop. They spent lots of time down there working on their cars and still do, to this day.

Not long after we moved to Maryborough, I got a job working for St Vincent De Paul. I was sorting through donated clothes, helping with the accounts and working at the cash register. I made some nice friends there - local Catholics who had been there for years. They took me under their wing. We would share recipes and sometimes I’d go to Mass with them. As staff, we had first dibs on buying clothes, bric a brac or furniture and as much as I liked working there, I don’t know if Reggie was as happy about it. I would often ask him to bring his trailer when he picked me up so that we could bring home the new couch I had just bought.

In 2006, we were living in our beautiful Queenslander home on Tooley St. Graeme had started teaching and he and Millie discovered that she was having a baby. I was going to be a grandmother! I was beyond excited! In July that year, Graeme and Millie got married. My granddaughter, Zooey was born on the 28th of October, 2006. When we got the news, Reg and I came straight down to Brisbane to see her at the Mater Hospital. She was so beautiful! (and still is).

Not too long after this, Adam moved back to Sydney. At the end of 2007, Graeme and Millie decided that Brisbane wasn’t where they wanted to be long-term and so they headed back to Sydney as well. Graeme applied for a few advertised teaching positions and was offered a job at St Aidan's in Maroubra Junction! The same little school that I and so many of our family members went to (My mum in the nineteen-twenties and early thirties, Cheryl, Geoff and Adele in the nineteen-fifties and sixties and Shane, David and Melissa in the seventies and eighties).

Even though my boys moved back down south, I still had my brother, Debbie and their boys nearby and by this stage, we had made lots of wonderful friends in Maryborough. And I've always got my nephew Shane, his wife Candy and her mum, Gemma, who are all so very dear to me. So I’ve never been sorry we moved up here. This is a very happy house for me. I feel it all the time. It’s just home.

Illness

In 2004, I was diagnosed with cancer. Two types were found: renal and uterine cancer. I had surgery to have the affected kidney removed. Soon after that, I had to go back into hospital to have a hysterectomy. I was off work for around six months. Just before Christmas that year, in 2004, I returned to work. My health still wasn’t one hundred percent and so I found working the long days and full weeks really exhausting. I had been promoted at the bank to Head Teller. It’s a hard job. You’re in charge of all the money for TABs and the pubs and their poker machines. So your physically dealing with a lot of money that is made up of a huge number of coins. Bags of coins. I was still recovering from the hysterectomy and so continually lifting heavy bags of coins and carrying them down to the safe was painful and exhausting. I spoke to my boss and explained the difficulties I was experiencing. I asked her if there was anyn way I could move from being the head teller to a regular bank teller on the line. She said, “If you can’t do the job you’re being paid to do, then leave.” We needed the money and so I persevered for as long as I could. It became an increasingly unpleasant place to work and I would often say to Reggie, “I just wish we could move up so we can be nearer to Geoff and the boys.” And so that’s what we did.

At this point I was looking at houses online in Maryborough, every day. Geoff was doing the same. We both noticed the house that became our home. It looked perfect but was a little out of our price range. I phoned the real estate agent selling the property. I said, “I love the house but it is out of mine and my husband’s price range. Do you have anything similar that is within our budget?” He said let me talk to the owners and I’ll get back to you. On this particular day, Reg had gone down with Chris and the grandsons to race his car in Goulburn.

It was too much for me at that point and so I resigned. We needed that extra income so I was on the lookout for a job that was more manageable for me at that point.

In 2005, Adam had been doing very well with his work at Suntory and was given a big promotion that required him to move to Brisbane. Graeme had almost finished his teaching degree and told me that he and his partner at the time, Millie, were looking at moving up to Brisbane. Millie was from QLD and so all of her family were up there. The idea of being states away from my boys, and the fact that my brother Geoff, Debbie and their boys were all up there led me to thinking about a possible sea change. In October that year, we went up to Hervey Bay in Queensland, for Geoff’s 50th birthday. While we were up there we spent a bit of time looking at houses. We found one that we really liked in the relatively close town of Maryborough, but after we had it inspected, found out that the place had had termites. Going by the houses we saw in that short time of looking, and the prices that were being asked, we knew that we wanted to find a place to live in Maryborough.

