Today’s post is the story of my grandmother Ethel Lindsay (née Carr) 1896-1994, told through the eyes of my aunt Ruth Rae (née Lindsay).
The third daughter of Lawrence and Jane Carr, Ethel was born at Cordeaux . She was their third child and three sons were to follow in later years.
My mother’s early years were not often mentioned. There were so many relatives at the time that the names that featured in conversations floated in and out over the heads of children. Many relatives, even distant ones, had honorary titles of Aunt and Uncle and very little of family affairs was discussed “in front of the children”. Even in later years the reticence held and glimpses of earlier times are fragmented and often incomplete.
I suspect that Mum was the brightest intellect of the family. She was only afforded schooling to the end of primary years though, through the generosity of her mother’s sister, Sarah, the two eldest girls were sent for three years to St Mary’s College in Wollongong. Mary(May) became a governess and Alice(Bob) trained as a nurse. Mum had to stay as home help for her parents and younger siblings. The only way we know of her prowess as a horsewoman is because of a snapshot of her on a horse and a half-remembered anecdote about winning some prizes that afforded the means to buy material and cottons for sewing.
There are only two school anecdotes. One is of being allowed out of school to watch the first car in the district go by. It was preceded by a man waving a red flag. The other concerns an incident with her school teacher, Mr Rose. In the stand at the tennis court Mum discovered Mr Rose’ tennis clothes and, putting on the trousers, she jumped up on the table and did an impromptu dance. What she didn’t realise was that the teacher had observed her. The next day the class was to write an original essay. Mum began hers with an old ditty: “You asked me for something original But I hardly know how to begin For there’s nothing original in me Excepting original sin” . When the essays were handed back the next day Mr Rees had appended his own observation:” I know there’s a deal of original sin And a jolly good lot of it reaches A long way up and a good way round When you wear Mr Rose’ white breeches“. I think this shows nearly as much about the teacher as it does about Mum.
.After she left school, life settled down to housework, outings, sewing (often by kerosene light at night) and other crafts. Mum dabbled a little in painting though we have no examples. She played the cello and there must have been singing and music around the piano for Mary played that instrument while Alice played the violin. She was also said to be an excellent horsewoman. I never heard stories of her life at Cordeaux, nor, after the family moved to Unanderra, how she met Dad ( Walter Dunster Lindsay). They had to wait a long seven years before marriage was possible, she because of family commitments and he because he had to save enough money to pay his share of the property he shared with his brother, Eric, and some of the sum needed to build a house. They were married on April 28 1928 at St Phillips Sydney by Bishop Irvine, coadjutor Bishop of Sydney
The first four years were spent in a farmhouse on a property, Lakeview owned by Ernie Lindsay. This house was an old home with wide verandahs, no electricity and open fireplaces. I remember the latter because, in the summer time, possums would come down the chimney of the lounge at night and were fed with hunks of bread. There was a mulberry tree near the back gate and I’ve no idea why I remember that so well. A hammock hung on the side verandah and that I do remember clearly because I stood up in it to show off and falling off, I broke my arm for the first time. I was born on February 24 1929 and sixteen months later my brother, John, made his appearance. Mum had developed a kidney complaint after I was born and was sick for some time so I was bottle fed. John had the benefit of mother’s milk and was a plump and easy baby. She is seen here at Lakeview with Ruth and John in the squatters chair she gave her husband for their first wedding anniversary.
The property at Karara had a small old grey house on it and Dad and Gug (Eric) would camp there but , in 1933, Dad had the house built at “Karara” and we moved down there. It seems Mum designed the house. It cost 1200 pounds to build and was quite sumptuous for the times. There was electricity, but no hot water and it was many years before mains water reached the area .The windows had lead lighting in the panes of the lounge and front bedroom and most of the woodwork was Oregon. Mum kept it spotless with the help of a maid. I remember four of them and they all stayed for quite some time, pleasant local girls. When things got difficult for the men Mum would help with the milking though she hated it. She certainly hated it enough to make sure that I never learned the art. Mum’s cooking skills were well known and she was asked to judge at local shows. She won many prizes for her embroidery and was asked to judge that also as far afield as Robertson and Kiama. I remember a beautiful christening frock that she sent to the Royal Easter Show. It won the top embroidery prize and the judges were so impressed that they asked for a championship ribbon from the cattle ring and sent that back with the frock. Later she gave the frock to the Red Cross to be raffled. The raffle made about 40 pounds which was quite a sum in those days.
Visitors were treated with tremendous hospitality and always went away with gifts of flowers, cream, fruit or any goodies that were at hand. Conversely I haven’t much memory of goods flowing the other way. Mum had a love of flowers and gardens that was lifelong and culminated in ‘Karara’ winning the Herald Open Garden Competition three times.
