From Little Dean to Enoggera compiled by Joy Whaite
Chapter
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CHAPTER EIGHT

 

FAMILY LIFE AROUND BRISBANE

Walter had no option but to land in Sydney after the journey from South Africa, because that was where the Darmstadt's voyage finished. However, just when he and the family arrived in Brisbane is not known, nor how they got there. The rail connection had been finished in 1889 and there were plenty of coastal steamers on the Sydney to Brisbane route. In any event, by the time Daniel was born in October 1897, the family were settled in their first rented house in Albion. Though Daniel's birth certificate gave their address as Stoneleigh Street (it was first 10, but is now 36), by 1900, Post Office Directory called it Grove Street (said to be 7, but now 45). It seems the land, which was near Bridge Street, had a frontage to both streets and it was barely a mile from Five Ways workshop.

By quite a coincidence, it was the family of Georgena Hermann who came to live in the former Bailey house, when they moved to Brisbane from Ballina about 1952 and it was in 1963 that Georgena became Alfred Charles' second wife.

Five Ways was given as the family address at the time of Walter Henry's marriage and Benjamin's birth, both in 1899, but it is not known whether the family actually lived there. The present day block appears to be rather too small to have room for a house, but perhaps in those times, it was much larger. About 1904 the family may have lived at Lucy Street Albion for a while, but the Walter Bailey recorded at that address may have been Walter Henry.

The next year's Directory shows the family living at Montpelier Road Bowen Hills next to a Mrs. Alice M. Weston, who lived at "Woollahra" and made straw hats. Robert Sumner's Packing House was on the other side and this was on the corner of what was then Little Albert Street (now Dukinfield Street). Across that road was the site of Bailey Engineering Coy and Iron Works, on a big block on the corner of Breakfast Creek Road. By this time Walter Henry and Mary Ellen were married and so was Albert, though he may have still been working with Walter. John Ernest had probably found employment on the tramway and also maybe James George, but they may still have been living at Montpelier Road, together with Alfred, Dinah, Jane and Daniel, as well as young Samuel, born at Nundah in 1902 and the latest baby Joseph born at Montpelier Road in 1906.

Though he still had the workshop at Bowen Hills, about 1908 Walter moved the family out to a place in Chermside, off Gympie Road. In subsequent years, this address became known as off Richmond Street and later King Street in the new suburb of Kedron. On modern maps the workshop was about 4 miles from Kedron, so perhaps Walter travelled to and from work by horse and sulky or even rode a bicycle. While they lived at Kedron, Lily had 3 more children - Violet in 1908, Fanny Rose in 1910 and lastly Reuben Sam in 1913, but nothing at all is known about the house they lived in, nor even its exact location.

Around 1915, Walter took the family to a block of land out in the bush at what was then Bunyah Park Road Everton Park, later called Enoggera. There is one story that says that Walter simply squatted on the land to get away from the factory inspectors around Brisbane. After Queensland Factory and Shops Act was passed in 1896, inspectors were allowed to check working conditions and wages paid to employees. Of course Walter had no records to prove what wages he paid, because he did not pay any to his children, but in the eyes of the law, they were still his employees.

Though Walter may have been there illegally, the owners, when they found out, may simply have let him stay on the condition that he paid the rates. This practice was quite common before and during the Depression of 1930s, as it saved the owners having to pay them.

The block was originally part of a subdivision of lll acres made in 1901 and split up into nearly 400 blocks. Because of various later subdivisions, it is hard to sure exactly which block or blocks the family lived on. One block whose title was first registered in the name of Peter Fahey, passed to his widow and then to Queensland Trustees in 1943, being bought by Mr. and Mrs. Carter and is now known as 812 South Pine Road, Everton Park. About 1990, two houses were built on it, one of which is "Aviemore", whose owners provided the details, so that the original titles could be traced. The block next door was first registered in 1922 by Queensland Trustees and remained in their possession until September 1943, when title passed to Brisbane City Council. About 1956 the Council leased a small part of it to Boy Scouts Association to build a hall for Everton Park Group, and this hall is still on the block.

As was the custom of his time, Walter told his children absolutely nothing about his affairs and when he died, it must have been quite a shock to Jane to find out about the arrears in rates and worse still, that the land did not even belong to her father. Similar problems arose in Samuel's family in New Zealand with his grandson Francis who had helped out for many years on his father's farm without pay. He had been given a farm of his own and told "I'll see you right", but when his father died, he found the farm had been mortgaged in the latter’s name, and with no money to pay it off, he had to walk away and leave everything behind.

In 1916, while Walter is listed as a Mechanical Engineer in Pugh's Almanac, from 1917 to 1919 the listing in Post Office Directory is for a William Bailey Plumber - perhaps this was an initial wrong entry that was never corrected.

According to Fanny, the family had 2 acres of land - one acre for the forge and works and one for a vege garden and the cow. Maybe there was a rough shack on the land, or Walter gradually built one for the family which now consisted of Walter, Lily, Jane, Joseph and Fanny, with baby Edward arriving in 1916, although Daniel lived there briefly until he enlisted in 1917. Though there was a creek of sorts near the land, all the household water was carted in large drums from a public standpipe in Southpine Road by a cart drawn by the family's succession of wether goats.

