Isabella WICKHAM (formerly Campbell) - publican

 

When Isabella Campbell and her three young children disembarked at the port of Cardwell on Tuesday November 1, 1870 they had arrived at the frontier of European settlement in the northern tropics. Her travelling companions and employers, the Mackenzie family, were in the process of establishing a sugar plantation, Gairloch.  Isabella was one of only a handful of intrepid white women who ventured north to the Herbert River district in the early 1870s accompanying the male sugar planters and small selectors.

Isabella was born in 1825 in Comrie, Scotland to John Morrison and Catherine Drummond.  In 1854 she married Alexander Campbell. They went on to have six children, of which only three survived into adulthood. When Alexander died in 1868 Isabella was pregnant with her last child, Isabella Alexandrina.

Moving back to Comrie with her children she went to work for the Mackenzie family consisting of parents Elizabeth and William (a retired Presbyterian Minister) and ten adult children. Together with this family she and her three children, Alexander (14), Murdoch Donald (7) and Isabella Alexandrina (5), travelled to Australia aboard a three-masted sailing ship the Hawksbury. The journey onwards from Sydney to Cardwell was made by the cutter, the Mary Jane. On their arrival in Cardwell a number of the Mackenzie family took up residence. James Mackenzie was the driver of the family’s move to Australia. He started the plantation era on the Herbert when he secured land for a plantation which he named Gairloch after the family home in Scotland. He was assisted in this venture by his siblings, Alfred and Isabella.

Isabella and her children travelled in the height of tropical summer from Cardwell, over the Seaview Range, to the Herbert River district by horse-drawn dray. The journey took seven days. After a night at Henry Stone’s Stone Hut on Trebonne Creek they proceeded to Gairloch where she was to continue her role as companion and housekeeper living alongside Isabella Mackenzie in the large thatch-roof log huts abandoned by a first small group of hopeful sugar planters.

In the press reports of when the Marquis of Normandy and his cavalcade came to officiate at the first crushing at Gairloch Mill on October 7, 1872 women were invisible. It was recorded that the official party was served a luncheon, no doubt organized by Isabella Mackenzie assisted by Isabella while the property was described as owned by Messrs Mackenzie Brothers even though their sister also owned plantation land.  It was only Isabella Campbell’s daughter who recalled her mother as having produced the first sugar in a kitchen saucepan from cane crushed by the new mill. This milestone event is not mentioned in contemporary men’s accounts.

Two men assisted the Mackenzies, Scotsman William Stewart and Nova Scotian George Wickham (not be confused with Henry Wickham, the tobacco planter who also lived on the Herbert for a while). Only two months after arriving in Cardwell Isabella Campbell married 35 year-old George Wickham in a ceremony conducted by William Mackenzie at the Mackenzie’s Cardwell house. By 1881 the marriage was ostensibly over with Wickham leaving the district and his whereabouts afterwards unknown. Isabella Mackenzie married hot-headed drunkard, William Stewart. That these women entered into ill-conceived and even hasty marriages was not unusual for women arriving on the frontier. In Isabella Campbell’s case she may have even used a little deception to catch her man for she was recorded as 32 years old on her marriage certificate rather than her actual age of 46. 

Marriage offered economic and sexual protection, and on the frontier where women were few and employment opportunities for women scarce, they were impelled to find a new husband as soon as possible. Being widowed or accompanied by children was no impediment. While Isabella was not to know that Elizabeth Mackenzie would die so soon after arrival nor Isabella Mackenzie marry, she would have suspected that her role as companion was not one that would continue indefinitely. It is not surprising that she married as soon as the opportunity arose.

Wickham secured an 80-acre selection in 1872 naming it Cowden and built their home there. Isabella’s daughter recalled that there was no township in the vicinity, and that her mother waited desperately for goods to arrive from Cardwell so she could feed them. In the meantime, the only vegetables were pig weed boiled for greens, and young white palm leaf.