Being a Mum

Having my two boys has brought with it, the best times of my whole life. Having a baby and then being able to have a second baby was all my dreams come true. My children have always been more important to me than anything. Since becoming a mother, my life has always been about making my children happy. I brought them into the world and so I was going to look after them. I’ve always been so proud of my kids. They have both achieved so much. Adam was always more of a sporto, whereas Graeme is a muso. They’ve both got amazing friends. I love all their mates - especially Karl. He calls me every few weeks to see how I’m going.

Grandparenthood

I love being a nanna! My mum so, so adored mine and Cheryl's kids! And she would have doted on Bryce and Liam. She’d say, “I never realised how different it would be to having your own kids.” I know what Mum means now because, although I was over the moon to become a grandmother, I had no idea how truly wonderful it would be. It’s all love. You don’t have the same level of responsibility that you do as a parent and managing behaviour isn’t as big a part of the job description. So it’s far less stressful. You can shower them with love and just have fun with them.

When my first grandchild, Zooey was born, every time I looked at her, I couldn't stop crying. I remember we went for a family meal together. Zooey had just started walking and so when I saw her coming into the restaurant, walking, I started crying. Adam said, “Mum, why are you crying? And I said, Oh, I can't help it. I just can’t believe how much I love this baby! And it’s the same with all my grandkids. The days that Saskia, Murphy, Asher and Joe were born - these were unbelievable days! My grandson Brayden is very special to me as well. He was only five when he came into our lives. Reg’s grandkids are also my grandchildren. It’s been amazing having them in our lives and seeing them grow up. Being a grandparent is just amazing!

Our Life Up Here in Maryborough

Once we were settled, I took on a part-time position working for the St. Vincent DePaul Society. l was mainly working at the register and would help balance the books and occasionally help sort donations when they came in. I made some great friends there. The other ladies working there had been there about twenty five years. We’d joke and laugh all day and became fast friends. They were real Maryborough locals and I was happy to be taken under their wing. The women shared recipes with me and I’d go to Mass with them at St Mary’s. I really enjoyed working there and stayed there for a few years. I don’t think Reggie liked it as much as I did though, as I was always asking him to bring his trailer with him when he came to pick me up. I’d say, “I’ve just bought this amazing sofa and it won’t fit in the car!”

Then I was offered a house cleaning job. We decided we’d do it together to make it quicker and less strenuous. We only charged her for the price of one person though. We thought, we’ll charge them the price of a young, fit cleaner. This way they’d get two oldies for the price of one youngy. It was nice working together. We did this for a couple of years. We also did some cleaning work for a family down the road, cleaning their house. In addition to this, we worked as cleaners at the shopping centre here in Maryborough, three days a week. We were making decent money and it all worked out really well.

Adele and Wayne moved up here and stayed with us for quite a while. Adele had had a terrible time with cancer but after her chemotherapy, she was in remission. It was so wonderful having my best friend with us. Then her cancer came back. We worked together to look after her, right up until she went into palliative care - a few days before she passed. It was so hard seeing her as her health went downhill. But I’m so grateful for the time we had together up here. I miss her every day.

My Siblings

Cheryl. I can remember when little Cheryl was born. She always danced to a different tune than me. From a young age she often had different ideas about things and had a very strong will to back up her beliefs. I never wanted to get in trouble and so I’d always try to do the right thing. Cheryl, on the other hand, was always the rebel. She didn’t mind getting into trouble - especially if she felt that things weren’t right or just.

Going back to when Cheryl was first with Gerry. She was still in her late teens. They decided to move to the U.S. They started out in Hawaii. I remember the day they flew out Mascot, so clearly. I was devastated. Airline tickets back then were incredibly expensive. Staying in regular contact was difficult as well, due to the price of international phone calls. It’d cost $150 to call her at Christmas time. Things certainly weren’t like they are now. So when she left to move overseas, I felt a huge sense of loss. While they were in Hawaii, they got married and baby Shane was born - which was wonderful! From there they moved to California and bought a house in Vacaville. A couple of years after that, Cheryl fell pregnant with Barbie-Lee. At this time, Jerry was getting out of the Air Force. So they decided to come back to Australia for a couple of years. The two years turned into many more than that. When Barbie was just a little baby, less than a year old, something terrible happened. Barbie-Less passed away suddenly in her sleep. It was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This hit them so incredibly hard. Our family and Gerry’s back in the states were rocked.

