Notes from a chat with Auntie Nell, Auntie Mid, Mum and Dad in 1992
(Compiled by Jim Longmire (JLL), originally hand-written in my 1992 diary)
After my birth (JLL’s), Mum (Kathleen Francis Longmire, nee Moyle) went to hospital in Adelaide, 6th Avenue, St Peters, South Australia. Auntie Mid stayed down at Auntie Edith Chapman’s (nee Longmire, Les Longmire’s oldest sister), who lived at Helmsdale.
Auntie Mid has a copy of the genealogy of the Morton family the Moyle sisters’ mother was a Morton, Lucy a book on the family is in preparation (is Peter Morton-m part of this?)
The day Uncle Snow (Hedley) Chapman and Auntie Edith were married, Uncle Snow made a double century playing cricket at Watervale, not out. Elco Baker, well-known cricketer from Watervale, was cursing him.
Fred and Beryl Parsons lived at “Kookynie”, Blyth. Kay recently died of emphysema – separated. Jenny is still in Port Pirie, Gwenda is in Adelaide.
Gert Pratt is in Blyth. Helen Pratt (who married….. Brown from Yankalilla) is living in Adelaide.
Linda Bateman (nee Steinhart) is at Blyth. Brook Bateman is a bank manager at Ballarat. John Bateman is the other son. Linda was a good friend of the Moyle sisters and played croquet and bowls with Mum at Blyth.
Bruce Burford has a block of land at Normanville, treeless, bare, windy and wild.
[Sounds great Bruce, Jim]
A contact for tracing the Morton family is Glenys Savage (nee Morton), PO Box 1024, Norwood SA 5067, Tel: 08-3317346.
Granny Morton said to Laurel, “Never marry a German”. But she really strongly insisted “For sure never marry a Scot”. She had married one.
Granny Morton gave the Moyle girls beautiful pink dolls, with lots of beautiful pink pom poms.
When the photograph of the Moyle children was taken, about 1918, Auntie Nell can remember that Mum would not line up for the photo – she would run away and grab her toy dog. The toy dog is held by Mum in the photo. The man who took the photo was Mr Tong, a Frenchman at Clarc. Auntie Rose had tied all the ribbons with one big roll.
Granpa Moyle’s father (JLL’s great grandfather) died of typhoid. His mother re-married a chap called “Day” and his children included Auntie Rose. The property was left to Granpa Moyle (JLL’s Granpa) and his sister Frances. “Day” went to the Kalgoorlie mines and was unheard of since.
The original property of the Moyle family at Jamestown, known as “Moyletown”, (Still) was an original settlement there.
The Moyle’s and the Haig’s (of Beehive Cnr, Rundle St and King, William St) were great family friends.
Frances (Fanny) left Jamestown. She eloped to New Zealand – “out of sight” and she brought up seven children. She eloped with Ben Howie, who later turned 100, but couldn’t produce his birth certificate. He had given himself a new name, “McLaren”.
Colin Giles went to the records and found out that there was a divorce in 1900. Auntie Charlie and Uncle Ben were divorced.
The Rasheed family was owner of stations in the Peterborough area of South Australia.
Peter Rasheed has bought back some of the original station.
Deborah Guthrie of Panton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne, Vic., has a mother at Strathblaine, south of Glasgow. The Morton’s came from Darvel, south of Glasgow. There is a Morton lace factory still at Darvel. There is a plaque to Alexander Morton, the founder of the lace mill.
Granpa Bagshaw had never been christened (“Old Dick”) and was always worried that he’d never go to heaven. (But A.R. Kelly said he – Old Dick – was always able to get into all the other good shows – “never missed a good show yet” – so he’d be sure to get there.)
Auntie Nell wondered how the Moyle family survived during the Great Depression, but the farm (“The Sheoaks”, Leasingham, SA) produced milk, cream, butter, pigs, sheepmeat, fruits, veges etc. Granpa Moyle used to brag that “You could keep a sheep for a week in the middle of summer.
Auntie Nell wondered how Granpa Moyle could afford the cost of weddings, but everything was home made.
Auntie Nell’s name is Ellen Grace, named after the NZ girl who brought her into the world.
Bert Moyle, a child of Granpa Moyle’s cousin, used to come and visit the family a lot at “The Sheoaks”. Bert was a twin (George the other), both school teachers, Burt tall, George short. They were good friends of Auntie Win and Auntie Ada and came from Wallaroo, SA. Bert was incle Les Moyle’s best man and he made a good speech at the wedding.
Mum remembers when they had a big do at Castine’s house, just south of Watervale – a beautiful big home – trying to give the Moyle girls some wine.
Dawson Longmire, who farmed out at Woodlands, SW of Kybunga, SA, married Chris Christiensen (or Christopherson) from Melrose, SA. Dad thought the death notice for Chris Longmire in the “Tucker Family Book” might be for this Chris Longmire. Chris Longmire was a real hard working women when farming at Lock.
Dawson Longmire farmed NW of Lock, out near where Uncle Stan Longmire (Les’s
older brother) farmed. Fred Wendland worked for Dawson, then Uncle Stan (at Lock),
then Uncle Snow. Neil Longmire, Dawson’s son, died from taking too many drugs. One of Neil’s sons died from the drugs too.
NOTES COMPILED BY JIM LONGMIRE 3/3/97
Calfie (roan cow) and Rosie (Friesian cow) came up with us to Crooble from Kybunga, August 1965. Polly (Calfie’s mother) died at Kybunga in early 1965 from eating too much cracked wheat left in an old bag near the shearing shed.
When the Blyth football team lost to Gulnare in the Grand Final in September 1964, Bill and I were pretty mournful. We just went home that night and milked Polly and Rosie and didn’t say much. The Blyth team was a great one that year and it was undefeated before the Grand Final. Auntie Mid and Meredith came and saw the final at Redhill, SA.
Tragically, Calfie and Rosie both died of arsenic poisoning at “Booroola”, Crooble NSW. Unbeknown to us the tank at the dip had lots of arsenic powder in it. When some rains came in the 65-66 summer the tank filled by runoff from the drying pens and the cows drank the arsenic water. Apparently cattle like the taste of arsenic in water and it would have been preferred to the billabong, which was almost dry during the 1965-66 drought at Moree.
We moved the Longmire gear to Moree departing on the 1st of August 1965. I remember that because it was Granny Longmire’s birthday on the 1st of August, the same day as all horses’ birthdays. David Weich, from Weich’s carriers, Kybunga, transported our gear up with a semi-trailer. We had the John Deere 720 tractor, furnishings, two cows, many valuable farming tools, welders (electric and oxy-acetylene) etc. We also had two Holden EK cars, with a tandem trailer in tow behind Bill’s also very heavily laden.
Our convoy got to Euston on the first day. We camped in the cars and under Weichy’s semi-trailer. We took the cattle off for a walk. Next day we drove to Coonabarabran. Between Parkes and Peak Hill, NSW, the windscreen of Dad’s Holden, two tone blue and white, was broken by a passing car. In NSW then the roads were narrow and river gravel stones were on the edge of the bitumen. Anyway, Dad’s car/window was broken just on dark and there was no way that Dad could have had the windscreen fixed. So we punched it out and rugged up and drove on to Coona, arriving about 2am. Dad and Bill and I did the driving but Dad drove on in their car with the broken windscreen, and I remember him feeling quite frozen by the time we got to Coona showground.
Also when we got to Coona there was a roaring white frost on the ground. We went to the showgrounds and camped the night there. Pretty cold night as I remember. I recall David Weich waking up in the early morning and thinking we must all be mad. The cattle had been taken off the semi and had a good feed of hay which we had with us. We pressed on the next day and reached “Booroola” without any dramas. Dad had his screen fixed at Coona.
I remember David saying how lucky Bill and I were to have parents who were prepared to move from Kybunga to Moree to help their sons get into farming. He really liked what he saw of “Booroola”. He said that to me when were out looking around the agate area in the 400-acre scrub paddock east of the house at “Booroola”.
We took three dogs from Kybunga to “Booroola”, Goldie, a labrador, who came from the South East (I think cither the Bagshaws or (Sump Vanderpeer’s litter), Tip (who was past it, a scraggy long-haired kelpie of sorts) and Bluey (a really small little blue and white kelpie).
Dad used to love taking the dogs up to the scrub areas of “Booroola” and watch the dogs hunting. Usually the dogs would take after roos and never with much success. One day the dogs took after emus just NW of the main bore tank at “Booroola”. The emu (might have been a male I suspect) had some chicks. Next thing you know, Bluey was heading back full throttle towards Dad and the old Bedford truck, tail between her legs, with the emu right behind her, head down and pecking away. Bluey shot under the Bedford and to safety. Dad used to talk about that lots. He really loved those sorts of events with farming.