In 1875 Wickham built a hotel, called the Planter’s Retreat — a two-storey building with a distinctive shingle roof—located halfway between the Camping Reserve (the main settlement) and Gairloch Plantation. It had river frontage and a wharf where passengers alighted for the road journey to the Camping Reserve. Hotels were often the first buildings to be erected because they could be easily constructed, conducted by a few people and were provided essential services: food, drink, company, lodging, stabling and fodder for horses and bullocks, entertainment and meeting rooms before the construction of shire halls or community or church halls. Reverend Mackenzie held the first religious service conducted on the Herbert at the Planter’s Retreat while it was there that prominent citizens met for an historic meeting to decide on the name ‘Ingham’ for the former Camping Reserve.  Eliza Jane Ah Bow, resident of the Chinatown located at Cowden, married Lee Look Hop at the Planter’s Retreat. Isabella’s own grandson to her son Alexander and his wife Mary was born at the hotel.

Planter's Retreat, Gairloch. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photograph Collection

Hotels were often conducted by women in Australia as hotelkeeping was one occupation where their role as businesswomen took precedence over their sexuality. Under her stewardship as hotelkeeper’s wife, and then as sole licensee from 1882 to 1892, the hotel gained reputation for “good pure spirits and delicious Scotch scones” and the Scotch gatherings and balls were long remembered.

Isabella died on July 15, 1902 and was buried in the Old Ingham cemetery. The hotel closed in 1909. Her daughter recounted that Isabella provided her children with a wholesome life and opportunities. Isabella’s sons moved away from the district, Murdoch to the Cairns district, and Alexander to the Pialba Shire. Today, descendants of daughter Isabella still live in the Herbert River district.

Isabella Campbell’s story gives a rare insight into the life of a female publican living and working on the frontier of tropical north Queensland in the late nineteenth century. Her story illustrates the means women took to survive and thrive in a predominantly male environment.

 

 

 

 

What's in a Name?

 Have you ever wondered about the origins of the name of the place where you live?

'What’s in a name?' has been a perennial question, popularly deriving from a misinterpretation of Juliet’s question to Romeo in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet where she states

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet

Names do matter, especially place names. In areas that have been colonized, and where places have been named by the colonizers, there has been a push in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries for renaming or acknowledgement of the names indigenous people had for those places.

For instance, in 2019 in Cardiff in Wales the council decided that new streets would be given Welsh names which reflected the history of the area aiming to achieve an equal number of Welsh and English names across the city. Moreover, streets which did not have Welsh names represented on signs could be given bilingual names. Another instance is the endeavour to change Francoist street names in Madrid in order to eradicate memorialization of his brutal regime.

In our own area Girringun National Park was a renaming of the national park that was created in 1994 with the name Lumholtz National Park, after anthropologist Carl Lumholtz. Renaming occurred in 2003. Though Lumholtz conducted a valuable anthropological survey of the Herbert River Valley his observations were made with the skewed eye of a white man studying an anthropological specimen whom he regarded with unveiled disdain.

Image Source: :https://nationalparksaccom.com.au/2016/03/10/girringun-national-park/

The park is located in the custodial lands of Warrgamay, Warungnu and Girramay Traditional Owners. Neighbouring Traditional Owner groups also hold significant connections to places located within the park. Renaming the park acknowledged the importance of the area to those peoples and the significant Aboriginal creation sites, song lines and story places that exist within, traverse or are located in close proximity to custodial lands and waters now located within the park.

If we look briefly at the Herbert River Valley we can observe that white men—settlers and explorers—largely named the geomorphological features they observed in complete ignorance of the names already given to those features by the Indigenous landowners. In the case of the former Lumholtz National Park the trend was alive and well in 1994.

The features were given names according to physical attributes, for example it patently clear why Valley of Lagoons, Stoney Creek or Waterfall Creek gots their names. Alternatively features were named after prominent male identities. Hence the Herbert (named Bagirr by the Warrgamay) was named after colonial secretary and later Queensland’s first premier, Robert G Herbert while Stone River was named after Henry Stone, Ingham after the failed planter William Bairstow Ingham, Halifax after George Montagu-Dunk, Earl of Halifax Secretary of State in England from 1763 to 1765, and so on. 

Disproportionately few to the European male appellations were Indigenous names. Examples though, are Jourama Falls (singing or murmuring waters), or Toobanna (plenty of big rushes near water). 

The same was for European female place names. The latter include: Francis Creek named after Mrs Francis Allingham of Waterview Station, Helen’s Hill and Mount Helen named after a daughter of William Ewan of Waterview (its Indigenous name of Mandabin or Mandalin was ignored) and Mount Cordelia, Mount Catherina, Cordelia Creek and  Catherina/Catterina Creek named after the enigmatic Caterina Cordelia — the spelling of whose christian name is disputed, while it is not known whether Cordelia was her surname or a second christian name.