In his workshop Walter was making his patent wheels and smaller items while Lily's job was at the drilling machine and making things like pot plant stands. Although there were family stories of Jane, who was a big woman lining up with the boys to wield the striker's hammer whilst Walter held the red hot steel, by the time Ted remembers, Jane looked after the house, assisted by Fanny. Ted says that sometimes Walter would get asthma, and he would heat the forge until glowing hot and then lean over and take deep breaths to inhale the fumes - he always said it made him feel much better!!. Like so many families at that time, there was not much cash available so they grew most of their vegetables, had the cow for milk and perhaps butter, kept fowls for eggs and the occasional treat of roast chicken and probably did quite a lot of bartering.

As time went on and money became even tighter, Joe and Ted did odd jobs for a mere pittance and such food as could be got cheaply would be added to the family menu. There would be kerosene tins full of sun scorched tomatoes holding about four gallons each and they could be had for sixpence. Then there was the local pineapple grower who would let the children have the crow picked pineapples as a treat - with the help of a twig, it was easy to make a nice ripe pineapple "crow picked", but Ted wasn't game to do this more than a couple of times running, in case he got caught. Perhaps the family went fishing or else someone gave them a big batch of fish, because Dan told the story that when the family couldn't manage to eat them all, the fish were boiled up heads, guts and all to make a sort of fish paste. However something went terribly wrong and all the family were violently ill, so much so that Daniel never ate fish again for the rest of his life.

The children had no pocket money but in those days, there was a deposit of twopence on Tazewells Tomato Sauce bottles, so Fanny and Ted would take it in turns each month to get the deposit and sometimes they would get 24 aniseed balls for a halfpenny, and would make them last for the four weeks.

Just occasionally, the children would have a great treat and catch the train to Sandgate, taking with them some Dolly Varden chocolates and a pound of dates to last the whole day.

Despite their problems, which were shared by many others at that time, they were a loving close knit family, who then and in later life always kept in touch and gave each other support and comfort whenever it was needed.

Walter had never belonged to any organised Christadelphian Ecclesia, but had his own congregation at home. He had baptised Lily and Jane and the whole of Sunday afternoon was devoted to religious matters. Dinner was eaten at noon and after the washing up was finished, Walter would start the meeting about 1 p.m. - Jane would read the lesson from the Bible and the family would join in, singing the hymns. Walter is said to have had a tenor voice, Lily to have had a beautiful Welsh one, while Ted was still a boy soprano. Next Walter would deliver a lengthy exhortation, sometimes lasting nearly two hours and then there would be more hymns. The family's dogs used to join in and howl while the singing continued, and their nearest neighbours only half a mile away became quite used to the Bailey's Sunday afternoons and knew it was no use visiting them then. Sometimes during the week, Walter who liked a good argument would go and visit a Mr. Hillman, the local Baptist minister and spend an afternoon discussing religious matters.

Around 1933, Walter became very ill with a strangulated hernia and was taken off to Brisbane General Hospital. He was the first person in Queensland to have a spinal anaesthesia for an operation as well as, when he had recovered a little, one of the first to try out the newly installed radio headphones.

Lily Lewis, as well as bearing 12 children, had spent the whole of her life doing hard physical work, especially after the family moved to Enoggera. Beside her work in the forge, it was Lily, like so many other women, who chopped up all the wood to keep the fuel stove going. Ted would drag a big log up to the wood heap and then Lily would split it up to fit in the stove. One time Ted found his mother almost bent double with the pain in her side (perhaps from the chronic myocarditis mentioned on her death certificate) but she still toiled away for another couple of hours till all the wood had been chopped.

About 1922, Ted remembers a visit from a man called Captain Lewis and dressed as a sea captain, who it seems was Lily's father. They had a long talk and he called Ted's mother "Lil" and though Ted and Fanny, who were sent outside, tried to listen at the window, they could hear nothing of their conversation - what a marvellous opportunity missed, to find out the real story of Walter's second wife!

During the last few years of her life, Lily was often in hospital after she had bouts of influenza and on the final occasion in June 1934, she did not return home - worn out by a lifetime of hard work, she died in her sleep on the last day of that month when her heart gave out. After this Jane took over the household, but less than two years later, in March 1936 Walter died also from heart troubles and he was buried with Lily in Lutwyche Cemetery.

All places in the genealogy that follows are, unless otherwise mentioned, near Brisbane Queensland.

8/[4.2.2] Walter BAILEY b 28 Oct 1853 Little Dean Gls Eng d 5 Mar 1936 Bris m ?1897 Aden Arabia Lily (Lewis) b ?1873 Swansea Glam Wales d 30 Jun 1934 Bris

First Generation

8.l Daniel b 27 Oct 1897 Albion see chapter 14

8.2 Benjamin b 22 Nov 1899 Albion see chapter 17

8.3 Samuel b 18 Dec 1902 Nundah see chapter 17

8.4 Joseph b 16 Apr 1906 Bowen Hills see chapter 17

8.5 Violet Lilian b 20 Nov 1908 Kedron see chapter 17

8.6 Fanny Rose b 24 Sep 1910 Kedron see chapter 13

8.7 Reuben Sam b 11 Sep 1913 Kedron see chapter 17

8.8 Edward Anselm b 4 Sep 1916 Bris see chapter 16