Cheryl and I often worked together. For a long time, we joined forces and the Hansens moved in with us at Kurnell. I enjoyed every day that I got to spend with her. Sometimes she’d get a bit annoyed with me because I'm a bit of a cleaner. You know, I'd be waiting for you to come home from work. I'd have had the kids all day if I wasn't working. And I'd have the tea ready. And I'd be wanting her to come home so we could chat. And all she wanted to do was go downstairs, have a shower, put her jammies on, eat dinner and go to bed. As sisters, we didn’t have to put on airs and graces. We could just be ourselves. It was such a happy house and I enjoyed every day we were together.

My connection to my sister was always so strong. Our relationship was built on love, loyalty and endless laughter. I don’t think I ever really had a serious argument with Cheryl. When we lost her so suddenly in 2022, I felt like a part of me died, too. I miss her all the time.

When Geoffrey came along, he became the apple of our eyes. He was such a dear little boy. But as he got older, he got really cheeky. But that was his sense of humour, too. Jeff and I are very similar in a lot of ways. He was only thirteen years old when I got married and moved out of home. So I didn’t get to see the day to day teenager, growing up.

When he was sixteen, he moved up to Lennox Heads with his mates. I remember after Adam was born, we took him up to see Geoff at the big farm house he was living in. We stayed with him for a couple of weeks. It was amazing to see how he had grown into such a fantastic young man.

We’ve always been close but for years, had the challenge of distance between us, with Geoff always living up north. When I moved up to Maryborough we became as close as close. We talk on the phone nearly every day.

Friendships

I’ve been blessed to have the most beautiful friends in my life. Adele Norton was my first close friend, from that day we met in Kindergarten. Losing her in 2018 was incredibly hard. I miss her every day. I miss her every day. Trisha Sant, Irene Vassallo, Rea Morton, Annie Crimanalie, and Jenny Turl are friends I’ve had since those early days. Lyn Hansen is another very dear friend, who I’ve remained close all these years. Back in 2019, we went on a holiday to China together. I’d always dreamed of going there. It was one of the most enjoyable holidays ever!

Jackie Hawke has been like a member of my family since we were about nine years old. She would join our family for holidays, we were one another’s bridesmaids, and godparents to each other’s children. When we were fifteen, Jackie met the love of her life, Geoffrey Hawke. They’ve been together ever since and all through life’s ups and downs, we’ve been there for each other through it all. I speak to both of them every day. When I was about nine years old, I met Jackie and Gladys. The three of us became an instant gang. Jackie’s house backed onto the laneway behind my primary school. She introduced me to a whole new friendship group. This including David and Johnny Trewin, the Larson boys, Emily and Alma Goodwin. So it was through Jackie that I gained a whole new group of friends.

My parents were very welcoming whenever friends visited and as years progressed, I had more and more friends wanting to come over. A lot of my friends thought we were rich. We seemed to have a lot of everything. The truth of it was that it appeared that way because Dad used to buy everything in bulk. As kids, my friends would come over after school and we’d have these big tins of Westerns ‘Wagon Wheels’ biscuits, like you'd see in the grocery shop. As a refrigeration mechanic, Dad was always visiting shops and factories - fixing their big industrial fridges and freezers. The people he worked for would offer to let him purchase products in bulk, at a discounted rate.

In the late 1970’s, while I was working at Custom Credit, I met my dear friend Tracey Jefferies. We just hit it off. Being a bit younger than I am, she’s like a baby sister to me.

My dearest friends who live up here with me in Maryborough are Rose, Anne, Leanne, and Clarice. They have made living up here so much fun!

When we moved to Kurnell, my first friend there was Georgina Reece. Our kids are about the same age and did a lot together. We’ve stayed close throughout the years.

Reflections

I’m so proud of my children. Everywhere I go, I brag about my children and my grandchildren. I’m always pulling my phone out and showing people photos. I’m so happy that I’ve lived to the age that I have. After losing my mum when she was so young and then getting cancer myself (three times), I didn’t think I’d make it this far. But I’m still here. And I am very proud of that. Yes, I’ve made some regrettable decisions in love and marriage but I always did what I thought was right in my heart.

I’m so happy to be where I am now. To be so blissfully happy and in love with my husband, Reg. I love being married to Reggie. We never argue, but we sure do laugh a lot. Reg makes me feel so loved and cared for. To have my beautiful sons and after living through their own heartaches, to see them both so happy in love is just wonderful. I have my beautiful grandchildren, who mean the world to me. I’ve got the most unbelievable friends, who continue to bring so much love and joy into my life.