Names do matter and place names are changed reflecting new historical understandings and realities, acknowledgement of cultural sensitivities and efforts to redress past wrongs.

Sources: 

“New streets in Cardiff to be given Welsh language names,” BBC News, published 26 September 2019. 

“Madrid begins renaming streets that honour Franco regime,” AFP/The Local, 27 April 2018.

Girringun National Park Management Statement 2013, https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/166360/girringun.pdf

Family history of the district: Landmarks, streets, parks or buildings named after local ancestors, Herbert River Express, Ingham, n.d., p. 20.

 Queensland place names search, https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/qld/environment/land/place-names/search#/search=Catherina%20Creek&types=0&place=Catherina_Creek6521; and Map. Parish of Cordelia, County of Cardwell, Survey Office, Department of Public Lands, Brisbane, October 1922.Variously spelt also Caterina or Catterina. Local signage for the creek reads Catterina Creek.

A remarkable Christian Brother - Brother Vincent Doran

Vincent Malachy Doran was born in Gosford NSW in 1910. He was educated at the Christian Brothers’ College in Burwood, Sydney, and he joined the Christian Brothers in 1926. In 1934 he read of a place called Abergowrie in the Sydney Mail newspaper, where it was reported that a mailman had had his packhorse taken by a crocodile while swimming the Herbert River. A little later Br Doran received directions, with two other Christian Brothers, to go to Abergowrie, where they  were to establish an agricultural boarding school at the request of Bishop Maguire.

St Teresa's College, Abergowrie. Photograph of an original painting by Barbara Saxton

Life at the school was primitive. Clearing still needed to be done, there was no power or refrigeration, and transport was a huge problem. Classes were conducted in an outdoor classroom with twelve students.

In 1938 Br Doran was transferred to Melbourne, and then to Sydney. In 1954 he was the founding principal of an agricultural boarding school at Goulburn, NSW. In 1958 he was transferred back to the place he loved most, Abergowrie. By then the college was a successful secondary boarding school with an enrolment of 120. Ill health caused him to return to Sydney, and then to the Brothers’ community house at Stanwell Park where he was manager and caretaker.

In 1978 he was invited back to Abergowrie to set up a welding shop for the students. He stayed for six months, and from then on he tried to return each winter. He would take part in school activities such as camps and gymkhanas even when he was in his eighties. He shared his knowledge of the history of the college and the district, and he wrote historical articles for the college jubilee magazines.

In the 1980’s however, he suffered a spinal cancer, lost the use of his legs and was confined to hospital and then a wheelchair. He was extremely disappointed that he was unable to participate in the Bicentennial Trail Ride which followed the original packhorse route from Abergowrie to Valley of Lagoons. However he made a miraculous recovery, and was able to return to Abergowrie again. He resumed driving, and in 1993 he rode a horse 50 kilometres on a trail ride over the original Dalrymple track from Abergowrie to Cardwell. In 1994 he participated in another 50 kilometre trail ride from Abergowrie to Wallaman Falls.

Br Doran died at the age of 88. His courtesy, his sense of humour, his endurance and his wonderful memory were an inspiration to everyone who knew him.

SOURCE: Doran, V.M. A History of Abergowrie. Compiled by Christopher and Vivienne Parry.

The Graves on the Point Cornelius and Mary Kelleher

This is an excerpt from A History of Abergowrie by Brother Vincent Malachy Doran, the highly regarded founding Christian Brother of Abergowrie College. Many people have probably seen the grave of Cornelius and Mary Kelleher on the Point at the College and wondered at their story and why they are buried there. Here is what Brother Doran writes.

The Point is the high promontory at the back of the school overlooking the river flats. Many students over the years have found it to be a quiet and secluded area where they could forget the stresses of school life. Many people are curious about the two graves on the Point.

Cornelius Kelleher migrated to Australia from Ireland. He did well and acquired substantial property in western Queensland. His sister Mary went to America and worked as a domestic servant in Boston. One day however, Mary received news that her brother had been swindled by a lawyer and was left a broken man.

