Today’s post shares the life story of my grandfather Walter Dunster Lindsay (1893-1967) through the eyes of my aunt Ruth Rae (née Lindsay).

The third son and fourth child of Mary and John Lindsay, Walter was born into a dairy farming family well known in Dapto and throughout the Illawarra of that time.

His ancestors had all been farmers, leaders in the community and very well respected. He was to have five brothers and four sisters, many cousins and other relatives. See table at the bottom – none of his sisters married

He didn’t speak much of his family or his childhood though we were told he played a good game of tennis and of football in early youth until, at the age of 16, he contracted Rheumatic fever which ended such games for a long while. He told me once that while he was very ill it was his eldest sister, Muriel, who looked after him most, his mother being preoccupied with all the younger siblings.

It was during convalescence that his one tale was of the birdcage he built in the warmth of the big family kitchen. When it was finished to his liking he found it was too big to get out of the door. But we never heard what did happen to it.

He was a gentle man, slow to anger and rather shy. This shyness may well have been because he was born with a harelip and cleft palate, neither mended with today’s skills. He probably took more interest in his children than he showed but he seemed to have all the conservatism and indifference to his young family that he claimed his forebears displayed so abundantly. He left his wife, Ethel, to dispense both tenderness and discipline. Only once did he show anger and act upon it. That was when he was obliged to return to the dairy late one evening and did some damage to his shins when he tripped over his son John’s bike which had been carelessly left on the ground just outside the gate from the house. John, despite his protests, was the recipient of a sound hiding according to the traditions of justice of the day. It was only later that it became clear that it was a workman who had borrowed the bike, and not John, and had thrown it on the ground at the gate when he had finished with it. None of the children ever received any form of punishment from their father from that day on.

He did his work slowly, thoroughly and methodically, illustrated by his technique for washing up. He took responsibility for this within the dairy for half a century and, after retirement, continued it into the kitchen. First everything was rinsed, then washed immaculately, then rinsed again. It took all evening for he suspected that detergents had hidden implications for health. When he weeded a garden the result was just perfect and raked evenly to a fine tilth.

His conservatism extended to all things mechanical and, when a shortage of labour during the war forced Lindsay Bros to buy a milking machine, it was taken on with extreme suspicion and reluctance. For most of the war years the cows were milked by machine in the morning because it was the only way to get the job done and by hand in the afternoon when an extra person was available. Even with the machine his distrust was such that he always sat down and verified that the machine had done its work properly by doing a short finishing milking , or stripping as it was called. The cows gradually got used to this and saved up some of their milk for the hand milking so that some of them gave as much milk the second time around as they had initially given to the machine. Consequently milking 80 to 100 cows took and eternity and an inordinate amount of manpower- 6-7 hours a day plus another 2-3 hours for washing and cleaning the dairy equipment. There was not a lot of time for other farm work or recreation and he indulged in very little of either. This remained the case until the Karara herd was dispersed in 1958.

A treasure I inherited from my grandfather 

It was many years before he could afford a car (Eric owned one and that was the family car) but he was very pleased with the one he bought and he drove it skilfully and well.

He had a good relationship with Eric and they had nicknames for each other. Dad was ‘Andy’ when Gug was ‘Horace’ while, in other gender mood, Gug was ‘Katie’ and Dad ‘Lena’. I don’t know who thought up the names, but Doss and Estelle were referred to as ‘The Tabbies’ and Estelle was ‘Longo’. John was referred to as ‘The Boss”. Of them all Dad felt closest to Roy, who Mum always said should never have been a farmer. He had a lovely tenor voice, loved books and music. He planted a groves of trees on the farm and attempted innovations like breeding special types of poultry. The few times his name came up I noticed tears in Dad’s eyes. Roy died, aged 36 of a ruptured appendix. He apparently was in great pain on a Friday but refused to disturb the doctor’s weekend so waited till Monday morning when the condition was too advanced for treatment.

Walter and Eric began to value add ( to use a modern expression) to their dairy farming activity by becoming vendors of milk. Eric was the entrepreneur (to use another modern expression) and Walter the anchor man.