My mum always said that she thought I was a lot like her sister, my Aunty Margaret. Margaret passed away about two years before I was born. Everyone said that she had a beautiful nature. My grandfather on my mother’s side used to say, “It’s like having our little Margie back, with you here.” But she was known for her optimistic outlook on life. I do have a naturally optimistic way of seeing the world. And it’s this optimism that has gotten me through some very difficult times in my life.

Losing my parents, and much more recently losing Cheryl and Gerry so suddenly, there have been times when you don’t know how you can get through. But I did and I continue to. We’ve all had dramas and horrible things happen in our lives - losing people we never thought we’d lose so soon. I’ve always thought though, I’d rather look for the good, than the bad. I’ve always tried to bring joy to people’s lives. To make people feel better about themselves. Some people have very hard lives and kindness, even if it’s just a compliment, can go a long way.

Tributes

Marg you were always there for me to help get over a broken heart. The pork buns helped as well!!!

I loved staying over at your house. It seemed like “the party that never ends”. We all had so much fun together at school. Who would have thought that our friendships would last all these years. Friends for life.

Thank you Margie for being you. One in a million. Love you to the moon and back.

Anne Nye

Her home is always open to all. She loves grabbing an extra plate to feed you. She's always smiling and you know it comes from her heart. She always has a kind word and acceptance is always given. Aunty Marg is very loveable and even thinking of this wonderful woman now brings a smile to my face.

- Louise Ristuccia

I have MANY MANY fond memories with you, Cheryl and Gerry and kids when living in Kurnell. We loved it when you looked after Lyndal (Grub) and I as kids. It always felt more like a massive play date with Graeme, Adam, Shane and Desiree. You were always so loving and caring to Lyndal and I. xxxxx

- Rebecca George

Aunty Marg, Best friend to mum since you guys were 4 years old. I’ve known you all my life not family by blood but by choice. I have a lifetime of memories with mum, you, Dave, Adz and Grae. Too many to write about.

I remember weekends spent at Kurnell, and dinners at the Rusty Shovel. I remember the spiral stairs and the beautiful golden retriever, Halfa. I remember our trip to America. Your love of Mickey Mouse, Coca Cola and anything Christmas.

Most of all I remember the incredible friendship you shared with mum (Adele). The unconditional, everlasting love you had for each other through thick and thin. You were her person and she was yours.

An aunt is a cherished friend and a joyful confidante, adding an extra layer of love to our lives. You’ve added much more to my life and I am forever grateful to have you in it. I love you to the moon and back.

Love Mel

- Melissa Deeks

Loved your story. You have always been a wonderful friend, or as we called it “My second best friend.”
Love you Margie.
- Georgina Bowler-Rees

Margie is the nicest person on the planet and i probably wouldn't be here if not for her kindness and compassion. She took me in and treated me like one of her own children, never criticising me, just listening and encouraging me when needed. A debt i can never repay. I enjoy the talks we still have.

Love from Karl

- Karl Bayer

Dear Margie, Thank you for being so welcoming to me at the house on Formosa St. Your home was a haven for all of our group of friends (especially anxious twenty-somethings like me). Always smiling, and happy to chat in the kitchen. You were so warm, and I knew I could talk to you about anything, which was always very comforting (the serious boy content, as well as what movie to watch next!). You have raised two outstanding humans (one of which is especially dear to me), and your kindness shines through them both. Speaking to you now as a parent myself, I have nothing but admiration.

Love always, Ali x

P.S. I would never have known about cheese-in-a-can if it weren’t for your pantry

- Alison Fifer

Margie, Where does one start to describe the gratefulness of being blessed with knowing the Beautiful Soul that is Margie? How hard it is to put into words the extraordinary person you are and capture over 42 years of friendship but I want you to know (not that you don't already) just HOW MUCH you coming into my Life all those years ago has meant to me and helped shape me into the Woman I am today. Buckle up Peeps because this tribute is going to be almost as long as War & Peace but our Dearest Buddy deserves it all & more !! ????

WHEN TRACEY MET MARGIE ..............I was in my twenties back in the early 1980's in the days when Margie & I "met". It was before computers & mobile phones. Our contact was via the good old landline & internal mail courier. I was working in the Wollongong branch of 'National & General' on the reception and Margie was on the switchboard in Edgecliff and Chez was also working at Edgecliff for Custom Credit.

