MAKING HENS MEET
OLIVE’S THIRTIETH POST
Mike
. First, dear visitors, meet Olive. Here she is on her way to Broken Hill! She’s 104 in this clip and now is almost 108.
When she sings below, it today’s Olive. So you can compare what 3 more years will do when you are a centenarian (Not much. I’d say. Just coasting along is our Gal!)
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Click for OliveOlive
What does that mean, Mike, “making hens meet?”.
Mike
Well, you know our last story was about the Great Depression and how people coped.
I was wondering how well we’d cope now if we had another slump like that.
Anyway, I asked people to send in their own stories that’d been handed down from relatives who lived through those hard days.
Julie Duell sent some great ones and also told us about a favorite depression saying of her mother’s.
Instead of saying that they were stuggling to make ends meet, she’d say they were struggling to “make hens meet.”
I thought that was so good, that it should be our title for today.
But first let’s have a song. Christine is going to help you with the oldies since everyone liked “pack up your troubles” when you sang it. Let’s put you two in here. O.K.?
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Olive’s song. click here
Olive
We’ll, that’s alright, though my voice is just a croak ……You know the Swans won last night. They’re going real good now.
(Olive is a great fan of the Sydney Swans, an Aussie rules football team. We took her to the grand final two years ago. She always cheers and waves their colours when they play.
At almost 108, she’s surely their oldest fan)
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Mike
Anyway, the depression story has really got our readers going.
(please take a look at post 29, folks, if you have not read it)
Julie not only sent her recollections, but some family photos.
Here’s her Dad in front of the mail car he used to drive
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At the end of this post she’ll tell us her family depression stories. Other people are leaving thm as commest which is great.
But first Ollie, because you are less mobile than you were, I’m realizing that you are not going to get out as much as you did.
Olive
I do have to be careful. I fell over in the toilet the other day and cut me head.
Luckily they came fast to get me up. They’re very good here like that.
Mike
Yeah, I heard. Please be careful!!!!……….So, I thought, I’m going to have to share my travels with you, do the adventures for you, so you stay in touch with things.
As you know, I’m convinced the stimulation of the blog
keeps you with us.Olive
Well, I don’t care when I go, Mike. Really I don’t.
I’ll be sitting in me chair and one of these mornings they’ll come and they they’ll say “Ollie’s asleep” and then they’ll look again and they’ll say, “No, she’s dead, she’s gone.” (Olive laughs)
Mike
Just like that?
Olive
Yeah, just like that.
Mike
Probably…
Olive
That’s how I’ll go. In me sleep.
Mike
In your chair, though, not in your bed?
Olive
I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up me mind…… I’ll have to have a nice nightgown put on……..
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Yes, you don’t want to be an ugly corpse, do you?
Olive
Oh, no! Don’t want that……..and I must have me teeth in.
Mike
Oh, Yes, surely!
(Readers might want to go back and discover how Olive got rid of all her natural teeth during one painful luchtime. The post is #2 and is called War and Teeth.)
Olive
I can’t forget me teeth!
Mike
But how do you decide to die with the teeth in? You’ll have to be ready at every moment, won’t you?
Olive
Oh, yes. I have them wrapped in a handkerchief.
Mike
So you’ve got the teeth ready, and when you think you’re dying, you just whip em in?
Olive
Yeah, I will…..
Mike
To be sure you look good.
Olive
And I’ll have a smile on me face.
Mike
Ha, ha, you’re amazing, Ollie. But I think we need another song here not to get too gloomy. How about a bird song? /
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Ollie sings again
…………………..Olive
Ok, Im not gloomy. I told that to one of the men at my table about dying with me teeth in and he shook with laughter.
“God, Ollie you crack me up.” ….he said. Good job I make somebody laugh, I reckon.
They try and get at me, you know, only in fun, though
I said to one of the men at the table, (I did it on purpose to get him going)
I said; I wonder if I was to eat a banana before going to bed, whether it would upset my equilibrum?”
And he said, ” What did you say??” So, I repeated it “I wonder if a banana would upset my equilibrium?”
He said; “Well. if all the stupid things I ever heard,” he said, “that’s the stupidest!”
Mike
Why?
Olive
Exactly!….I said; “Why is that?”
Mike
He said; “Your equilibrium is part of your brain, not your stomach.”
Olive
I said; “How can I know that? It’s only clever men like you can find things out like that.”
Mike
Actually, a banana could upset your equilibrium, I’d say. So, he’s right, but he’s wrong.
Olive
Oh, he loves to argue, that one. He thinks he’s a bush lawyer.
Mike
Anyway, speaking of the bush, on Wednesday, I went to visit my cousin, Jonathan, who lives near Wingham which in turn, is near Taree. (NSW)
Olive
That must be nice. It’s nice up that way. Evelyn’s up that way
Mike
Jonathan has some acres at Bobin with a house that he’s finishing. The property has a long dirt drive that has to be concreted, going up a steep hill.
