Nancy's Memoirs 3

 

Written Oct 1987:

My father attended the Hazeldean or Stanley River School.  He walked there and had bread
and home made rosella jam (no butter) sandwiches for lunch every day.  The bread was
home made by his sister Mabel who was the cook in the family.

As the children grew older Daisy (Maggie Brown) was house cleaner, Bell & Gracie worked in
the cow bails.  I don't know what Bud did.  I think it was looking after the other children.  She
and Daisy had to stay home from school alternate days to rock the cradle.

The butter for the family was churned by hand outside the back door in a wooden butter
churn.

In later years J.B.'s wife, Nan, did the family ironing.  The house was very primitive at first
with a dirt floor and open cooking fire in the kitchen.

My father's bedroom was shared by his brothers Royal & Graham.  They slept on the floor
on a home-made corn-husk mattress.  The room was extremely small & had no furniture.

This house was later flooded while Daisy was still living in it.  The furniture was more or less
ruined.  The year was about 1956.  She then moved to her own house, Royston St. Kilcoy
beside the bowling green, previously owned by Wilfred Pratten.

Colin Duncan lived slightly up the hill from the old C.A. Crossing home.  This house was
above flood level.  The old C.A. Crossing home was pulled down and the timber used in
Colin Duncan's home in Kropp St. Kilcoy.  Now owned by John Webster, son of Colin Samuel
Webster.

The old C.A. Crossing property was resumed by the water board when the Somerset Dam
was built and leased back to the family.  Grandma Elizabeth Duncan died aged 83 and left
the property to 3 of her children - Colin, Sandy (Alexander Robert) and Daisy (Maggie
Brown).  The lease was bought out by Colin when Sandy passed away from cancer in his
forties, leaving 3 young children.  The lease was later sold to Bob Nicholls who is married to
my husband's cousin Jean (formerly Brodie).

Sandy's wife Jessie moved back to her home town of Ipswich when Sandy died and resumed
teaching (home science).  She lived at Wall St. Bundamba.  Her son Robert Lees Duncan
now lives there with his wife Leone and 2 boys.  Jessie's maiden name was Clegg and was
once a teacher at Kilcoy School where she met Sandy.  Jessie later became teacher of
English on a migrant ship between Greece & Australia & then married a Greek music
teacher, 1st name Vasily.  Don't know surname.  Vasily also got cancer & as hospitals in
Greece were not good, Jessie flew him urgently to Australia.  He lived a few years in
Melbourne then he died.  She went to Melbourne to be near Beth (Elizabeth Jessie Bateson)
her daughter.  They still live in Melbourne.  Jessie's son Alexander Scott (known as Scott)
also lives in Melbourne and works for Channel 9 T.V. as a cameraman.  He plays guitar too.