You might have wondered whether I would also trek after my mother if you've been following this blog, as I spent so much time travelling around the land connected to Dad's origins! Indeed, my final goal has been to spend time around people from her side of the family, so have been spending a week in the beautiful north-coast of New South Wales where she grew up. In fact, this is the area I usually visit when I am in Australia, as my sisters Nadine and Toni live here and I have an aunt and uncle I like to visit.
So, I decided to visit Mum's alma mater on my way up from Sydney, which was the University of New England in Armidale.
Here she is, doing a lab in Chemistry back in the early 1940's.
Her family believed it was important for women to be educated, and she had always been a very competent student. We were always told she had been dux (that means #1) of her class in the local school in Murwillumbah. She told us that she had wanted to become a pharmacist, but for some reason I never figured out, she ended up with credentials to be an industrial chemist instead. (I think it had something to do with her father selecting her classes - but perhaps they weren't offered there.)
Here's the pharmacy building today - it definitely wasn't there when she went there....although I was a little worried about the plants growing on the roof - wasn't sure if it was intentional or weeds!
She graduated with a Bachelor of Science with a major in Chemistry and minor in Geology. During the war she had worked in a munitions factory in Brisbane, but had not liked that and went to Sydney to become a dietitian in a hospital instead. It was in Sydney that she met Dad. Sadly, this was the time in history when it was not customary for married women to work, so she stopped paid work when she married. A tragic loss of a capable mind in the work place!
But, the outcome or her and Dad's efforts was that all three of us graduated with Bachelor of Science degrees, so we all put on our robes to celebrate when Toni graduated in 1974. Five out of five science majors in the family! (Left to right - Nadine, Toni, Mum, Dad and good ole me!)
I found the building behind this group. It is called Booloominbah. Mum is second from the left here. It was the dining hall and probably the boarding house. It is the administration center today.
The university is a smallish campus - and I think was even smaller in her day - probably not much bigger than many American high schools today.
The stained glass windows in the building were wonderfully retro!
I could picture people in slower-paced years enjoying the shade and possibly a cup of tea on the porch of Booloominbah.
The campus had clearly been expanded and old buildings removed, but there were still some old classrooms/buildings like this with peeling paint that could have been from the 1940's. Clearly they are slated for replacement as they are not being maintained.
It was an attractive campus and looked as if it was a very manageable size.
Another way that I attempted to connect with Mum's past was with a visit to Ballina with Toni to look at the town my maternal grandmother - Jessie Stirling - grew up in. I was told that her mother's family, the Eyles's, had already been in the area for a couple of generations - one of them had owned the entire central block in the city. They were seafaring people, and like my paternal great grandfather in Tasmania, had been involved in shipping timber - in this case red cedar - to markets elsewhere. Sadly, there were few stands of the trees left after all was said and done!
Toni was my tour guide and historian. The block that our ancestor had owned was the one you see behind the white car at the end of the walk way.
Jessie's parents ran a general store in Ballina which my grandfather visited when he was a travelling salesman in these parts, selling tea! (Those of you who know my penchant for tea now understand how it got into my blood! LOL!) He fell in love with her and wooed her to come north to Murwillumbah where they began a banana plantation!
Many of the family where long lived, but the one Eyles grave stone we found had only lived 64 years. It was one that had been rescued into a 'memory' wall by an American woman in recent years. The original cemetery had been on a flood plain so the gravestones would get knocked about by the flood waters and according to Toni, sometimes bodies (or their remaining 'bits') were displaced by flood waters too! I don't know if the graves have been relocated, but I was glad the stones had been rescued.
Toni and I also visited another cemetery and found a few other gravestones that belonged to ancestors. Toni could tell you all the details; I'm just happy to know that they existed!
Ballina is like Fernandina Beach in that it is actually located on an island. This is the Richmond River which separates it from the mainland.
Ballina also takes pride in their prawns (shrimp to Americans). I rather liked this very large one near the hardware store!
Before the day was done, we decided to take a ferry over the other end of the island to the mainland at Burns Point. Toni said other family members had been sand miners here in the past - looking for gold and possibly tin.
The ferry was held by strong steel cables - you can see it here going under the grey steel pipes at the bottom of the picture. It doesn't need to be steered - just gets pulled along by pulleys gripping the cable. The attendant just sits in his booth, collects the money and switches directions when it lands.
Back and forth, all day long......
It was a blustery day and there has been so much rain, the waves were brown from all the silt that has been washed down the river recently.
The blocks of concrete at the end of the breakwater almost looked like huge gravestones too.
By the end of the day, I decided I much prefer to visit the living than the dead, so was happy to return to my accommodation and plan more visits with folks before I head off next week to Asia.
Before I go, I have one more set of photos to share from the delightful time I spent in Brisbane. That will be the next and final post from Australia on this round of travel.
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