Every time I rang Edgecliff I would speak to Margie and we would chat (possibly at the expense of neglecting other calls !!! Hahaha) and we got to know a lot about each other. She was 10 years and 1 month older than me and she had 2 beautiful boys, Adam & Graeme who lit her up every time she mentioned them. She is still so incredibly proud of her "boys" and rightly so.

As it happens, my sister had recently married and her husband had just been signed to play Rugby League for St George Dragons. They were housed in a property the Club owned on Jubilee Avenue at Kogarah so I organised to meet Margie in person one weekend while I was visiting my sister.
The rest as they say, is History.

THE KURNELL DAYS (Becoming part of the Mahony & Hansen Families...........) As I didn't drive, I would catch the train from The 'Gong to Sutherland and Gerry would pick me up at the Station and drive me (as only Gerry could - like we were being chased by someone - possibly the Police !!!) and I'm sure we did the trip from Sutherland to Kurnell at warp speed !!

This was the start of my being welcomed to the Mahony & Hansen clans as once you were with them, they came as a "package deal". Adam would have been maybe 7 or 8 and likewise, Shane about 8 or 9 & (Princess) Desi and Graeme were both about 5 or 6.

It became one of my favourite things to do as a gal from the "Country" in Wollongong to experience many new "City things" with them all.

Our trips (or should I say treks) to the Easter Show each year were epic. We would get there before the gates opened and not leave until the last of the fireworks had finished - Usually with Chezzy leading the charge!! That woman had an endless & boundless enthusiasm for Life!!!

I loved laying in Margie's water bed with her at Kurnell and there was always country music blaring. We would often all snuggle up on the big comfy lounge & watch videos. Marg loved nothing better than a good old 'rom-com' - she still does. Her all-time favourite though was Inspector Poirot. Funny, I don't ever remember watching regular TV there - probably because we were all so well entertained without it.

The Texan BBQ King, Gerry, would host his fabulous barbeques. It was the first time I had ever seen "Beer Can Chicken". His Texan beans were also something else!!! It was always such a welcoming home and Margie & Chez were certainly the Hostesses with the Mostesses. Margie was constantly having to run "interference" between Gerry's Finnish friend, Matti Tikka as he would often flirt with me and Margie took it upon herself to be my Big Sister and warn him off !!!????. Being the eldest of 3 girls myself, it always felt nice that I had a "big Sissy" in Margie and also in Chezzy.

FAMILY TIES ........I was fortunate enough to meet Margaret and Cheryl's parents, Barbara & Rex Mahony not long before Barbara passed away. I have such fond memories of spending time in 'The Tavern' at their home on Maroubra Road. You can easily see where Margie, Cheryl & Geoff got their social & entertaining skills.

Along the way I met Geoff's beautiful wife Deb. Margie is so proud of the family they made with Bryce & Liam. We all got to go to Texas for Desiree's wedding to Lamont and had a blast tagging along for the Honeymoon in Vegas & then to San Antonio. Marg's friends Adele Morris (Pickering) and Georgina Rees were also there and it was just the best time! Margie had only just scraped in timewise to be allowed to fly due to having had a kidney removed only a relatively short time prior. Come hell or high water she was going to make her precious Niece's wedding as she had to give Desi her ruby "snail ring". To say Margie made the most of that trip would be the understatement of the Century!

Shane grew up and married Candy and Margie was so happy that Shane had found his soulmate. Candy & her Mum, Gem, had been friends of Reg's for many years and so it was nice to all mesh together. Margie is so proud of both Shane and of Desiree. The joy in seeing them, as well as her own two boys, do well in their lives was so important to Margie.

Margie's circle of friends was and still is extensive because she just has the ability for everyone who meets her to fall in love with her.

Two very special people I was blessed to meet via Margie are Jacquie & Geoff Hawke. I count myself so lucky to become part of the friendships with these two incredible people and as such, Margie's circle of friends were once again added into my own Life.

THE LATER YEARS ...........Margie has seen me through relationship break-ups, the birth of my sister's children (my 4 Nephews) and the birth of their children. She consoled me when I lost my Sister-In-Law and then some years later, my Ex-Partner and then 3 years ago, my own Dad. She told me once that when he came to pick me up from a visit to Kurnell, she thought he was a "good sort"!!! She was slightly embarrassed to admit that but it didn't bother me. Margie has always been a sucker for a man with a beard, nice, kind eyes. Men that are like a big teddy bear.