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Would I run the mixer, he asked? It was a very interesting challenge. I’ve never mixed concrete before….. Have you. Ollie?
Olive
Never, that’s man’s work.
Mike
Well, you were a cook on a sheep station. That’s rough work too……….
(see Culloden, post no. 5 , for the story of Ollie as a station cook. )
Anyway, I said “yes” immediately. I guess I had those depression stories in mind,
I was thinking about how people learned to do things they’d never done before,
so thought I’d give it a go.Here’s Jonathan outside a friend’s house before we got going on the work. He’s a real handyman.
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Oh, I forgot to mention, I was up early for a walk when I heard this deep, deep rumbling sound.
I ran, puffing like mad, back along the track I’d taken, and got to a wooden bridge just in time to see a freight train with hundreds of cars, it seemed, go underneath me.
I can’t resist a train.
Here, it’s coming towards me………..
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………..and now, going away. It took five minutes to pass.
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Olive
I should tell you about the massacre we had at Broken Hill, Mike, when the Turks shot people in the picnic train. That was in broken Hill, in the first world war.
The train was open just like that.
Mike
Yes, it’s an amazing story. We’ll use it soon in the blog
Anyway, here’s the bit of drive we needed to concrete. First, we levelled the ground. Then, we put in those forms , the pale strips. Can you see that, Ollie?
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Olive
I can! That’s the end of it there, isn’t it?
Mike
Amazing! Ollie, I do think your eyes are getting better. I’m sure you couldn’t see that much detail before.
Olive
And I can see the man with the white hair ……From one eye, I can’t see anything, you know. The other, I do see a bit.
Mike
So, there’s me running the mixer. I’m trying to remember my shovel numbers, how many scoops I’ve put in already.
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I had to put in 9 shovels of the stone and sand mix. Then, one bucket of cement and after that, in went the water.
I had to squirt the water right into the back of the mixer so that the stuff would not cake up at the back, as the machine tumbled over and over.
It was tricky. I loved it
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Olive
You would, too. I used to work hard, yer know, but never that sort of thing.
Mike
That night I was so stiff, and Jonathan says; “you’ve got to come and hear us sing.”
He belongs to a choir, called Wingsong which sings everyThursday night in the old Wingham courthouse.
Well, I wasn’t keen. I can’t sing a note. I’m worse than you, Ollie, far worse………..
Olive
Yeah, but I’ve got Christine to help me. That’s the difference. From now on, I just follow her!
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Ollie’s singing again.Click here
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Mike
Anyway, I went to Jonty’s choir. I’m interested inpeople making their own fun. That’s what we’ll need if we have another great depression.
So, I go along, and the funny thing is that these folks, mostly Australians, but two Germans and a choir leader from Belgium, are all singing African songs. That was weird!
Olive
Were they nice, though?
Mike
Well, hear for yourself. Since I was no use as a singer, I though the least I can do is make them a video, so you can see what you think.
Put on the headphones and watch it through my camera.
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Here’s the courtroom and choir for those who can’t download the movie.(just below)
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Here’s Jonathan, on the left, in full voice.
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Now, the fellow who leads the first song so exuberantly, Hugh, has built his own light plane with his Dad.
I reckon we could have had a joy ride if we’d wanted one. That’s Hugh, the singing pilot…………..
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click here for Wingsong choir
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Olive
That’s quite nice. The man who drives the bus here is going to make me some special songs, he says. You know, old time stuff.
Mike
I know. You told me. I’ve been on the internet, making you a song list since neither of us could remember any titles. I’ll give them to him.
Anyway, the next day I discovered another use for my video camera.
Jonty, that’s what we always called him as kids, has a room at the local Tech college and there he has a car engine that he’s experimenting on.
He thinks he can save huge amounts of energy and green house gasses.
Olive
Really, that sounds good. How?
Mike
Well. he’s worked out that the average engine, in a car, bus or truck, whatever, wastes a tremendous amount of energy in heat.
So, his idea is to recapture that heat and feed it back into the drive train.
Don’t worry, Ollie, I didn’t understand it either until I saw the thing working, and then it looked like he might be right.
So, I made the video for him, hoping it might help in some way. Here it is.
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Click to see Jonty’s idea
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Olive
My goodness you were busy!
Mike
That’s not all. The day before, when I got sick of concreting, I wandered about Jonty’s place. There are actually three parts, all built by himself..
This the lowest structure, the sleeping area. I like the tree for support
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The cooking and eating place is another building. It feels almost like camping that part.
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Open to nature, solar power. I love visiting Jonty and have done so for 30 years. If a second great depression comes, Ollie, and we have to retreat to the land, to a self sufficient life, this is where I’ll be headed.
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I pull back a bit of cloth and there’s my Mum’s old Datsun, in the kitchen area.
