A SHORT FAMILY HISTORY

I left school at fourteen as I hated it anyhow and took a job in a paper bag factory near the Flagstaff gardens in West Melbourne. Sometimes we worked on the machines which counted the bags into hundreds then you put a hole in them and some string. Other times we worked in a large room making brown paper bags by hand. You had to glue them then fold them over and run your fingers up them to make the fold as the paper was thick and shiny. It would wear our fingers out and they would be bleeding. There were times when you had all your fingers bandaged up.

From there I was married at sixteen and Mum and Dad, Allan and I went to live at Kew. Mum had bought a mixed business there and I used to get on the tram to come to work then as I had started to expect my first baby, I had morning sickness and would get off the tram and be sick, then get on the next tram to work. I must have worked close up to the time she was born as she was a seven months baby and Allan was out of work due to the depression.

The shop couldn't have done much good as we all came back and were living in a large two story house in North Melb ourne.

I remember Aunt Lil Watson, we all went to visit her and Uncle Will Watson, here am I seventeen with a baby, she looked at me and said "You should have a school-bag on your back".

Allan and I and Dot were living on our own in Hawk Street Melbourne when Allan was born, one year and ten months after Dot, another prem. who had to stay in the hospital six weeks as I did with the both of them. They were born in the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne., a hospital run by all lady doctors. As both babies were premature, I didn't see them for twelve days. When all the other babies came around to be fed, I'd ask where my baby was. They were all too busy to explain to you that they were in Humi. cribs. After Dot was born I was back in the ward, a terrifying experience as I had never been in a hospital before and I was only seventeen. I'd have given anything for a drink of water and all that was on the cupboard beside me was a jam jar full of water. I didn't know that was for drinking - my throat was so dry.

When I started getting pains at seven months I thought I had a stomach ache and kept going to the toilet so Dot was lucky she wasn't born head first in the toilet, then about eight o'clock, my mother said we'd better go to the hospital, so we walked up to the cable tram in Errol St North Melbourne and went to the Queen Victoria Hospital which was in Little Lonsdale St in those days by the Royal Mint. At night you could hear the undertakers walking on the cinder paths taking out those that had died. I guess they didn't want too many undertakers seen during the day, s there were a lot more deaths in those days than there are now. There used to be a pet cocky or magpie in apartments at the back of the hospital and it could mimic the women in labour, yelling and screeching.

After a few years we went to live in Black Rock in my Grandmother's house. It was a nice home in 2nd Street Black Rock. By this time Allan was back at sea in the Navy. By the time Dot and Allan were old enough for school we were living in North Carlton so I guess we got around a bit. I used to roll up linos, help the man lift all the heavy furniture onto the van as you could only afford one man. I did that when I left Melbourne to come to Mildura. I remember lifting very heavy furniture onto the back of the van. We pay for all that with bad backs as we get older.

I married Allan Henry Reid when I was sixteen approx. 1932, March 1st. Dorothy Lorraine Reid was born on 7th March 1933, 8 weeks premature. Allan was born 23rd February 1935. I'm writing this from memory so years may not be correct. Allan, my husband, was in the Navy Reserves , so when War broke out he went straight into the navy, before that he worked as a Merchantman around the coast of Australia until affected by the depression around the time of our marriage in the 1930s. It was a very hard time for everyone with no work and little money. Government Benefits were 25 shillings per week for husband, wife and two children. The rent on a small two bedroom house was ten shillings per week.

Allen served in the Navy where he eventually lost his life due to the bombing of the H. M.A.S. Armidale. He was one of the men left on a raft for eight eays after which it was found by an RAAF Catalina Flying Boat. It was too rough for the plane to land and the next dayt there was no trace of the men or wreckage of the raft. It is thought they were taken prisoner by a Japanese ship in the area and shot. Dorothy and Allan would have been about five and seven at the time. We had moved to a large set of rooms over a shop in Nicholson Street , North Carlton. It was there I received the news by telegram from the War Office telling me my husband was lost at sea, presumed dead, which they presumed for two years. When I was notified, I was alone in the house . When Allan used to come home, he would come to the side door and sing out "Id, are you there?". I heard him call out plainly and when I went down the stairs he wasn't there, afterwards I found out that was the night the boat sank. When I was notified I took Allan and Dot for a walk up to the Melbourne General Cemetery to visit Allan's father's grave. I was working on the trams and buses as a conductress and it was dreadful at night during the black out, you didn't know where the street stops were, but somehow we survived.

I went with the children to a house in Ascot Vale where the Air Force was stationed at the Ascot Vale racecourse. There I met my present husband John Edward Baird, we started going out together and he was transferred to Mildura and after being there for a while he said "bring Dot and Allan up for a holiday."

I fell in love with Mildura, I was seven stone when I came up here, within six months I was eleven stone because the climate suited me. Anyhow, after being here for two weeks I fell in love with the place, looked around and found I could buy a lovely Guest House quite cheaply, so I borrowed money from a solicitor then went back and sold up in Ascot Vale and came here to live. Six weeks after that Jack was transferred to Charters Towers in Queensland, where he was for the remainder of the war, he phoned a lot and we wrote letters, when he came back, he came to live in Mildura so we finally married and had two children and ran the guest house together with a couple of staff. After having the two children, Kaye and David, within one year and ten months of each other, I found I had to sell out and live privately. Jack worked at Shilliday's and I would take Kaye and David, only toddlers, down to Shilliday's after work, pick up Jack and take our tea down to Apex Park where there is a large sandbar, here we would have a family picnic.

After both children started school, I would go to work at some of the packing sheds to earn extra money. Jack left Shilladays and went to work at McEwans which was his normal trade of wood machinist. From there he had the job of custodian of our Chapel, then as they decided the members were to clean the Chapels, we as families all took a turn. From there he was a cleaner at the Mildura West School until he retired at sixty-five. I used to sell Avon for several years and had a very well paying area. Jack used to go out picking fruit, pulling out vines, picking beans and peas, so we managed quite well. We started off with a small caravan for holidays that cost $300. From that we progressed to a quite nice sixteen foot pop-up van.

Kaye and David were married by this time, each with two children. We used to take the grandchildren with us on holidays to Beechworth, we had some wonderful times there. In the later years we would go to Albury to stay with my cousins, also to units at Yarrawonga and Mulwala. We also go to Geelong to stay with my sister Alma and her husband Herb, they are eighty four and eighty-six and we are seventy eight and eighty (in 1993