I'm sure that is why she loved it when I met my now Husband, David, 11 years ago. She could see that he would be MY teddy bear and she knew he was "the one" I had been holding out for. She got to love him as much and possibly even more ????) than I do I suspect. He, in turn, is blessed to have "joined the flock" as yet another Margie fan.

We have been lucky to have had a few visits to Maryborough since Margie & Reg bought 117 Tooley Street and every time I pull up in front of that House, I feel like I am "HOME". Last year David & I planned a "surprise visit" to Maryborough and I didn't even tell Reggie. I just phoned her out of the blue and asked her what she was doing. I said "Gee I wish we could be sitting having a cuppa on your verandah" and she said " me too Bubby girl". My reply was "Well put the kettle on and come to the front door!!!" Honestly, her shrieks of delight will stay with me forever. I could not believe just how happy one simple surprise could make someone. I think we hugged each other for 5 minutes straight and in between laughing and crying, it was just like we had never been apart. Such is our Friendship!

MRS CHRISTMAS ???? ???? ........I had "gone off" Christmas for many years as it just lost its sparkle & appeal for me BUT anyone who knows Margie knows just HOW MUCH she loves her Christmas and twinkling lights and the joy that having these things for her to enjoy is priceless. You can't help but be swept up in it with her. She really does have such an abundance of pureness and happiness to share.

Life has certainly dealt Margie some absolutely shite hands over the years - that's the truth. BUT she used to tell me (and still tells me to this day) to play the "glad game" and to be glad for everything & everyone good in my Life and not to dwell on what I don't or can't have or change. I try to take that onboard as much as I can as she is a very wise lady who has lived by that Motto herself.

THE "NOT YET THE END" .......... Thankfully Margie's beautiful sons have set this in motion. Graeme, for creating such a special space called "People Pages" and Adam for suggesting that anyone who wanted to write a tribute that their gorgeous Mum could read now while we still have her is genius. Everyone should be so lucky.

I, like everyone else who has been touched by Margie, will be in her corner forever and a day as I refuse to even IMAGINE a World without "My Margie" in it. It had better be a long way off, otherwise whoever is "in charge" upstairs will have me to answer to !!????. We still have so much to laugh about and there is a huge need for countless "Margie hugs" to come yet.

"Love you til the End "!!!!!!!!!!!

Tracey Knight

Tributes (II)

For many years there, Margie was a second Mum to me, spending night after night in her home with the best friend I’ve ever had, Graeme Trewin. I mean we’d be up late, scheming about being rock stars and Hollywood scriptwriters, not exactly keeping it quiet given our ambitious dreams, and Margie was always, always our biggest supporter. This never changed. Margie believed, and allowed us to do so too. I was always well fed, never went without in her home, and she’d sit with us until a certain time each night then declare it was time for her to hit the hay. And this isn’t even counting the Kurnell days, where we’d make such a metallic racket anyone else would’ve called it time, but not Margie, she was a believer from way back.

She eventually moved to Queensland and we didn’t see each other much - very special occasions, visits interstate etc but we kept in touch online, and as recent as this year she’d drop me a message and continue to care about my life. I’d ask her two amazing sons how she was whenever we’d chat.

I last saw Margie just a couple of years ago, and it was such a moving beautiful poignant moment, unforgettable for me. Of all the shopping centres in all the world, we ran into each other in Sylvania, metres away from so many lovely moments at Margie’s old place. I was with my young son Chester, who she’d never met but continued to comment on each and every social media post I’d put up of him. She was with Adam. She had tears in her eyes, happy tears, and it wasn’t long before I did too. She squeezed my son’s cheeks so tight! I said to Chester “This is Margie, Uncle Graeme’s Mum, and pretty much my second Mum!”. I know in years down the track he’ll understand the relevance. I carry that moment, and I can only try to be as kind, caring and awesome as Margie.

I was one of many lucky people to have a close relationship with Margie over the years. For this I feel blessed. Graeme and Adam, I love you both. Margie, I’ll see you down the road.

Love

Sam Schinazzi

Too Lovely To Say Goodbye

Since the days we all hung out together as children and teens, we were surrounded by Margie’s loving kindness which was naturally infused in her being. That’s how I will always know her. I spoke to Margie the day before her children were to arrive and I couldn’t believe the pure joy in her voice as she rallied to greet them for the last time. Margie is part of the fibre of everyone who had that intimate connection with her.
Beautiful Margie.
Irene

Marg & Cheryl created a one of a kind bond with each other that showered family & friends with love & support. Everyone who came into their lives felt this. They created a oneness of love & understanding that was infectious & transcended normal living. Marg & Cheryl were like identical twins that had that IT connection. They turned everything into a strength- especially time & distance. Marg was so funny with her one off comments & that smiley cheeky look she would give us. Michael thought of them as his mother's & we always talked of his time with them & you kiddo's. What a wonderful, beautiful person to come into our lives. Thankyou Marg for being you. God Bless you forever. Wayne Browning

Was an absolute pleasure to assist marg for the last year and a half.

