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In November 1990 Connie Fordham agreed to be interviewed for what was to become the first of a series of Local History articles published in the News over the next ten years. I’d hoped to interview Connie again for the 101st local history article but a broken shoulder suffered by Connie in a fall shortly after her 94th birthday last year saw that plan put on hold.
I’m pleased to say that Connie is recovering well and is back at her home in Peppertree Village once more and as full of life as ever.
Connie came to Rowville in 1935 after she married Frank Fordham and they lived with Frank’s parents for the next ten years. In this article Connie tells of her in-laws and several other neighbouring families she came to know in Rowville.
FRED AND ETHEL FORDHAM
Fred grew up in Port Melbourne where his father had a small goods business. Fred’s father died when his family of nine children were still young and Fred, like his brothers and sisters, had to leave school early to help support the family. Fred commenced work when he was only eleven. He had a variety of jobs but finished up working on the wharves and continued to do so even after he and Ethel moved to Rowville in 1920.
Ethel was a midwife and nurse and was called out at all times to assist with a birth or stay with ill neighbours. She and Fred suffered the loss of their first two children: their baby daughter died of diptheria and their 13 year old son, Albert, was killed in an accident while gathering mussels at a wharf. Following these tragedies Ethel and Fred fostered two baby girls. Frank was born in 1907 and was only 12 when the family moved to Rowville.
When mechanised cranes were introduced on the wharves Fred was put off and from then on he spent his time working on the farm while Ethel went on the pension.
In 1934 when Connie first met her future mother-in-law, Ethel was 60. She had a few cows and pigs and about a dozen chooks on their farm in Bergins Road. The farm extended over the area that is now traversed by Shearer Drive.
Ethel had a famously bad temper and she and Fred had some ding-dong rows. At the end of them Fred would always say, “What about a cup of tea, Mum?” That seemed to smooth matters over. According to Connie Fred “was a good old bloke”.
During the depression a bottle-o came one day to the Fordham farm. He was a very big man and had his wife and four children on the cart with him. Ethel gave the mother, Mrs Smith, a bottle of milk for her baby girl and asked her where they would spend the night. Mrs Smith replied that they would all sleep under the cart. Ethel pointed out a corrugated iron shed on the farm that had a couple of beds in it and said that they were welcome to spend the night there. The family gratefully accepted this offer and the next day the husband came to ask if Ethel minded if his wife and children stayed in the shed for the day while he went into Dandenong to look for work. Ethel agreed and the man went off – never to be seen again. Mrs Smith and her children remained living in the Fordham’s shed for seven years during which time they came over to the farm house for meals every day. To add further anguish to this family’s very sad situation the baby daughter wandered away from the shed one day and drowned in the dam.
Of course, in those days in Rowville there were no telephones so if there was an accident somebody would have to ride into Dandenong to fetch a doctor.
BOB AND GRANNY FINN
The Fordham’s southern neighbours were the Finns and their home was located on what is now 8 Wyndham Place. They were an elderly couple by the time Connie came to Rowville and all but one of their four children had left home.
On pension day old Bob would go into Dandenong and bring home a bottle of wine in the little case he always carried to town. After tea he’d light a fire outside using dry cow dung (the smoke of which kept mosquitoes away) and after a few sips of wine would start playing his piano accordion. Connie would take her two little girls, Janet and Joan, over to the fence to listen to Bob’s music. “It was beautiful,” Connie recalled.
Granny Finn was kind to Connie and let her bring over her washing when the Fordham water tanks were low. She used the old word “ye’ rather than “you” and would say things like, “If ye are going to Dandenong I’ll look after the girls.” On such occasions Granny was very indulgent and let them adorn her with all sorts of bits and pieces as they played “dress-up” games.
Like most people in Rowville in those days Bob and Granny battled to make ends meet. She once grumbled to Connie after a family member had given her a cushion for a present: “I’d wished they’d given me a loaf of bread and a pound of sugar instead.”