To upgrade the herd Eric went to New Zealand and bought a prize bull. It became an extremely successful business and WD &ES Lindsay, later to be called Lindsay Bros, was , at its height . retailing more milk in the Wollongong-Port Kembla district than any other firm including the Dairy Farmers Cooperative Milk Company. Some 8 or 9 farmers in the district sold their milk to the firm and this was cooled, stored and distributed through some 3 domestic milk runs and a wholesale network that included almost every milk bar and general store from Dapto in the south to Austinmer and Coaldale in the north. Eric would go to bed early and set off in the wee small hours with a laden truck to start the days distribution. Particularly in the hot months he would leave the milk in the cool room till the last possible time necessitating the early rising. After the war draconian and unfair government regulations were imposed that forced all other farmers to sell their milk only to a government agent which was the rival Dairy Farmers Milk Cooperative. With the loss of their major source of supply, Lindsay Bros were forced to sell their domestic business and retain only the wholesale business in the city of Wollongong itself. Their milk was subjected to regular and intrusive testing, while that of the rival company was not, but were always found to be well above the prescribed norms. Eric bought the farm, “Kembla Park” and a subsidiary dairy was set up to augment the supply of milk. Lindsay Bros also bought a small farm at Albion Park to run dry and young stock But the retail business was only a shadow of its former size. The company could not afford or warrant upgrading its machinery to enable processing and pasteurization which were beginning to be an important part of the industry and the business and herd were sold in 1958. The Dairy Farmers bought the plant which they scrapped to forestall potential competitors but the herd, which had become well known for its productivity in the State herd testing scheme, attracted excellent prices for the time. Walter was 65 at this time and Eric 64 so retirement was timely option.

Sale of Karara Herd John Lindsay

Sale of Karara Herd J

Sale of Karara Herd John Lindsay

The sale of the Karara herd attracted buyers from across Australia 

Dad and Mum ( Ethel Lindsay nee Carr )fell in love 7 years before they were married, the first of his family to do so. They had to wait for several reasons: her responsibilities to her parents (her two sisters had moved away and were working) and the need to have a home when the farm was established.

Ethel and Walter Lindsay

Walter and Ethel Lindsay on their wedding day

Walter and Ethel on their wedding day – photo on the right

Karara only had on it a weatherboard old house with no facilities whatever and a cloying smell of dust and age. There was also the matter of religion – he, Protestant and she, Catholic. The exact details of the arrangement that allowed this to happen were never divulged but Mum was presumably excommunicated from the Catholic Church because she never attended mass again. They were married in St Phillips in Sydney and went home to a rented house called “Lakeview’ at Unanderra- a house with no electricity and home to a host of possums. Gug joined them and lived with them for the rest of their lives. Dad spoke of the Catholic Church only with bitterness but he always avoided mentioning the subject of their marriage.

Fortunately, the acrimony did not extend beyond the church and the Carr and Lindsay families had an extremely good relationship. For example , Gug and Auntie May were particularly fond of each other, platonically of course, and the Christmas table at Karara always had all available members of both families around it.

Ethel Lindsay with her sisters Mary and Alice Carr

After the business was sold the garden became a pleasant hobby.

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He had always had a love of nature and knew all the birds around the farm. He watched them nesting and was so determined that they would not be disturbed that he told nobody about it. I often regret not having been allowed to share his knowledge. Mum would always consult him before hanging out the washing, and I can’t remember that his forecasts were ever wrong. I understand that he had only one year of secondary schooling, but he must have absorbed a tremendous amount of knowledge later as he read the Herald from cover to cover.

One very cold winter when Dad and Mum were house-sitting in Cowra for John and Robyn, I sent them an electric blanket. This was a sheer delight to him – there was only one control and he would set it to keep very warm, while Mum, who couldn’t spoil his enjoyment. slept with both feet outside the sheets. When small battery radios came in he considered it pure heaven to lie in a warm bed, head in the cool air, listening to news from far places. Then I would be called in to prepare a very large, cold milkshake which he drank with gusto before turning out the light.

He had been plagued for years with a so called ‘gastric ulcer’ and frequently complained of severe indigestion. In his late sixties this symptom was belatedly diagnosed as a severe hiatus hernia with oesophageal reflux. The strictures in his throat prevented him swallowing and he was admitted to hospital in Sydney for an operation. Five days post-operatively he was sent home, sitting up in an ambulance. He was a long time recovering. By this time his cardiac system was showing signs of damage and he died in Wollongong Hospital in April, 1967. Thus passed a good man who had never knowingly hurt a living thing. His last thought as he died was for Mum whom he adored and she was to live on for over twenty more years without him.