She stopped entering after that because, she said, she had three trophies by then, one for each of her children. I should add that Gug was responsible for keeping the lawns immaculate for these displays, Dad was an impeccable weeder and Mum was the genius behind design and growth.
Those early years at Karara were Depression years. Being on a farm meant no food hardships but money was tight and every penny was counted twice. Mum was 32 when I was born which was far above the average age for first births. It may well have been my parents fierce abhorrence of debt which made them wary of having more family for some time. Mum had been brought up Catholic though her mother was Protestant and Dad was (a not particularly devout) CofE. I think avoiding having children was probably hard for them. David (left) arrived 7/7/37 and Phillip (right) was born 2 years later. They were both healthy little boys. I don’t think Mum ever got over the tragic death of Phillip at 19 months. He was a merry little fellow and very lively so that when the baker forgot to put the ring back on the gate it was not surprising that he should have run out on to the back road and been run over by the farm utility. That was a vehicle with an unusually high dashboard and Keith, who worked for us, was a short man. He too was devastated. Mum had a nervous breakdown and was in hospital for a while. We were never able to mention the baby again.
Mum had been used to a world of relatives but, as Dad was one of ten and the first to marry, I think Mum sometimes felt she’d married the lot of them. After all, Gug lived with us and it must have seemed at times as though she had two husbands to care for, one to love and the other to look after. Gug had at least four ladies lined up nearly to the proposal stage but always jibbed at the engagement ring .
Mum and Dad loved each other dearly and I never knew them to quarrel. (After Dad died Mum resented the fact that he was taken and Gug still alive and it was sad to see her being so difficult with him). Two of Dad’s sisters were only a walk across the paddocks. Nothing happened that wasn’t chewed over by the whole family. As against that the family always rallied around when sickness or tragedy struck. There are compensations and I loved all my aunts. None of the five ever had children (except Auntie May whose daughter was stillborn). When Mum was sick there were aunts to look after us. Soey Dunster (Dad’s cousin) minded me when I was a baby and Mum had nephritis; Auntie Hilda got leave from hospital and nursed John and me at West Horsely when we had influenza very badly.
There always seemed to be people dropping in and the old wood stove turned out scones and cakes at a great rate. My brothers and I are always grateful to Mum for insisting that we received the education she was unable to have. I doubt if it would have greatly worried Dad but he listened carefully to all Mum’s arguments and she always won the day.
I was brought up with Ethel Turner’s and the Anne books but Mum was quite nostalgic about the “Elsie” books. Years later I bought one in a second-hand shop and found it so priggish and narrow minded as were the few other early books from my parents’ childhood that I could understand why so much of their lives seemed staid and conformist. While we were young Mum and Dad only had two holidays, both at ‘The Cecil’, a guest house in Katoomba.
The Cecil Guest House in Katoomba is getting a new lease of life See it here
A trip to Sydney was a major event and the furthest my parents were to travel together was to visit me Grafton after I married. After Dad died Gug treated Mum to a round the world Herald Garden Tour special. This was marred at the end by Gug’s sudden death as he was leaving a football match. It was while she was preparing for the trip and needed a passport that Mum discovered that she hadn’t been christened Ethel Hope as she’d always believed but Ethel Sarah. She also discovered that her birthday was on September 26th not 28th. (Alice was to discover in the same way that she had been celebrating and noting her birthday some ten days later than her birth certificate claimed. Perhaps Laurence had been celebrating on the way to the registry!).
When Gug died it became impossible for Mum to live alone at Karara and she moved to a strata title unit in Wollongong.
Karara was sold to a man who, as a youth, had looked at the place from afar and always longed to own it. He looked after the house very well but knew nothing about gardening and so the garden fell on hard times.
In Wollongong Mum had friends from her days as a member of the Garden Club. She joined the Red Cross and was put in charge of the hiring of medical equipment. But the time came when she needed family care. As I at the time was looking after May and Bob in Grafton nursing homes David settled Mum just up the street from his own place in a very neat cottage complex with a small yard back and front. He and Rosalind looked after her untiringly and lovingly. I tried to visit her as often as possible and wrote regularly every Sunday, receiving letters in return written in handwriting I’d have been proud to call my own. After she died and David retired he sold his home and moved there himself. She was nearly 98 when she died and was very much her own person until a few months before her death.
#EthelLindsay #FamilyHistory #ResilientWomen #DairyFarming #AustralianHeritage #CommunityInvolvement #GardeningPassion #EmbroiderySkills #FamilyBonds #Legacy
