Short story blog
On Anzac Day, Tuesday 25 April 1944, the citizens of Rockhampton together with service men and women and returnees from both wars came out in their thousands to pay homage to the district’s war fallen. World War II – and the Pacific War – was still raging, and a large contingent of service men and […] Read more…
This short story is about my late mother Evelyn and her faith in the One whom Mary Magdalene met in the garden on that first Easter morn. It’s a companion piece to My mother’s latter years: Living with dementia (March 27, 2021), in which I gave an account of Evelyn’s later life and the impact […] Read more…
Some of us have the privilege of meeting and getting to know our grandparents. I was fortunate to meet all four of my grandparents and to get to know each one, to some extent, even from afar. This story is about my maternal grandfather, whom I met and spent time with as a child. I […] Read more…
This story is a tribute to the late Elizabeth Annie (“Betty”) Anderson, of Rockhampton. Betty died on 25 February 2020, aged 100 years 6 months. I met Betty when I was a child. She was a long-standing family friend. My mother Evelyn and Betty had known each other since their late teens. My husband, Tony, […] Read more…
Recently I tried my mother’s 1949 spiced meatloaf recipe. It’s a good example of home cooking of that era. I used her old mechanical meat mincer to produce the mince for the meatloaf. The mincer worked perfectly, and the meatloaf was a great success. I shouldn’t have been surprised, given that my mother Evelyn won […] Read more…
In my recipe collection, I have an old-fashioned honey pie recipe. It’s the only recipe in my collection attributed to “Thelma Baker”. Every time I make this sweet pie, I think of her and thank God I had the pleasure of knowing her. Why? This dear lady, long deceased, was one of the sweetest people […] Read more…
For more than a decade in the 1920s and 1930s, a deadly disease menaced residents of Rannes and other small communities of the Banana Shire in central Queensland. My mother’s family, who lived on a property near Rannes (about 105 kilometres, or 65 miles, southwest of Rockhampton), was among those affected. This deadly disease was […] Read more…
I was a child living in Rockhampton in 1960 when the Midlander crashed into Medway Creek near Bogantungan, killing seven people and injuring many more. The Midlander was an air-conditioned passenger train that operated in Queensland on the central western line between Rockhampton and Winton from 1954 to 1993. Bogantungan is located 367 kilometres west […] Read more…
In late August, I had the pleasure of an unexpected visit to the Rockhampton Mater Hospital’s historic Kenmore House. During this visit, unlike the last time I was there (May 2017), the building was open. I was free to go inside, savour the grandeur, and take photographs (most of which I share in this post). […] Read more…
The feature photograph, taken in 1973, shows my grandmother, uncle and a visitor inspecting a prickly pear tree on my grandmother’s property at Rannes, 100 kilometres southwest of Rockhampton, Central Queensland. This huge pear tree is an ominous reminder of the “green plague” that took over large tracts of agricultural and pastoral land in central […] Read more…
In December last year, my husband and I visited the Gayndah Railway Complex where we were surprised to discover four M Class Series carriages of the former Sunlander. Do you remember The Sunlander? It was a long distance air-conditioned passenger train operated by Queensland Rail (QR) on the North Coast line between Brisbane and Cairns. […] Read more…
This story is an Anzac Day tribute to my late mother, Evelyn Proposch (nee Beaumont), who was a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) during World War II. It’s the second part of a two-part series. The first part, My mother’s years in the WAAAF (Part 1): Brisbane, which I posted on […] Read more…
In your family archives, do you have an old letter or two? I do. One is a 3-page letter dated 13 March 1952 my father wrote to my mother, brother and me. I would recognise my father’s handwriting anywhere. Seeing his handwriting and reading the words and expressions he used in this letter makes me […] Read more…
Television came to Rockhampton and district in 1963. I was only a child. But I remember it well, for a particular reason, as my story will reveal. Television had already been in Australia for 7 years. Two commercial stations, TCN9 Sydney and HSV7 Melbourne, commenced regular transmissions on 16 September 1956 and 4 November 1956 […] Read more…
Do you find it difficult to tell your father that you love him? Do you want to tell him while there is still time? This was my problem, 19 years ago. My father was in his late 70s and terminally ill. I suspected he had only months to live. I wanted to tell him how […] Read more…