She died 32 years ago. Jonty definitely is a bit of a hoarder, especially of cars.
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His Dad’s Mazda, the 1969 model, is out back, awaiting its destiny.
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Anyway, I’m looking around and finding all this great old stuff…….
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Olive
Oh, that’s a beauty, that kettle. I’ve a friend who’d like that. She collects things like that.
Mike
How about this old iron. Just like the ones you used to use.
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Mike
All of this starts me thinking about a ghost town we found round about 1959.
Yeah, Jonty’s place felt like discovering Talbotville.
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Mike
Ollie have you ever been to a gold mining town?
Olive
No.
Mike
Never panned for gold?
Olive
No, we had lots of mines in Broken Hill, but not gold mines.
Mike
Talbotville was a thiving gold mining town. It started in the 1860’s, on the Dargo high plains, ringed by the Crooked river.
Here’s the area on a map of Victoria
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Mike
The town pretty much died out after the first world war, many men did not come back from the trenches.
Then, it staggered on till the fifties with a handful of residents, and lay forgotten till me and this German friend of mine, Wolfgang, found it.
Well, I guess the locals knew about it, but strangely left it un-looted.
We were working in the same architect’s office, Wolfie and I. He was a trainee draughtsman and I was the tea maker and general dogsbody.
Maybe Wolfie had done some sleuthing with old maps. I can’t remember how our quest to find the ghost town began.
Anyway, this one weekend in spring we set out to find the long forgotten Talbotville.
It’s a great story, especially how Mrs. Traill, the postmistress, kept the town alive long after it should have died.
This morning I phoned the general store at Dargo and asked who knew the local history.
Within minutes, I was speaking to Brian Mulligan who was able to fill some gaps in the story of the place, and confirmed that we were probably amongst the last to see it intact.
Bush fires swept through soon after.
Here’s the only photo I’ve found so far of Talbotville. You can just make out some small houses at the base of a cliff. Brian will send me more photos, he says.
Isn’t history digging wonderful, Ollie?
Olive
Too right it is! Nothing like it!
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Mike
For those who can download videos, here’s the story of our trip to Talbbotville, round about 1959.
click for ghost town story
……………………….Mike
Now to finish up, for everyone else, here’s what Julie sent me.
I asked people to send in depression stories, This is a photo of Julie Duell today with her sweetheart,Tony.
Julie and Tony, the two dancing love birds.
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And here is Julie back then. She’s not a depression baby, she was born ten years later.
But her family phots and the stories are so nice, I’m putting them in, hoping it will encourage others to send you stuff, Ollie.
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Here’s her Dad and older brother, Tom, who was a depression baby.
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Mike
Here’s what Julie wrote to you.
“ Hi Olive, Your stories remind me of my childhood when we managed with so little!
No sheets, only bush blankets (old coats sewn together) and only a primus to cook on.
We were without electricity or plumbing in our tiny bush shack. Just a tiny water
tank outside.There were always bantam eggs and chokos
(Chokos are one of the old fashioned depression vegetables you don’t see much today.
The choko fruit is large often with spines on the skin.
Chokos have a very special flavour like nothing else. The white ones supposedly have the best flavour but the green ones are more common.
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Chokos are used for many things including as a substitute for apple in apple pies. They also make great pickles. Steamed chokos are good eating with a little salt and pepper and butter. ed.)
So we had that and I guess the mosquito wrigglers in the water provided protein too!
I suppose I could do it again to survive, but don’t relish the thought!
My parents were newly married when the effects of the Depression were worst felt.
Dad was a motor mechanic in Sydney and ran out of work as people used their cars
less and kept the money for food.So they moved back up to the Clarence River where Dad
was born and raised. There the country people all helped each other more than in
the city.(Mike. Here’s her Mum with a fish from the Clarence, I guess)
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………………………………..My parents had a tiny cottage in Yamba which they rented out in the summer months, going
camping themselves to save money.Then Dad got the job as Mailman, first on horseback, then from
Yamba to Grafton & back, 6 days a week, with use of a Mailcar big enough for a few paying
passengers
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The 7th day he spent servicing the car to keep it up and running, so there
wasn’t much rest.Dad said the farming people would give him fruit, vegetables or
preserves in return for favours such as running errands in Grafton for them on his lunch break.He carried on with the mail job for 4 years before returning to Sydney where I was born.
My brother, Tom, started school in Yamba in 1936.
There is a funny story about Mum
& Dad taking him to school, only to find him on the verandah when they got homeHe said he didn’t know he had to stay at school!
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Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
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32 Responses to “MAKING HENS MEET”
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July 30th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Hi again
Hope all’s well. I loved the videos you posted up, especially of Olive singing “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag… smile, smile, smile”
The songs rather familiar.. Probably heard it somewhere…
Cheers for the updates, I look forward to them!
Chu May
Thanks Chu. Mike the helper
July 30th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
This is a fascinating post, Mike and Olive. I so enjoy reading and hearing about you and your life and times. I hope some other people will send you their photos and stories as well.
Hi, Kenju, what do you think about Emily’s comment? Mike the helper
July 31st, 2007 at 2:16 am
interesting post.
i would’ve liked to have heard olive’s story about the train shooting, though. i thought the appeal of this blog was olive’s stories, not you telling her your own, right?
The train massacre story will come, Emily. I hope the appeal is our interaction, and since Olive is much less mobile now, my imput gets greater. If others feel like you, we’ll probably adjust. Mike the helper.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:10 am
Olive, I’m new to your blog and find it simply delightful! I adore your stories, please keep them coming!
I’m sending a link to my dad who is a youngster at 80…I think he’ll love it, too!
Hugs, my new friend, and have a great day!
Thanks, Lois. Let us know what your Dad thinks. Mike the helper
July 31st, 2007 at 10:35 am
I really love reading Ollie’s blob Mike. I’m glad Ollie liked the Wingham choir, that’s the kind of music we should all make. Joyful singing, voices blending, enjoying every note, just for the sake of it. Has the choir been professionally recorded, they would make a great “good news” item on one of the TV current affairs programmes instead of all the doom and gloom they show. I loved the recollection of chokos, haven’t tasted one for years myself. Nana used to cook them as part of the Sunday lunch ritual, when she’d make one and a half chooks feed 14 for lunch! And that was only in the 60’s. I think this blob might inspire me to start recording my own memories, at the ripe old age of 53 1/2, it is so important to record these things I think.
hooroo, Christine in sunny Sydney Australia.
I hope our blob does inspire you, Christine. In the meantime do please pass it on to friends with the suggestion that they dip back into past stories as well. There is gold to be found. I especially like the steam tram story, recounting how Ollie nearly had her baby on a steam tram. It’s her sense of humour about the difficulties she’s been through which really make Ollie so special to my mind,
The choir has not been professionally recorded but they do have an amateur CD out. You can ask Jonty about that jontys@people.net.au
July 31st, 2007 at 11:43 am
I’m not sure if this is the rplace to put the depression stories but it’s the only place I can find ..
My Dad was 7 in 1929. They lived in Bulimba, Brisbane for some years. His Mum used to make nasturtium leaf sandwiches for the kids’ school lunches.
His Dad had a bicycle that was his pride and joy. No-one was allowed to ride it, but one day my Dad couldn’t resist and went out on the street on the prized mangle. He flew off on the way down a hill and the bicycle was damaged. There was a terrible row of course.
Another time Dad caught a beautiful huge flathead (fish) in the Brisbane River that was just down the road. When he took it home his Mother had another row with him, thinking he had stolen it.
We still fished at that same fishing spot when I was a kid and I caught a 21 inch flathead one day. I take my kid fishing there too. We haven’t caught anything yet.
Wendy Rogers
Great stories, Wendy. Just what we want, and hopefully will encourage others to send in some. The nasturtium leaf samdwiches are quite new to me.
Bikes figure in many stories because they were essential transport. Did you read about Olive dinking her son, Barnie, to the doctor? it’s in post 29. Mike the helper
July 31st, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Enjoyed the videos and stories. Interesting to think about how well we might cope today in a depression. I think a lot of younger generations would be challenged. They take so much for granted as being a necessity that really isn’t.
They might be quite distressed over what choices they might have to make, items they might have to do without in order to eat or pay their rent. Would they turn their showcase yards into vegetable gardens? Could they make their own clothes? I wonder what kinds of jobs would be left they could do? Maybe the barter system would flourish.
As for information about the 1929 depression in the U.S., unfortunately, all my relatives who could remember living through the depression are now deceased. I do recall my mother (born 1899) saying that she, my Dad and older brother didn’t really experience ill effects from the depression.
My Dad had knocked around in jobs abit, then had just become a successful newspaper distributor sought after by the two competing major newspapers in the central part of our state, so my family experienced no income problems, she said. People wanted a paper, and the news, also any want ads, but couldn’t always pay the subscription rate, I’m sure.
My mother was very much a part of her church women’s group who provided for others in the church, possibly even others who didn’t fare so well in the community. Growing up on a farm, she was also well equipped to garden, conserve, cook and sew, also able to make new clothes from old clothes, turn other “throw-aways into useables,” turning collars, sleeve cuffs, — even did fittings and sewing clothes for those who could afford to employ her.
Great stories, Jo Ann. It does may sense that newpapers would be one of the last things one would give up since they had the want ads in them and you’d want to get onto the “positions vacant” ads fast, I guess. So sharing a paper would not work very well. Mike the helper.
July 31st, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Oh, yeah! Never heard that “making hens meet” expression, but know Mom cooked lots of chicken.
Joared/Jo Ann
Julie tells me that it was making hens meat, not meet, which makes more sense but a bit less off the wall. Mike the helper
July 31st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Making hens meet…I like that one! Ollie you make me laugh about having your teeth in before you “pop your clogs” (that’s what my mum says, she’s only a baby compared with you…not 88 yet).
What a varied and interesting post this is, lots of stuff, it’s like having a conversation with both of you…complete with a bottle of wine, of course…lol!
Robyn, pop your clogs might just be a heading for a new post. We love it. Mike the helper
August 1st, 2007 at 1:56 am
Hello Olive and Mike!
What is interesting to me is that the stories from the Depression Era all have a familiar thread, be they American stories or Australian stories.
My mom’s family were fortunate during the D. Her grandparents on her mom’s side had a big farm, and they never went without some sort of produce or even beef for that matter. My great granfather, Granddad Churchwell, remembers getting an order (ultimately from Roosevelt) from the Brown County Agricultural Agent to kill all the beef he had in pasture, and he was not to sell any of it. He was allowed to take whatever meat his family could use, but the rest had to be burned in the pastures. ( I am assuming to keep the prices of beef stable?) Anyway, Granddad got the word out to people from all around, and you can be sure there wasn’t very many carcasses that were burned until after they had been stripped of meat.
Mom’s parents worked during the D. My grandmother worked in a little community grocery store and my grandfather worked for the Santa Fe railroad. They never went without a paycheck of some sort. Mom remembers that her mother could get a whole box of bubblegum, and mom became a very popular kid in grade school!
Great, Mike the helper
August 1st, 2007 at 7:21 am
Are you sure the expression wasn’t “making ends meet”? That’s the way I’ve always heard it over here in Canada.
That’s the joke, Keith. Changing from the usual expression to “making hens meet.”
August 1st, 2007 at 7:46 am
Came back for the link to your story about Talbbotville. Really enjoyed the story. Too bad that the place burned down. We just never know how our innocent actions can sometimes impact others, but you’re hardly to blame for the choices the locals made.
Joared/Jo Ann
What is strange for me is to to have that story about finding Talbotville lying in my memory for 40 years and then to find out just now that our visit might have caused it’s final destruction. Had I not told Olive the story, I never would have known. Mike the helper
August 1st, 2007 at 8:32 am
How wonderful to hear from you. yep, I’ve made it to 72 and am going strong.
I was just thinking about Olive, and you of course, yesterday, and wondering how things were. So nice to hear that Olive is still among us and looking well and kicking! The song made me a little nostalgic. (She sings a whole lot better than I do, incidentally.) I was born in 1935 and so have no memories of WW1 but have very strong memories of WW2. The US government had a program whereby they encouraged people to invite service men to their home on Sundays for dinner and a bit of home life. Most all of them had never been more than 20 miles from home until the war. We probably had 300 men come through our home and many of them became good friends. Unfortunately many of them never came home. Sad times but, in many ways, also good times. We Yanks tend to be a pretty independent lot (like you folks!) but it was a time of great unity and watching out for each other.
We kids enjoyed several aspects of what was called “the war effort” but especially getting out of school for scrap drives. We would pull wagons all over the neighborhood, knocking on doors, and gather scrap metal of all kinds and return it to the school yard where a mountain of the stuff would accumulate. For some reason we also had “newspaper drives” and would save papers at home and gather them from neighbors and cart them to school. The whole school would be filled with newspapers. Lots of competition between grades to see who could gather the most papers. Can’t imagine what the fire marshals thought of that!
So many other stories and memories. Rabbit is one. People raised them for meat, including my grandparents. Man! Did i get sick of rabbit. Olive is welcome to my share! We also had what were called Victory Gardens and raised most of our vegetables.
Many thanks to Olive for sharing her memories with us and many thanks to you for making it possible.
Great comment, Al. Mike the helper
August 1st, 2007 at 3:23 pm
You know - I just love stories and the best part about listening to the story about Dargo on Olive’s latest blob, is that it helps us remember our own stories…about that same place, Dargo.
Late one night in the dead of winter a panel beater (my Dad) took his sick wife to St Vincents hospital in Fitzroy. It was pelting with rain, typical Melbourne. By the time they got to the tram they were wet through. When they arrived at the hospital my parents were soaked and shivering.
They didn’t speak much english so when they were motioned to sit, they did just that. In fact they waited for hours cold and tired until a young intern took mercy on them. Dr. Roger wore a dirty brown suede jacket under his white gown when he cared for my mum.
Days later Roger came to dinner at our place. Our house was much smaller than his mums home in Toorak, (Melbourne’s most affluent suburb) but he stayed anyway, ate, laughed and drank home made wine. My parents were proud they knew a doctor.
Roger rode a black BMW motorcycle one Saturday when he picked me up to take me to his farm somewhere on the road between Dargo and Buchan. I was 14 and went there many times over the next year.
When I was 15 and a half we went to a place north of Buchan [I think] where some bikies were breaking horses. They asked me if I wanted to ride them ‘out’. I was born on an island, lived in the inner city and now I was a cowboy - at least in my mind - so I smiled.
You know Mike if I had listened to your story years ago, I’d probably still remember how much they offered to pay me to ride those horses ‘out’.
Mike asked if his story was a good addition ? Francis Bacon reckons ‘A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.’ Thanks Mike and Olive for this one.
Thanks for some touching reminiscences, Ivo. It’s so nice when people connect across barriers, as did your parents and Dr. Roger, and then wash them away with friendship. I wonder where Roger is today? Do you know?
The country around Dargo, they are called the high plains, are fascinating, even mysterious. It’s a place you’d expect to meet strange characters like those horse breaking bikies, or find a ghost town as i did. Mike, the Talbotville storyteller
August 1st, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Hi to both of you. Very interesting. Keen to hear the rail massacre story. Lynne.
The train massacre story will come soon, Lynne, i promise. It was an unique historic event, round about 1914, and Olive was there on the day. Mike the helper
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 am
Oh I just love your attitude here, Olive–I was laughing out loud about being sure to go with your teeth in
I’m looking forward to the train massacre story as well, but I, for one, loved the goldmining ghost town story thrown in there too.
I enjoy reading the interaction between the two of you, and I think by putting in just a little of the story and then linking to the video for those who wanted to see it is perfect. I would hope that this would encourage us all to not only seek out stories of others, but also to share our own with them at the same time.
Sending many smiles from southern Italy
Sognatrice has suggested that the stories, Olive’s and mine, go into links to be stored at the side like links to other sites I guess. But I don’t know how to do it. Anyone know how it’s done for wordpress? Mike, stumped.
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Hi Olive and Mike ~~ Another great post, thanks.
I enjoyed it all, and have used those flat irons myself Olive. I enjoyed the Talbotville story too
and was interested in Mrs. Trail at the post office
as my cousin was a Trail from Dargo.
I don’t know many depression stories, only one my
late aunt told me. When my uncle got a day’s work sometimes, He would buy a tin of jam. To go with the
bread and dripping and they both thought this was a great luxury. Take care both of you, Look forward to your next episode. Love and best wishes, Merle.
How curious. I’ll be finding out more about Dargo and have the phone number for a local historial if you are interested Merle. He lives in Dargo. Mike the helper
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:06 am
Hello Olive and Mike, great post as usual. Olive, you made me laugh too. You have an amazing sense of humour. Please keep up the great work you’ve done here!
Your comments are encouraging, Paul. Are you able to down load the clips easily. I’ve put up 3 songs on the 30th post since yesterday. Mike ther helper
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I so enjoy reading Olives memories, thanks to you Mike….she really is an inspiration…..and if only more people had her attitude….I loved your singing Olive…..I wish to hear many more stories….
I don’t remember any hardships growing up, even thought I’m almost 67, my mom and dad never let me know if things were tough…..I was fortunate… I remember dad talking about his trip over from Germany when he was 18 and he could speak no English….so I’m sure that was a hardship for him, but he soared….. and moms story about walking miles to school in snow that was up to he waist….of course she probably only told me that when I complain because I had to walk a mile to school in about an inch….
I have many memories of the old days, but none included hardship…..but thank you for sharing your stories Olive and Mike the helper….
You make me SMILE Olive….. judypatooote
I love the phrase about your Dad soaring, Judy. I guess it is soaring we do we we rise out of difficulty, know we are getting clear , and enjoy it.
I had no hardship in my childhood either, and am a bit healous when I read the depression stories. Three is a great anecdote in one of the early posts about a man who came to the door, hungry, in the depression. This was not Olive’s story but another centenarian in her nurisng home who died soon after telling it to me.
Her husband, who was just leaving, he was a teacher, suggested to his wife that she invite the man in and give him breakfast. The wife does soobut feels more and more uneasy as the man eats silently at the kitchen table, she alone with this stranger. All sorts of fears go through her head, as they would.
But then the man takes a last gulp from the tea, rises and says, “this house is blessed” and leaves. This has nothing to do with your Dad soaring, and I’m not sure why I’m telling it to you, except that it was a period full of surprises and many have come to me from Ollie.
Mike the helper.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I had to come back to say that I just listened and watched all your videos and all I can say is WOW….and Mike you are a wonderful story teller. I loved your video, I could picture myself their.. thanks so much for sharing….. judypatooote……
August 4th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Dear Olive
I am sorry to hear that you have been unwell but am glad that you are on the mend. Your articles are great and, from my point of view as the family historian in my clan, hearing what you have to say is golden. I truly hope that you keep posting your memories and keep up with the blog in general. It is truly a gold mine!
Here is something for you to think about. Recently, while in the middle of researching my family past, I came across one particular man in my family who was put on trial at the Old Bailey in London in 1829 for assault and theft of a silver pocket watch, a hat and a handkerchief!
He was initially sentenced to death but this was commuted to exile in transportation as they used to call it, and in 1830 he was transported to Australia on a ship called the Susan and nowIi am in the process of finding out what happened to him
, I also happen to know that. like many of your readers and fans out in good old Oz, that much later in time there were other folks who left the UK to go to a better life in Oz and these folks and their families are still there today.
One other thing that I noted which was mentioned, was about the ghost town and also the fact that after WW1 there were few men who returned from the trenches. Just for the record, us pommies over here will always be grateful for the support and sacrifice which was given by the Australians and my family like many, many others who had menfolk who went to fight, this has been another part of my research too.
One final note, while working in the USA, I had the fortune to work with a guy from Sydney who was an absolute blast. While addressing a bunch of American workers, he used the term “I do not want to see you all charging around like the charge of the light horse!”
I had to remind him that there were no folks in that meeting who had any clue about what the charge of the light horse was about no more than they understood what a wet week in a fortnight was! You can imagine a whole room full of folks who were looking at each other with confused faces not knowing what the hell this Aussie was talking about, but this Pommie did.
Anyway, I am rambling on way to much and all I want to say is, keep going Olive! Keep well and keep posting to the blog, we love what you have to say and want to hear more.
My prayers are with you always
Blessings
Tristan
Facinating stuff, Tristan. Let us know how you go in finding out what happend to that transported relative.
I found out the name of the ship on which my Grandfather arrive in Sydney in the later 1880’s. I ghen went to the public library and looked up the newspaper for that day, confirming that the ship did come into harbour as scheduled.
I also discovered that it was swelteringly lot in Sydney town as he steamed in. Horses were falling over in the street, caked in white evaporated sweat. The newly laid tram lines were buckling. I wondered how it seemed to Nonno, as we called him. I guess the heat would not have phased him as he was from Naples.
I also found out that he spend his first week, his first night even, with a wealthy family, the Morts, who he reputedly met on the warf and soon after was tutor to their daughter. How did an art teacher, who was listed on the ships manifest as an agricultural laborer, manage that I wonder?
I should not get started on Nonno. What a colorful character he was, rising to some fame as a painter and teacher, Cav. Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, in a colony not too flush in culture.
Mike the helper
August 4th, 2007 at 4:13 am
This is my third comment, but I just remembered something my husbands grandma told me one time… This would come under hardship…. She lived in a large farmhouse in Blisfield Michigan and her husband came down with TB and had to go to the hospital….there was roadwork being done and a lot of constuction men needed a place to stay….so opened her house to them and rented them rooms, and made meals for them….even her famous sweet rolls….she was such a hard worker…..she was special and she reminded me alot of Olive ….of course she died when she was in her 90’s….
I just wish we would have taken more notes and documented the stories of those wise old folks… there stories fascinate me…..My blog title is “Memories are made of this” …. I did tell quite a few memories stories with pictures but how many times can you repeat them, on a blog… Would it be ok to add Olives blog to my favorites? I do so enjoy reading about her life… She is beautiful…. promise not to bug you anymore…..for a while….. judypatooote
Judy, was it the story of the woman with the silent man in her kitchen which made you think of the house full of road workers and your grandma? Isn’t it strange that people could be so much more trusting in those days. Mike the helper
August 4th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Hi Mike and Olive,
I enjoyed the post as usual. I remember when I was a kid, my father told me stories about when he was a kid. He was born in 1935 and said when he was little that they used to save up all the fat drippings from whatever they had cooked. Every so often someone would come around and collect all the drippings from the neighborhood for the war effort. Supposedly, there is glycerine in fat drippings which the government utilized to make explosives, as well as antiseptics of a sort.
I remember going to see my grandmother (his mom) at her house which she lived in until the late 1970’s when she finally moved. No plumbing in the house at all. She had a chamber pot and an outhouse about 100 yards out back. I utilized both when I got to spend the night with her on occasion. She used to babysit my siblings and me and always took 2 or 3 gallons of water home every couple of days for cooking and cleaning. Hard to believe she lived like that until almost 1980 when she finally got a house with plumbing and an inside bathroom.
In australia when I was a kid, Eric, we used to save silver paper for the war effort. I can rremember going home for school and patriotically scouring the bushes beside the railway tracks for silver paper that apparently could be made into something to help us win the war. Mike the helper
August 4th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Just a quick link showing some of the posters around at the time telling you to save your grease…
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/exhibits/ww2/services/salvkitch.htm
August 7th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Olive, your blog is amazing. Thanks so much for sharing your stories of the Depression. When my grandmother was alive, she used to tell us bits and pieces of what life was like during the Depression in the heart of the Dust Bowl. She lived on a farm in Oklahoma (in the US) with her parents, brothers and sisters, until her father had to move them to the “big city,” Oklahoma City, to find work. My grandmother wasn’t able to go to college since it was too expensive, so she got a job in a department store where she met my grandfather. When I was a little girl, I remember watching, horrified, as my grandfather would put an enormous amount of butter and jelly on his toast at breakfast. He said it was because he still remembered what it was like during the Depression when he couldn’t afford butter or jelly. Not having basic food like that was so hard for me to imagine.