Mary left America, found her brother and established a home for them near Townsville. She engaged in poultry farming in a modest way and happily prospered. When Bishop McGuire established Abergowrie in 1934, Mary’s venturesome spirit stirred. Con had by now deteriorated physically and was bedridden. Mary suggested to the Bishop that she would like to offer him her life’s savings, some 3,000 pounds, for the building of a chapel at his new college, on condition that he would allow her and Con to live out their days in peaceful retirement at Abergowrie. The bishop was happy with the proposition and promptly had a cottage erected on the point area of the college property in preparation for Mary and Con’s arrival.

At the inauguration of the college, a room in the original building, upstairs between the boys’ dormitory and the Brothers’ rooms, had been used as a chapel. With Mary’s contribution, a separate and more appropriate building was erected. This structure was later extended, and is still being used by the college community and the parishioners of Abergowrie.

Moving Con and Mary and her goods and chattels from Townsville to Abergowrie was something of a military manoeuvre. Household items, poultry, “Talkie” the dog, a sulky drawn by “Bridie”, an undersized brown mare, and the bed-ridden Con, posed a formidable exercise in transportation. At the time a bush track served as a road from Townsville to Ingham, and the route from Ingham to Abergowrie has been described elsewhere in this history.

It was decided to bring Con and Mary by train to Ingham. To the surprise of many, Con survived the journey to Ingham. He was a man of stamina, and no doubt his experiences in western Queensland stood him in good stead. Nevertheless, on arrival at Abergowrie, slumped in the back seat of a car, Con’s pronouncement to the world at large was, “Hit me on the head ........ I’m finished!” He was carried to his new bunk in Mary’s humble cottage, where she would devote her time to looking after him with sisterly care.

In due course, the truck with Mary’s belongings, the poultry and the sulky drawn by the gallant but footsore Bridie arrived after the journey from Townsville, and so Mary and Con Kelleher became permanent citizens of Abergowrie. Con was confined to his bed until his death in 1935.

Mary fraternised little with the college staff, which was a blessing in so far that she was not easy to get on with, and when stirred could hold an army at bay. She was possessed of great physical and moral courage, and her faith in God and her religious beliefs knew no bounds. On one Good Friday she shocked everyone by travelling from her cottage to the chapel on her knees.

One evening, after having put the boarders to bed, the Brothers were aroused by a commotion. Mary had been out gathering some wood for the stove when she encountered a six foot snake. Seizing a hurricane lamp in one hand and a piece of wood in the other, she proceeded to challenge Joe Blake’s right of entry. “Talkie” the dog not very helpfully joined in the fray. By the time the Brothers arrived on the scene Mary had the reptile reduced to a pulp. Seeing the approach of reinforcements she dropped her weapon and declared “There's no power in me arm,” and with that, she flopped exhausted into the arms of a young Brother.

One early morning in 1935, Con died in his sleep. He was buried with ceremony on the point. With increasing age, Mary’s health deteriorated and periods of hospitalisation in Ingham and Townsville became necessary. In due course, in 1942, she died and was buried on the point beside Con. May the sandy soil on the point rest lightly on their remains, and may the breezes through the Messmate and the Moreton Bays sing a paean in their honour.

Source: A History of Abergowrie by Brother Vincent Malachy Doran provided by Christopher and Vivienne Parry.

'Vale' the print version of 'The Herbert River Express'

Herbert River Express Office 1908. Source:
HSC Library Photograph Collection.

In 2020 as it looks as if we are being forced by News Corp to abandon the print version of the local newspaper 'The Herbert River Express' there has been an outpouring of shock and sadness that an accessible means of community communication is being lost forever. The answer may be in an entrepreneurial individual starting an independent newspaper as was undertaken in Ingham in 1894.

Originally there were two newspapers in the Herbert River Valley. The first edition of Ingham’s first newspaper, the ‘Ingham Planter’, came out in 1894, printed on a plant brought to Ingham by M.P. Fitzgerald from Ravenswood. The Ingham Printing Press which produced the ‘Ingham Planter’ was situated in the main street of Ingham in the vicinity of the present-day Lee’s Hotel. Associated with this first newspaper was H.J. Hoffensetz who described that first paper as a “demi-folio sheet” format. Some years later Halifax’s ‘The Northern Age’, with Captain Alfred Henry as editor, provided a little short-lived opposition. 