Phillip, Walter and Ethel Lindsay are buried at St Lukes Church Brownsville

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Table – John Lindsay and Mary Dunster and children

OBITUARY. MR. JOHN LINDSAY.

Mr. John Lindsay, a member of one of the pioneer families of the Illawarra, died suddenly at his home, West Horsley, Dapto, on Sunday evening, aged 73 years. He had only returned home on Friday after a holiday trip in the Western districts, and appeared in the best of health. The late Mr. Lindsay was born near Unanderra, and was a son of the late Mr. John Lindsay, of Kembla Park, who was a noted breeder of Ayrshire cattle. The late Mr. Lindsay was also a noted cattle breeder, and met with many successes at agricultural exhibitions. For many years he was a member of the committee of the Dapto A. & H. Society, and at the time of his death was one of the trustees of the Society; he was also a Churchwarden of St. Luke’s Church of England, Brownsville. He was held in very high esteem in the district, being a man of very high principles, his word being his bond. The funeral on Tuesday was one of largest ever seen in the district. A short service was held in St. Luke’s Church of England, prior to the interment in the cemetery attached to the Church grounds. The Rev. O’Neil, an old friend of the family, and the Rev. Chapple were the officiating clergy. The late Mr. Lindsay was predeceased by his wife some four years ago, and he is survived by five sons, Messrs. Charles, Walter, Eric, Harold and Hilton, and four daughters, Misses Muriel, Estelle, Doris, and Hilda. One son, Roy, died some years ago. Messrs. George, Thomas, and Charles Lindsay are brothers, and Mrs. E. T. Evans, Dapto, and Miss Lindsay, Kembla Park, are sisters of the deceased. Mr. Charles and Miss Hilda Lindsay had just arrived in Tasmania on a holiday trip, when they received the news of their father’s death. They immediately crossed to Melbourne and arrived in Sydney on Wednesday by means of one of the aeroplanes of National Airways Ltd. We extend our sympathy to the bereaved family. Source 

As I delve deeper into my family history, I’m struck by a recurring theme: the erasure of women’s identities. Reading the obituary of my great-grandmother in the Kiama Independent from June 10, 1925, it’s evident that women were often not given the dignity of being named in their own right. MRS. JOHN LINDSAY – not even her first name (Mary) is mentioned. Instead, she is an extension of her husband’s identity. This was a woman who lived a full life, moving from Tullimbar to Shellharbour, raising a family, and being an ‘ideal wife and mother’. Yet, her personal identity is overshadowed by her husband’s name.

Obituary – MRS. JOHN LINDSAY. Wednesday June 10 1925 Kiama Independent

The death took place at her residence “West Horsley,” Dapto, on Sunday night, of Mrs. John Lindsay. ‘The deceased lady had been in her usual health until Wednesday evening last when she was suddenly overcome by alarming symptoms of what appeared to be peritonitis. Dr. Kerr, of Wollongong was called in immediately and on consultation with his brother, decided to have the opinion of a specialist. Consequently Dr. Poats of Sydney arrived with a special nurse and an operation was performed, but although the operation was in itself successful, Mrs. Lindsay’s strength was not equal to the great shock incurred and she gradually sunk until death took place in the presence of her loved ones on Sunday night.

Mrs. Lindsay was born at Tullimbar and came to Shellharbour with her parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Dunster, when quite a tiny child. She spent her girlhood at the old home at “The Hill” until her marriage with Mr. John Lindsay ,about 40 years ago, since then she has resided continuously at “West Horsley.” An ideal wife and mother she will be sadly missed by her loving husband and family of six sons and four daughters. Of Mrs. Lindsay’s brothers and sisters Mrs. J. E. Miller (Shellharbour), Mrs. Musgrave (Dunoon), Mr. Joseph Dunster (Billinudgel), and Mr. Walter Dunster (Dapto) still survive. One sister, the late Mrs. John James and two brothers the late W. C. Dunster and Robert Dunster, of Shellharbour, pre-deceased her. The funeral took place at Brownsville Church of England cemetery yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon.