10/10/87
My mother's mother, Matilda Kruger was a gentle kindly woman. I knew her well. Her voice was very quiet and she always walked very slowly in later years. She was known to be a frail sort of woman but had 10 children and lived to be 82 or 83 years old. She would never stay on her own. She had her hair permed regularly when she was old and wore it short. She wore spectacles only for reading. My Mother taught her to knit when she was about 80 years old but she didn't do any increases or decreases in the jumper she knitted herself. Mum had to help her with that.
Grandma wore a size 5 shoe, now known as 7. My Mother made nearly all her dresses which always had to have a 3/4 length sleeve. She usually wore a long white apron around the kitchen but never got it or anything else dirty. She suffered from depression which she described as "feeling ugly".
She died in Kilcoy hospital after a week of heart trouble. My Mother and I were with her, and Ossie's wife Eileen.
My Grandfather died of haemorrhage of the bowel in Royal Brisbane Hospital aged 87. He also suffered "hardening of the arteries" but generally enjoyed excellent health - Albert Henry Kruger.
My Grandmother had her appendix removed, Kilcoy Hospital when she was 75 years old. She was very ill and her health was not very good from then on.
Written 17/10/87:
SHOPPING
When I was a school age child in Kilcoy (1944 to say 1951) my Mother bought the groceries from the family store of Lanes & Craig situated lower William St. Kilcoy. It was a fascinating shop. Groceries one side, along with hardware (fowl feed etc. out the back). There was a walk-through division into a full drapery department. The grocery order man was Alexander (Alec) Thornton who came on horse back on Mondays.
He sat at the kitchen table and wrote as my mother dictated. I remember during the war years, coupons had to be given to him for sugar, tea and butter. As these commodities were rationed. Coupons were also necessary for cotton goods such as tea towels, dress materials, babies' nappies etc. I know a special allowance of coupons were given to mothers with new babies and a great deal of swapping went on between families. As we had our own house cow and made our own butter we had surplus butter coupons. Rice was available on a sort of monthly roster system occasionally. Also my Mother had to take turns in getting her much prized "Home Journal" magazine. She bought it for the dress and knitting patterns. This was the only magazine she ever got.
Getting back to the groceries - they were delivered by horse and cart on Tuesday. Jim Garden did this. I remember he had to hump the bag of pollard or whatever for the fowls or cow in under the house on his back, or in our wooden wheel barrow.
Mr Peter Herd also called for orders while Alec Thornton was away at the war I think. He was a retired butcher (Peter Herd) and lived nearby in Atthow St. One of his daughters Grace married Colin Duncan and so was my aunt. Mervyn Herd was lost in Europe during the war.
When any of the townspeople perished in the war the Australian flag was flown at half mast at the Victory Theatre owned by the Burt Family and built during the war. It burned down a few years ago. It stood on the corner of William & Kennedy Sts., Kilcoy and for many years, large gatherings of people attended movies there. It was sometimes used for Balls. At the pictures I was never allowed to sit with the children "Down the front". We usually sat upstairs in the "Dress Circle"
Mr Stan G. (Boots) Robinson operated the pictures till he was very old, when it was done by Bill Clarke Jnr. Mr Robinson was a J.P. and was a shoe repairer in the main St. of Kilcoy next to the Union Bank, which later became A.N.Z. Bank. He always had a shop full of leather shoes to be half soled or heeled or toe capped. These were small metal plates called Protectors on the tip of the sole which wore away before the other parts of the sole. As people walked everywhere & most of the streets were of rough gravel the wear and tear on shoes was tremendous. My father did a lot of our family shoe repairs himself to save the cost. You could buy a kit to do the job at Lanes & Craig & he had his own shoe last.
We lived very thriftfully but never were in need of anything. My Mother did all her sewing - she made pyjamas for us all, all our dresses, petticoats and panties and even bonnets and sun hats. The brims were stiffened with raw starch before ironing and placed on a vase while it aired off. A wet day at school soon caused the brim to flop!
We did have some straw hats. The best ones were very prettily decorated with ribbon veiling, ribbon or embroidered flowers and sometimes silk artificial flowers. These were usually bought at Beanlands store, cnr. Mary St. & William St. The building was later owned by Hobarts. Aunty Ruby Beanland ran this store. She had been married to Mark Henry Beanland who died at an early age. He had no children but raised her sister's child Jean Harley (later Eliason) when Isabel died in childbirth. Ruby and Isabel were Pointons. Another of their sisters, Alice, married Peter Duncan, parents of Eric, Daisy, Lily & Charles Graham (or Pat) Duncan. For this reason we called Ruby Beanland "Aunty", but she was not a real aunt. She taught my father Sunday school and she was a most respected person who lived to a ripe old age. Aunty Ruby always mixed up my name & called me Shirley, and she called Shirley "Dawn" confusing her with Horace's daughter "Auriel Dawn".