The ‘Ingham Planter and 'The Northern Age' amalgamated after less than a year in 1900, when 'The Northern Age' was bought by Rowland Simpson Alston in 1901 from Onslow Waller's widow. Waller was a first planter in the district. The new publication was given the name the ‘Northern Planter’. The paper was then sold to Mr. Nolan and Mr. Russell. Around this time H.J. Hoffensetz resigned from the ‘Northern Planter’ with the intention to go out on his own. As a result, the first edition of ‘The Herbert River Express’ owned by the brothers-in-law A.C. Cockrell and H.J. Hoffensetz came out in February 1904. This paper was a twelve-page demi-folio weekly, which later was increased to eighteen pages. The name for the paper was presumably chosen because the new newspaper was to service the entire Herbert River Valley. From 1904 until 1906 the ‘Northern Planter’ and ‘The Herbert River Express’ published concurrently and in opposition. IN 1906, the ‘Northern Planter’ was absorbed into ‘The Herbert River Express’. H.J. Hoffensetz ran the general printing section while A.C. Cockrell was the editor of the newspaper.

Cyclone damage to printing press of the 'Northern Age' and 'Ingham Planter' 1890. Source: HSC Shire Library Photograph collection.

‘The Herbert River Express’ and its predecessors have withstood trials and tribulations before. There was the devastating cyclone destruction of 1890.  In World War 1 machinery parts for the printing press were unavailable and with a temporary shortage of paper, the paper was printed on brown paper and displayed in the shopfront window for passers-by to read. Changes in the ownership occurred during those war years with full ownership of ‘The Herbert River Express’ being acquired by A.C. Cockrell in 1915 effectively dissolving the partnership with H.J. Hoffensetz who then continued to run the printing and stationary business.

Herbert River Express Registered Printer Office and H.J. Hoffensetz General Printer, 1919. Source: HSC Library Photograph Collection.

During World War 2 the editorial “was even-handed in its treatment of the Italian issue, while quick to denounce excessive anti-Italian statements, whatever their source.” (W.A. Douglass, From Italy to Ingham, 160) It would also publish Italian language advertisements.

In 1968 the printing business, still being run at the time by a Hoffensetz, was ought back by the Cockrells. The combined business (United Press and ‘The Herbert River Express’) continued to be run by a Cockrell until it was sold to the North Queensland Newspaper Company Limited (a branch of New Limited owned by Mr. Rupert Murdoch) in 1986 ending an 82 year history of family-ownership. Robert “Bob” L. Shepherd who had become editor in around 1954  stayed on as Managing Editor and was optimistic about the sale saying that it was “a progressive step for the newspaper and of the strongest expressions of faith in the future of this district in very many years.” He was there to oversee the change from ‘hot metal’ printing methods to the installation of high-speed web offset press, computer and other related equipment which revolutionized not only the printing process but the appearance of the newspaper. However, the newspaper and district suffered a great loss only three years after the sale when in March 1989 Bob died, aged only 60 years. He was the editor of ‘The Herbert River Express’ for 35 years. He wasn’t a local ‘boy’ but nevertheless had a passionate interest in the history of what he clearly regarded as his valley. From his position as newspaper editor, and friend of the Cockrell family, he collected information about the district for what came to be known as ‘The Herbert River Story’ which is now housed in the Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Local History Collection.

In the flood of 2009 the staff of ‘The Herbert River Express’ was selfless. The paper normally had a staff of ten, but had to operate with five after the rest became stranded by the floods. Of those five who made it to work, four had homes damaged by water but nevertheless reported for work. The paper had to be delivered by helicopter and boat.

There was time when the newspaper included international news but now international news it accessed via the ‘Townsville Bulletin’, television or the internet. ‘The Herbert River Express kept to a narrow brief of keeping locals informed of local happenings. Despite being criticized by locals for its content, the emphasis of its content or even for lack of content it is a much appreciated and essential service and its delivery is sorely missed when it doesn’t happen, as in flood times. As of 2020 this ‘essential’ service is to end.

Once printed locally it was by this time printed in tabloid format in Townsville and in 2009 returned to a bi-weekly publication (Thursday and Saturday) and in recent times was reduced to one edition a week on a Wednesday with online availability.

