Friberg Ada

Stories behind the Rowville-Lysterfield Ward Names

Growing Up in Ferntree Gully

Ada Friberg (nee Minns) was born in Ferntree Gully on 20th February 1883 in the Junction General Store on the corner of Burwood Road and Glenfern Road. (The Le Pine Funeral Parlour now occupies this site.) Ada was the second of five children to Robert and Jessie Minns. Robert had moved from Geelong to Ferntree Gully in 1879 following the deaths of his first wife and two of his five children as a result of typhoid fever. He obtained a job as the manager of a stud farm in Dorset Road while his mother cared for his three surviving children.

Robert soon came to meet Jessie Ellingson as her parents owned the Junction Store and before long they had fallen in love. Ada related that her mother was unaware that Robert was a widower with three children until two weeks before their wedding.

Robert and Jessie moved into the Junction Store and took over its management. Fred was their first child born there followed by Ada. After the store was sold, Robert took on the management of “Fern Park”, a farm which incorporated the land on which the Mountain Gate Shopping Centre now stands. The farm was owned by a wealthy Flinders Lane merchant named Renwick and its homestead was grandly furnished and surrounded by a beautiful garden.

Ada was still a little girl when their home was threatened by bushfire one scorching summer day. Her mother scribbled a note for help and Ada ran with it to the Club Hotel. Several men raced back to save the house.

Ada’s first day at school was almost her last. As she went to get under the school fence she trod on the head of a snake. She wasn’t bitten but it was a long time before she got over the shock.

A Lifetime of Community Service Commences

In her memoirs, Ada tells of how she started helping others. “I was always making dolls’ clothes for the infant class at the Ferntree Gully School at lunch time. Laura Rowden, one of my mates, helped me. One day I asked Laura if she would help me with a bazaar for the Children’s Hospital. We commenced making things right away. One day Ma asked me if Laura and I would allow the Church of England Ladies Guild to come in with us. We both agreed and we ended up raising eighty pounds which built the chancel for St Bartholemew’s.

After I left school I used to go around to the neighbours dressing dolls for their little girls. I also used to crochet and knit doilies. I was always trying to do something. I really couldn’t be idle.”

Ada’s parents were very active in the small community and organised concerts and balls. In 1892, Robert was appointed Postmaster, the first of a number of official positions he was to occupy. There is no doubt that the energy and willing commitment to involve herself in community affairs were qualities that Ada had seen modelled by her parents.

When Ada was twelve, tragedy almost struck again. One windy night she was awakened by a loud noise to find that the house was on fire. She jumped out of bed and pulled her sleeping sister May from her bed just as the bedroom wall collapsed. Her parents rescued the other children but the house could not be saved and they lost everything. The neighbours, however, all helped them get back on their feet again and the children were billeted with various families while their new home was built.

Ada Starts in the Post Office

As time went by Robert received more and more appointments: Shire Rate Collector, Secretary of the Ferntree Gully Cemetery Trust, Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, District Electoral Officer and several others. Ada started to assist her father at the age of 17 and before long she was able to be left in charge when he was absent, managing the work of all of her father’s roles which included handling quite large sums of money. Ada remembered working until 3.00am counting the votes for the first Commonwealth elections. Men had to ride through a dreadful storm that night as they carried the ballot boxes in on horseback from throughout the district.

In about 1903 Ada formed a Cinderella Club to run dances in the Shire Hall. The Hall fee was 15 shillings and the boys paid sixpence each and the girls brought the refreshments. Any profits were sent on to the Children’s Hospital.

In 1906 Ada started a ladies’ rifle club and became its first secretary. The membership grew to 40 and the range was at the end of Newton Street. The ladies visited Essendon and Doncaster Clubs and also arranged what were called “home” matches when each Club shot at their own range and then sent their results by telegram to the other Club. Ada recalled holding one of these matches with Portland ladies.

Ada Marries

In all of the years that she worked for her father Ada received no salary and when she said that she intended to go to the city to obtain an office position he was very opposed to the idea. Ada’s determination prevailed, however, and she worked in the city for twelve months. She agreed to come home for a week to relieve her father while he was away on electoral business and during that week a man named Walter Friberg whom she had known for eight years came to the Post Office and asked if he could keep company with her. When Walter’s mother was dying she had asked him to remain single until after his father died and Walter had dutifully kept his promise and not approached Ada with his proposal until after the old man’s death.

Walter and Ada were married in 1909 and went to live on his dairy farm at “Fern Park”, the same property on which Ada had grown up as a little girl. There was plenty of room in the old home so Ada took in boarders and developed a good business rearing poultry. Walter came into an inheritance from his family in Sweden so decided to give up farming and sold “Fern Park” to Albert Dunstan, the Premier of Victoria. About this time the State Savings Bank of Victoria was created and Ada was appointed as its Ferntree Gully agent and held the position for 47 years until her retirement in 1959.

Ada and Walter had four children – two girls and two boys – but they experienced the sadness of their eldest daughter’s death at the age of five months.

As her young family came along, Ada joined the Baby Health Centre Committee and with the advent of World War One, became an active member of Red Cross. After the war she organised a concert featuring Melbourne artists to support the efforts to build a hall for the returned soldiers. She also worked hard to raise funds for a swimming pool. Nine hundred pounds was handed over to the Shire but the pool was never built.

During the Great Depression Ada was distressed by the suffering of the unemployed people, many of whom she knew to be on the verge of starvation. She organised a public meeting and followed that up by contacting the people she thought would help. The response was wonderful and the Shire Secretary, Tom Heany, sent a truck around to collect all of the donated food. There were 75 families on the district unemployment list and Ada and her helpers were able to make up 75 boxes for distribution.

As times grew better in the mid 1930s, Ada found time to take up lawn bowls and discovered that she was a talented player. She was elected Lady President of the Upwey-Tecoma Club for two years before going on to play for the Camberwell Club.

As well as all of the above, Ada was a Life Governor of the Austin Hospital and very involved with the Ferntree Gully Housewives’ Association, the FTG Progress Association and the Ferntree Gully Primary School. There was not a worthy organisation or cause that did not find her support, and the extent of her generous but quiet help for those in trouble will never be known.

In 1983 the Knox Council honoured Ada on the occasion of her 100th birthday by giving her name to the fern garden established at the Ferntree Gully Community Centre. Ada Friberg was a remarkable woman and the Ward is honoured in receiving her name. May her example of service to others be an inspiration to us all.

Ada Friberg passed away on 26th March 1984 in her 102nd year.
The above article was drawn from a publication of the Knox Historical Society, “Ada Friberg, 100 years, A History of Ferntree Gully.”

Bryan Power

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