Bill and I didn’t stay at “Booroola” long in August 1965. We went back down to Kybunga and bach’d there for about two months. During that time Mum & Dad probably saw the worst of the drought at Moree, although it was pretty crook when we returned in early October 1965.
While we were at Kybunga, Dad employed Bruce and Jim Wilby, to help with
managing “Booroola” and the stock through the drought. They had worked previously
with Ron McCumstie, from whom Dad bought “Booroola”. They used to come over
and cut fodder trees about three times a week and also were feeding the 800 or so sheep that Dad bought from Ron. Most of the ewes were pregnant and dropping lambs in spring 1965, and most had pregnancy toxaemia. It was cruel seeing the old ewes down and crows pecking their eyes out. We were killing the lambs on the spot because the ewes had minimal feed and would not have survived with milking a lamb.
We had about 35 cattle on “Booroola” during the drought. They were good hereford
cattle and we had one bull which Ron sold to us. He was a really big nice looking
Hereford bull and cost Ron about 1200 pounds. He had a swollen front left hoof and
hock (or is it fetlock?). The cattle lived out in the 2000 acres of scrub we had on
“Booroola”. They had leant to come to the sound of the chainsaw because they knew
that a fodder was being trimmed. I remember seeing the carcass of one old boney cow and she was full up in the gut with belah twigs (casuarina). Obviously the microbes in her gut had given up on the feed she had been ingesting.
The Wilby boys knew a lot about “Booroola”, they grew up across to the south on Charlie and Kit Wilby’s farm. The boys knew of aboriginal sharpening stones down along the creek, about 400 metres from our neighbour’s block on the west side (Cosh’s land, which was sharefarmed by Ross and Keith. ). The Wilby boys were good shots and would shoot at anything that moved. Jim Wilby is now a senior policeman based at Roma, Qld. He has been in charge of the Stock Squad there for years and must know the bush of Queensland pretty well. Bruce was in the police, then moved to a farm manager’s job near Emerald, but last I heard was moving out to near Talwood, Qld. Both Bruce & Jim went to Vietnam. I was in the Vietnam lottery but not selected. Sometimes I felt that I had bad luck not to be asked to leave Crooble and to join the army. Had my name come up I was quite prepared to join.
Bill and I stayed at Kybunga and ploughed the land in late August-early September
1965 September for the following season, as well as cleaned up the Longmire farm
things. There were many things that it was sad to see the last of, including the Longmire
wagon, which had been used as a fuel tank stand for many years just under the east side of the shearing shed, the old battered creamy come rusty FJ ute, which was still running well. It had been battered from fox shooting, trips to the Hoyleton and Blyth pubs, general farm use and we boys taking it up to the drive in or local dances very
occasionally. It wasn’t used much for the latter because it was pretty smelly of dogs and
dags and fly blown sheep.
Not long before we left Kybunga, I took Dianne Adcock home (to the Redpaths) in the
old FJ. That was after a footy club barbecue at Mugges in 1965. Dianne and I were a
bit of an item while we were at school in Adelaide. Dianne and I were a bit crazy for
each other, but I was a bit shy, a country bloke I suppose. She thought I was a bit of a
snob. Anyway Dianne and I watched a couple of Elvis movies at the Marryatville
Theatre or in Adelaide when they were new releases including Blue Hawaii and GI Blues.
driving the
Massey
tra
One day while Bill and I were cleaning up at Kybunga we had to tow a couple of things
with a heavy (2 ton) tow chain. I driving te Massey tractor and burning down from the old stable towards the barn and went over the pipe there without putting the hook end of the chain up off the ground. The hook grabbed the galvanised pipe and tore it up and made a hell of a mess.
Bill was really angry with me and would have killed me if he could have caught me. I bolted. Anyway, after a while things cooled down and we got to work and straightened the pipes and fixed it.
While we were doing the ploughing in August 1965 the main gear cog broke in one of the two old Massey Harris 766 (???) tractors that we later sold at our clearing sale. Bill had the spare parts manual for the Masseys and he pulled it apart, with my help. That was a major mechanic’s job and Bill did a great job with that.