‘The Herbert River Express’ has seen many editors come and go in recent times. However, in earlier times the newspaper editor was a highly valued and prominent member of local society. Such was Robert L. Shepherd. When he died there was such an outpouring of grief that his funeral – an ecumenical service – was held at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church because it was the largest church building. In a ‘Vale’ to Bob, it was said that “He was an intrinsic part of the district he loved- a veritable walking history of this community and his death leaves a gap that no one will entirely fill”. In retrospect, I believe we will find that the abandoning of the print version of ‘The Herbert River Express’ will not only leave a gap but a chasm.

Source:

Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. The Herbert River Story.  Ingham: Hinchinbrook Shire Council, 2011.

The intrepid midwife: Nurse Louisa Anderssen/Anderson

Probably few people know of Nurse Louisa Anderssen/Anderson (née Buchanan). This is not surprising given that records of midwives, either official or personal, in the period that Louisa was practising are scant, and as birthing children was considered women’s business.

Louisa was a local midwife. According to a lengthy obituary published on her death Louisa was the daughter of Dr William John/John William Buchanan and nurse, Susan/Susanah O’Neill. On Louisa’s wedding certificate it is recorded that her father was John Buchanan, farmer.  The obituary records that Buchanan had migrated from Scotland to Australia because of ill health. According to descendants still living in the district, he was born in Carlton, Jamaica where the family had a sugar plantation while Susan was born in Ireland.  John studied medicine but did not complete his studies. However apparently, he knew enough to offer valuable assistance to the doctor on the Herbert.  Louisa was born in the Rockhampton district, possibly in Clermont in 1862.  The family then made the move to the Herbert perhaps because at that time there was an opportunity for small selectors to take up land there. He started out helping to clear F C Gardener’s holding, ‘Bushfield’.  Hopeful selectors would first work for other selectors or planters until they had saved enough money to go out on their own. On Louisa’s death certificate it is recorded that her father was a sugar boiler. Sugar boilers were vital to the processing of sugar from cane and perhaps this role was more suited to his abilities than farming. However, on his own death certificate he was recorded as a labourer.
When Mrs Millar opened the lower Herbert Provisional School in July 1875 Louisa and her siblings, Mary, Bella and Florence all attended. Louisa and Florence then both married Scandinavians.  There was a sizable community of Scandinavians on the Herbert from the earliest days of European settlement. Louisa was 17 years old when she married 37 years old Scandinavian Christian Anderssen (Anderson) on 23 May, 1879 in Cardwell.   He was a blacksmith employed at the Bemerside Plantation. Her profession was domestic duties. Following their marriage he conducted his own business at Wickham’s Landing on the Herbert River in a former Gairloch structure which he had purchased together with fittings and tools. The family then moved to Ingham around 1882 whereupon Christian went into business with M Connors until 1886.  The family then relocated to Cordelia to 'Homebush', the property of William Johnson (Wilhelm Sorensen), a fellow Scandinavian. What may have precipitated that move was an accident shoeing a horse which left Christian an invalid for 17 years.

They would have seven children.   Of the seven children, two would die in infancy and another two by the age of ten. All but one predeceased her.  Four died under heartbreaking circumstances. One of snake bite and another from convulsions after eating soap. Kenneth Christian (5) and daughter Emelia  Mary (10) died under particularly tragic circumstances  — they and two other children drowned in the Herbert River during a school lunch break.  Without refrigerated mortuary facilities bodies had to be buried soon after death, and often on the selectors’ properties. Emelia and Kenneth were buried on Johnson’s property ‘Homebush’.  At the time Louisa was caring for a critically ill child and Christian was in hospital having suffered a stroke. These, of course, were not travails unique to her. The Herbert was a frontier settlement and the dangers of life there were many. Infant and maternal fatality rates were high and work accidents frequent and often fatal because of lack of access to appropriate medical treatment.

Nurse Louisa Anderssen/Anderson. Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Photograph Collection.