She was a one of a kind woman.I miss our daily “shower chats” and how Marg was always happy, no matter how she felt or how I felt on arrival, I always left with a smile and a spring in my step and Marg was always smiling. Marg always expressed her love for all of her family and close friends. I was lucky to meet many of Marg and Reg’s family and friends over the time I cared for Marg and each one of them was similar to Marg in their own ways. She had such a genuine heart and I miss her dearly ❤️

Krystal Scott

Bless Beautiful Marg Mosh, loved her with my whole heart. You will forever be in our hearts. Beautiful childhood memories we will treasure forever. Love Rex and family ❤️

You were my best friend and I loved you. I am lost without you but we will meet again. Ann Bell

Margaret, Cheryl, Barb and Rex as well as Shane, Desi, Adam and Graeme were my family in Australia- they were always there for us and our kids. Margaret had a heart of gold- never had a bad thing to say about anyone, so friendly and caring - we have truly lost an angel. All my love to the family, Teri

Image Gallery

Barbara & Rex at a dance

Swimming at Delungra

Mum & Dad

Mum and Dad before they were married

Mum on holidays

Mum and my Puppa on her wedding day

Mum - Out for the night

Me (13 months old) at mum's cousin, Dorothy Crawley's wedding

Margaret Mosher

Margaret Mosher

My Parents

The Beginning

Early Memories

St Aidan's Primary School

The Church

Brigidine College

Working

Young Love

Married at 18

I'm a Mum! - Adam

Graeme

And Then There Were Three

Philip

Kurnell

One Big Happy Family

Reg

Losing Mum

Losing Dad

Ron

Sylvania

Reggie Returns!

Sanctuary Point

Maryborough

Illness

Being a Mum

Grandparenthood

Our Life Up Here in Maryborough

My Siblings

Friendships

Reflections

Tributes

Tributes (II)

Image Gallery

Barbara & Rex at a dance

Swimming at Delungra

Mum & Dad

Mum and Dad before they were married

Mum on holidays

Mum and my Puppa on her wedding day

Mum - Out for the night

Me (13 months old) at mum's cousin, Dorothy Crawley's wedding

Sitting in the backyard on a keg of sherry with my favourite toy

Dad and I at Dorothy's wedding

2nd Birthday (1)

2nd Birthday (2)

2nd Birthday (3)

2nd Birthday (4)

The three of us - Edgar St, 1956

Mum, Dad and I at Dorothy's wedding (1951)

Us three up at the farm

Baby Cheryl

David and I at Woronora River (1966)

Mum on holidays

1980 - Dad and I at my wedding to Philip Walker

Signing the wedding certificate (Adam and Graeme in the background)

My mini - the family car

On the farm

(L to R) Me, Aunty June, Jenny at Taronga Park Zoo

Making mud pies on the farm

107 Paine St, Maroubra - Mine and David's first house

My Wedding Day (1969)

In a photo booth in Luna Park - Shane, Adam and I

Cheryl and John Trewin's engagement (L to R) Myself, David, Cheryl & John

Cheryl and I - Santa Photo

(clockwise) Mum, Nanna Ridge, Papa Ridge, Aunty Helen, Aunty Margaret, Dad

Baby me - 6 or 7 months old

Primary school Debutante Ball - Me, Clifford and my cousin Jenny

Wedding day - 1969 David's mother made my dress

Dad with his Chinese Hibachi grill

Reg Mosher - Australia's Wonderland

With Cheese the guinea pig at Graeme and Fiona's place

Graeme and I - Sea World, San Antonio (1989)

Cheryl's Birthday

Having fun in Vegas

St Aidan's School Reunion at the Rusty Shovel Restaurant in Kensington

Adele & I - L.A (1989)

Adam at 18 - Kurnell

St Aidan's school reunion

Cheryl and John Trewin's engagement
(L to R) Myself, David, Cheryl & John

Wedding day - 1969
David's mother made my dress