We stayed at Kybunga until the end of the footy season in 1965 and won the premiership, beating Gulnare again. As usual, Bill was marking Graham Ashby, and they had another great tussle. Bill beat Graham on the day and that was a big factor in our win that day.
I remember kicking one of the early goals and hitting the post with a boomer kick when
we kicked with the wind in the first quarter. It was about a five goals wind advantage
and we played at Redhill. It was pretty warm, the grass was long and ground pretty
hard. I was playing loose man in the second and final quarters and remember thumping
the ball away to the eastern boundary with my fist and it just connected well and went as far as a decent kick. It just trickled over the boundary and looked a bit of a
deliberate out of bounds, but Veitchie, Brian Veitch, the umpire from Port Pirie, didn’t
penalise me. In the end we won by a fairly comfortable margin. After winning, Pete
Pratt, Mike Smith and I went on to celebrate the big event.
We went on a footy trip to Adelaide and Yankalilla the following weekend. As usual,
the trips were a lot of fun with Barry Mugge, Jeff & Ross Pratt, Neville Roberts, Mike
Smith, Murray Schumacher and a few others all keen stirrers. Bill was a pretty good
stirrer and his sense of humour really came to the fore on such occasions. There were
many cans of beer drunk and a lot of pretty harmless episodes. I remember Barry going
in behind the bar in one pub we visited because there was terribly slow service. He
poured quite a few beers and was organising the payments when the barmaid arrived.
Barry smiled sweetly and she got some extra help from him.
While we were at a barbecue at Yankalilla, Ross Pratt badly cut his finger. It wasn’t that long before that Ross had had serious burns from an accident at his farm. I remember Ross going ghostly white at Yankalilla and that sort of put a damper on the day. Anyway, we were all a bit hung over from the footy final the day before.
In 1964, we had a similar trip to the Barossa. On the Saturday of that trip we saw South Adelaide beat Port in the Grand Final. Neil Kerley was Captain Coach of Souths and Peter Darley was a star player for Souths, as was David Kantilla, black as the ace of spades from Melville Island. I remember that lan and Malcolm (I think that’s right, or was it David?) Hannaford were both playing for Port that day. They were from Riverton and I see that the latter is now a prize-winning portrait painter.
In 1963, the Lucindale footy club went on a trip to Melbourne to see the VFL Grand Final. Bill and Ian went. I think Geelong won the final, with Polly Farmer in top form. Alistair Lord and Billy Goggin would have been playing too. I have never seen a VFL Grand Final.
Bill and I drove to “Booroola” when we went in Bill’s car, a two-tone EK, brown and beige, about late September 1965. We drove through to Moree non-stop other than for petrol, drinks and sandwiches. I remember driving up the Newell Highway towards Moree, it wasn’t all bitumen then, but almost was. We used to have a special plastic windscreen which was stuck over the main windscreen after Dad’s earlier incident. No trouble with windscreens that trip. It looked extremely droughty as we drove through NSW and the Moree plain was bladeless. The only sign of life was with the thorn bushes, which later we learnt harbored wild pigs galore.
In January 1965, the night before Bill and Dad drove to NSW on an exploratory trip investigating farming opportunities, I had been out in Bill’s car to the drive-in at Clare. Frank Kirchner and I were there watching the movie and drinking quite a few beers. We then adjourned to the Blyth Golf Club corner, where we drank some more. Between us I reckon we drank a dozen bottles of full strength Southwark beer that night. I was driving towards Kybunga after this and lost control of Bill’s car about half way down Ted Jenkins’ hill towards Dall’s. I didn’t remember much of this, apart from remembering to drive very slowly the rest of the way home. I noticed before Bill and Dad drove off next morning that there were bits of grass and red earth between the wall of the tyre and the rim for two wheels. I decided to go back and look at the tracks where I had lost it the last night before. I drove up there in the ute, not telling Mum anything and looked at the tracks. I had had a major wipeout about 100 yards above the creek crossing from Eldridge’s into Ted Jenkins. I decided that I’d better slow down a bit on both beer and cars after that.