Forced to support her family after her husband became incapacitated, Louisa acted as midwife for the women on the Herbert.  Trisha Fielding, author of Neither Mischievous nor meddlesome: the remarkable lives of north Queensland’s independent midwives 1890-1940 identifies why women turned to midwifery. A significant reason was a need to earn a living after being widowed. In rural areas, what Fielding calls ‘Granny midwives’ assisted expectant mothers in their homes or conducted small lying-in hospitals. These women often did not have formal training but assumed the title of Nurse.   Louisa delivered Finlay Skinner in 1897, and 25 years later his son.  Skinner recalls that she was a self-taught midwife and came to the profession after her husband’s accident. Like many rural midwives Louisa probably acquired her knowledge through birthing her own children. Though it is suggested she acquired some of her medical knowledge from her mother and father.  She described herself as a lady’s nurse.  She traveled on horseback to attend to isolated women responding to calls for assistance at any hour of day or nights. She was not unknown to swim a river to attend to a woman in labour. Skinner asserts that her services were in great demand and that she was very highly regarded.  After her husband’s death Louisa continued to live at ‘Homebush’. She outlived her husband by 40 years dying on 14 November, 1948 at the age of 84 at the Eventide Home, Charters Towers and is buried in the Halifax cemetery.
Her's in many ways could be described as a tragic life. But her indomitable spirit, life-giving profession and dedication to her family enabled her to rise above and stoically endure those losses.

Sources:

Christopher Hart, family records.
Australia, Electoral Ross, 1903-1980, Division of Herbert 1903, National Library of Australia.

‘Family Notices’,  Northern Miner, 15 November, 1948, p.  2.

Fielding, Trisha.  Neither Mischievous nor meddlesome: the remarkable live of north Queensland’s independent midwives 1890-1940, Townsville, North Queensland History Press, 2019.

Barrie, Douglas R. Minding My Business: The History of Bemerside and the Lower Herbert River District of North Queensland Australia, Douglas R. Barrie, Ingham, 2003.

Carl (Charles) Feldt. Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths, Marriages and Divorces, https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/, Registration details: 1885/C/251.

Hinchinbrook Cemetery Register of Burials as at 27th April 2018, https://www.hinchinbrook.qld.gov.au/community-environment/cemeteries/deceased-search/

Kemp, A. S. The Kemp report: history of the Herbert, ‘The old pioneers’, Ingham, unpublished manuscript, 1956.  Instalment 2, p. 6.

Skinner, Finlay, Memories of a First World War digger, Nambour, Finlay Skinner, ?1981.

Obituary, Mrs Louisa Anderson, Herbert River Express, 9 December 1948, p. 4.

Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths, Marriages and Divorces, https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/, Registration details: 1879/C/108.

Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths, Marriages and Divorces, https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/, Registration details: 1948/C/4709.

VIOLET GROUNDWATER - one of the great ladies of the Herbert District

Violet Groundwater was born on 25 January 1931 and spent much of her early life growing up in Babinda.  She was the eldest of six children, with Tom, George, Cecil, Les and Ned making up the Day family. They grew up in Babinda, Mt Isa and Ingham.  When Vi was thirteen her mother died from tuberculosis and with her father not on the scene to raise them, all of the Day family were cared for by their grandparents who had already raised eleven children of their own. Vi assumed a lot of the responsibility of helping to raise her five brothers.  She viewed this time in her life as her very own work experience program in readiness for raising four boys and two girls of her own,  Peter, Paul, Mary, Ruth, George and Tim.

The Day family eventually moved to Ingham where Vi soon began work in the National Bank. She also spent time in Melbourne, Toowoomba and Innisfail. Vi was very well known in the banking circles of Ingham and for some time it looked as if she was going to make this her lifelong career and remain single.  One weekend, one of her very best friends, Josie Sheahan asked her to come along on a blind date. Up until this point, Vi had remained single for almost 32 years.  According to Day family legend, there were actually many male suitors that had taken a liking to Vi over the years, but unbeknown to her, her brothers had always taken it upon themselves to question, threaten and then show these young men the door! One man however, Don Groundwater, was able to pass this test and they became engaged and married in the space of six weeks.

Over the next twelve years Vi and Don were a team in everything they did and the farming life of Abergowrie became the centre of their lives.  In the 1967 flood, the cane farm suffered $100,000 worth of damage.  It would be much more in today’s terms.  With massive debt, they continued to work hard and ended up moving into cattle and developed 1000 acres of improved pastures.

In 1975, life changed for the Groundwater family with Don passing away from a massive heart attack. Vi described this as the worst time of her life. To add insult to injury, government death duty taxes were still in force and with no money, a big debt and death taxes to pay, Vi was forced to sell much of their land and her family’s livelihood.  She never gave in though and she always found a way to go on and to care for her children and their friends in the best possible way.  She employed a farm manager in Lyle McKell, and he and his family became trusted and loyal friends While her life was shaped by tragic events, she definitely didn’t let it define her. One of the things that Vi often said in recent years was, “you know, I have had such a good life”.