I blog about depression too, but a different kind of depression — postpartum depression. I’ll spread the word about your fantastic blog!
Best,
Kristin
http://ppdsurvivor.blogspot.com
Kristin, that’s an eduring image, your grandfather and the massive spearding of butty and jelly on his bread to make up fo rthe days of deprivation. I’ve heard too about people of that generation who were hoarders and savers because the depresion taught them to be like that, and they could not throw the habit. Mike the helper
August 7th, 2007 at 7:19 am
We love you, Olive!
Thanks, Allie. Mike the helper
August 7th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Dear Olive and Mike,
I always enjoy reading your posts. I think what both of you are doing is great!!
There’s so much to appreciate in life!!
:)
Thanks Razzler, glad to see you back with us. Mike the helper
August 7th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Hi, Olive and Mike, I don’t have any stories, I just want to say how much I enjoy this wonderful “blob.â€? Olive, these stories would be lost without you to tell them, and Mike, we would not have them without your recording them. Mike you make Olive’s stories even more personable with your comments and photos. I added a link from my blog so others can find you. I hope there will be many more fascinating tales to come.
Suzz, I went to your blog. You are very droll. I reccomend a visit, folks. Her recent post is about mobiles as we call them or cell phones as they call them in the States. Here’s a bit of what Suzz writes in the pesky things..
“Have you ever wished for a magic wand to wave and mutter “cellphone-usring-ossameosâ€? (Why, yes, I am a Harry Potter fan. Why do you ask?) to change all the ringtones in the surrounding area to one tune?
Can you just imagine all those people scrambling for their phones, looking at the Caller I.D, then slapping the device against their free hand as they try to figure out what went wrong? Can you also imagine what the sound would be like if all those phones chirped out “I Like to Move It� from the movie Madagascar or the sequence of cannon fire from the 1812 Overture?
Have you ever wondered why the people who get the most calls have the most difficult time finding their cell phones? You’ve seen them – women digging in the bottom of large purses or men patting jackets and back pockets.
Then there are the people with their phones clipped to belts or onto, not in, purses. They are usually the ones who don’t get many calls.”
Suzz has also written a very amusing story about her first driving lesson from her Dad in the family plymouth. This in the blog, As Time goes by, and there is a link to that blog on the side of our blog.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Hi Mike and Olive
Been a bit busy lately so I just got back to the blog. Wow! that ghost town story is pretty special! At least you saw it Mike, and the story lives on even if the town doesn’t.
wendy
Thanks, Wendy. I now have some fascinating info to add to the Talbotville story. Mike the helper.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Hi Mike and Ollie,
Sorry I haven’t been by and left a comment in a while. I’ve had a lot going on in my life, but I have thought of you often. I am finally getting the chance to catch up and read everything and watch your videos. Fabulous! I can’t personally identify with the depression stories because, although we were never wealthy, we never lacked for anything we needed while I was growing up. I have been much poorer at several times on my own as an adult. I have had to choose between buying food and buying gas for my car to get to work. I rode a bike to work for a while. Fortunately these very broke times were short lived and right now I can make ends (or hens) meet. My grandparents went thru the depression, and it is such an obvious difference in attitude - they save everything and fix everything while the mindset today is typically “throw it out and get a new one.” In fact, these days it is often cheaper to replace something than it is to fix it.
I wish you both well and remain an avid reader of your terrific blob!
Christina, for goodness sake don’t feel guilty about it! I sense a bit of that. Wwe live our nad based lives and if we have time, we fly a little. I’m the same.
Yes. it’s true things are not made to fix now. There is less room to intevene, and that’s a worry. We are more and more in a world we can’t control ourselves. Cheers, Mike the helper.
August 10th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Mike and Olive, you might enjoy visiting this blog written by an 85 yr old living in Colorado now: “Golden Lucy’s Spiral Journal”
http://mucholderthanu.blogspot.com/
In her most recent post, Weds., July 25,2007, she talks about memories of the Great Depression and her family’s experience.
August 11th, 2007 at 3:54 am
Hey Mike, I have tried to email you and it bounces back. Here’s the site you requested: http://www.TheRichestPeopleinAmerica.com
Would also love to have you linked to me and the World’s Biggest Blog Party. Perhaps you and Olive can participate and blog about something she cares about.
Links:
http://www.RichestPeopleinAmerica.com
http://www.TheWorldsBiggestBlogParty.com
We are looking into it, Tim. Want to know more about that this blog party means. Mike the helper