Once coming home from a Xmas Eve function at Blyth we were nearly wiped out at a level crossing by a train. Xmas Eve was always a bit crazy for Mum & Dad. They would go to Clare in the afternoon and then make a dash to be at Blyth for the festivities, last minute shopping, the pub etc. Dad had had a few beers this Xmas Eve and we were driving back to Kybunga via the eastern route – up to the Blyth Golf Club corner, turn right past the creeks, past Ted Jenkins and Eldridge’s, to Dall’s corner, down to Kybunga and then on home (often after calling in to Frank and Gwen Gosden’s for a lengthy chat). Anyway, this night there was a grain train crossing the road from Dall’s just there at the Kybunga church. Fortunately Mum had good eyes and saw the train. Otherwise we would have been wiped out in a level crossing smash that night. We were in the FJ ute and Dad, Mum, Bill and I were there in the front. I don’t recall if Ian was there. I do recall the ute being loaded to the hilt with Xmas food, presents etc. and the brakes just stopping us in time. There were no reflectors on the side of the wheat carriages then, they were all dull grey and the only thing that Mum saw early enough was the light of the guards van. We came to a fairly quick halt in a cloud of dust.
I was the last member of the Longmire family to talk with Mum before she died. She was in Ward 2A of Nambour Hospital. She was crook with kidney collapse. She had very itchy skin and big black moles over her back. Bill & Helen had come with Dad to visit. They left to go home about 8.30pm and I stayed on with Mum for a while. I massaged her back and she really enjoyed that. I left a bit after 9pm and the last words she said to me were “Now you look after Dad”.
I went back to Noosa that night and stayed with Dad in the unit alongside where Mum and Dad lived at Noosa Place. I had a few stouts with Dad. Helen called and told us the news of Mum’s death about 3.30am. Mum died at 3am on the 3rd June 1993, one year and one day after Auntie Win’s death. I remember the tune that was playing on the local radio, which I had left on, when told of Mum’s death. It was “To Sir With Love”.
We just got dressed quickly and Bill drove Dad, Helen and me down to Nambour Hospital. We were ushered in and the nurse who was on night duty was quite upset. Mum had been taken to a special care ward close to where she was in the ward. Her body was so beautiful. After she died all the skin had become so olive and looked fresh again. She was at peace and died peacefully in her sleep. She was well dressed and her hair was neatly done. We all gave her one last kiss and a pat and left. We thanked the sister who really was upset.
I had driven up to Nambour Hospital the afternoon before Mum died. I took Mum one small red rose that afternoon. It was in the special care ward when Mum died. I meant to take it with me and to press it and keep it for our family. I remember how Wendy was so good at pressing flowers. I didn’t take it eventually, out of respect to Mum, but know that rose contained some of Mum’s soul. It must have just been thrown out eventually. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.
Bill and I had the responsibility of choosing Mum’s coffin. We had the choice of rosewood, maple or cedar. We chose rosewood because that reminded us of some of Mum’s furniture and she always loved roses.
Mum also really loved the Sturt Desert Pea. For years she tried to grow the Desert Pea at Kybunga with very little success. At Moree (in town) one of her pet loves was the great Sturt Desert Pea that she could grow beautifully there. Obviously the Desert Pea is a continental-climate plant and likes frost and long spells of sunny days without rain.
I drove to Mum’s funeral in my Range Rover. I left from Sue’s at Toowoomba late afternoon two days before the funeral. I was cruising along fairly comfortably, with other things on my mind, when the flashing blue and white lights came up behind me. This was just on the north side of Marshalls Ponds about 20 km north of Moree. I was clocked by the policeman a 128 kph. The traffic cop who stopped asked me why I was going so fast. I explained that I was going to my mother’s funeral in South Australia and had a fair way to go and that it was safer for me not to be tired as a driver. He reduced the fine to $65 and one point and said “Slow down or you might be going to your own funeral!” I took the advice.
I camped the first night at the Tooraweenah Camping Ground. It was pretty crisp but I was warm in little mountaineer’s tent. Next day I drove to Hay where I met Sarah and Olivia. We stayed at the Hay Motel, just where Sarah and Olivia’s bus from Canberra stopped.
Next day we drove on to Clare. At about Rankins Springs, three farm dogs were out on the road chasing cars. They chased my car too. I stopped quickly and then chased them with stones and sticks. You’ve never seen three dogs head for home, about 1 km off the road, so quickly with their tails between their legs. The rest of our trip was uneventful but I really enjoyed having Sarah as a co-driver.
Dear Aunties, Dad and Ian,
This is a draft document. I wonder if you could review it and write any additions, suggestions, corrections and get them back to me in due course.
Love from
Jim
Moyle Family History 