After Don passed away Vi took on a lot of roles in the community. She worked at St Teresa’s College in their bookshop, she sold Avon throughout Abergowrie, she grew gladiolas for local florists, she managed the cane farm and she raised her six children and her grandkids in the best possible environment.

Unlike her brothers, her children encouraged Vi to find a new partner, but as she told them some years later, “I made a decision early on that I wouldn’t let any other men into my life that might affect the lives of my kids, and besides it took me 32 years to find the right man the first time, why do I want go through that again.”

As her children all finally made their way out of the house and into their adult lives, Vi decided it was time to give back to her community.  She entered the local government election race and was elected to the Shire Council, a position she proudly held for 16 years. She always spoke fondly of her time in Council saying that it was very fulfilling and rewarding. Being the only woman on Council had its moments but Vi was not slow in admonishing the men if she felt it was warranted. She was her own woman and well able to stand her ground.

From her time in Council Vi was nominated for an Order of Australia Medal, which she proudly received in 2005.  One of the most ironic things that happened to Vi in her time in Council involved physical fitness. In all the years that her children were growing up she never once did any type of exercise or training.  In fact, when she was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, doctors told her that she could either control it with exercise or take medication. She chose medication. So Vi thought it was the funniest thing she had ever heard when they made the decision to name an exercise track in the park after her, the Vi Groundwater Walking Track.

Over many years there were suggestions that the Hinchinbrook district should have a museum. Indeed, there were private museums maintained by individuals that the public could visit with the owner’s permission, such as Muralambeen, the historic home of the Allingham family, and Hec Master’s collection of agricultural artefacts at Abergowrie. Unfortunately neither of these is now maintained or open to the public. That the district was able to have a museum which is still functioning successfully today is due to the passion and drive of one person – Vi Groundwater.

When Vi ran for the council in 1988 one of the projects she put in her campaign was the establishment of a museum for the district. She was elected President of the Museum Committee. The process of obtaining a suitable venue was fraught with problems and while some councillors’ interest waned in the project Vi’s commitment always remained strong. She was the motivating force behind several major fundraising events over a period of years and the securing of government grants which enabled the council to buy premises in Halifax. The building was the old Shaw’s Emporium which was sold to the museum by Reno Lancini at a favourable price. Reno also made a large donation to the museum which was much appreciated.

Vi pushed for the venue for the museum to be Halifax as she had long held a vision of Halifax being developed into an historical village. By coincidence she had once worked at the National Bank in Halifax which was originally next door to Shaw’s Emporium. As the earliest township in the Herbert Valley it was a perfect location to house and preserve the historical evidence of the variety and richness of life in the district. She said: “that’s why I keep pushing for this Halifax bit. Halifax is the earliest settlement in the area and you’ve got the mango trees right down the centre, you’ve got the old wooden seats around them, I think the hitching place is still in front of the Post Office and there are ………..a couple of very old shops on the other side of the street, you’ve got that real old-worldie type look.”

After considerable effort the Herbert River Museum was officially opened in April 1993. Throughout the entire process Vi had the enthusiastic support of her great friend, Josie Sheahan who in her role as head librarian of the Ingham Library had worked tirelessly to collect and annotate a wealth of material housed in the Local History section of the library. The creation of the museum was a great satisfaction for both women.

Associated with her great interest in history was Vi’s belief in the benefits of a good education. She therefore threw herself whole-heartedly behind a push to build the Barrier Reef Institute of T.A.F.E. and the Hinchinbrook Shire Library complex which opened in 1999.

Vi Groundwater will always be remembered as a strong, compassionate, resourceful person who devoted her life to her family, her friends and her community. She will always be respected as one of the great ladies of the Herbert District. 

SOURCE: Text and photographs: Groundwater family, with thanks.

Vi Groundwater with her children Paul, Peter  Ruth, Mary, Tim and George 

Vi Groundwater with her brothers Cecil, George, Ned, Les and Tom

Cr. Vi Groundwater with her Order of Australia Medal 2005 pictured with fellow councillors: Sherry Kaurila, Lawrence Molachino, Shaun Sheahan, Mayor - G. (Pino) Giandomenico, Deputy Mayor - Arthur Bosworth, Sam Torrisi and Geoff Gianotti