THE SYME FAMILY
Fordhams’ northern neighbours were the Symes whose home used to be opposite the entrance to the Waverley Golf Club. (Roy Bulkeley who was a groundsman at the Golf Club later owned this house.)
The Symes had a son nicknamed “Bunce” of the same age as Connie’s Joan. His mother made the mistake of buying Bunce a girl’s bike to ride down to the corner of Stud Road where the kids caught the bus to Scorseby State School. He was teased unmercifully about having a girl’s bike and often the kids would race from the bus before Bunce could get off. They’d take his bike to ride home leaving him to trudge up Bergins Road.
JACK AND KITTY FINN
The next family along Bergins Road were the Finns: Jack was a brother of old Bob Finn.
One evening when Connie was putting the chooks into their shed she noticed flames in the distance and ran to Frank (who was eating his tea) shouting that Finn’s house was on fire.
Frank wet a hessian bag and raced up to the blaze and fought the flames but was only able to save the tank stand. Jack was away at the time so the only ones to help him were the young Finn boys, Bill, Frank and Stewart. Kitty came down to the Fordhams for a cup of tea afterwards and said she’d never seen anyone fight a fire as desperately as Frank did that night. Young Frank Finn was stressed by the trauma and finished up in hospital with pneumonia.
THE BERGIN FAMILY
There were no other families in Bergins Road and the next building along that way was Nick Bergin’s blacksmith shed. By the time Connie arrived in Rowville Nick was an old man and well retired but she remembers the shed’s interior with all of the certificates on the wall. These certificates had been won at shows by horses that had been shod by Nick. Most of the horses had been show jumpers from Stamford Park.
Nick was a pleasant old man and Connie remembers him smoking his pipe with his smoking cap on. He had a nephew who was also named Nick but who was known by the nickname “Justice”.
Old Nick’s niece, Miss Elizabeth Bergin, ran the tiny post office from the house next to the smithy’s shed and Connie said that she was the most good-hearted person that she’s ever met. Miss Bergin was affectionately known to all as Auntie Lil. When she died Kath Manley took over the Post Office but she broke her hip and then her husband, Dan Gibson, became the post master. He employed a housekeeper, a sister of Mrs Golding, who suffered from epilepsy. One day she suffered a fit and Dan went to help her but stumbled and struck his head on a large tap in the kitchen and was killed.
STUD ROAD
EHRENFRIED EXNER
As a young man Ehrenfried worked for Granny Taylor and eventually married one of her daughters – Ethel. Ethel and Ehrenfried had an adopted daughter. Ethel and Connie were the only two Rowville women who were members of the William Anglis Hospital Auxiliary. Connie’s husband Frank was one of the locals who worked from time-to-time on Ehrenfried’s market gardens which were located on the site of the present Stud Park Shopping Centre. Ehrenfried often was the MC at dances and balls.
JIM and IVY HILL
Connie recalled: “Jim Hill could play any mortal instrument.” Once at a dance in Dandenong the dancers stopped just to listen to him play the violin – he played it so beautifully.
Jim was a very good mechanic and could fix anything from a bike to a truck.
Ivy once tripped over her young son’s toy truck and broke her ankle badly; she was in the Alfred Hospital for a long time before it came good.
“WISH” DRUMMOND
Wish was the owner of Stamford Park and was a very generous man. He donated 10 pounds for trees to be planted at the recreation reserve when it was being developed and offered the use of a room free of charge at the Stamford Hotel for meetings of the fire brigade when Frank was captain.
He was a councillor for a term and when he heard Connie’s secretarial report at the Annual General Meeting of the Progress Association he was astounded by how many things had been done. He said, “You should have that report published in the paper.”
THE McINTYRES
There were two separate families named McIntyre in Rowville. Jack, Lou and Ann McIntyre came to Rowville from Heywood in the 1940s and lived on the farm next to the Dobson family.
Jack married Maggie Martin who lived up on the corner of Taylors Lane and Kelletts Road. Connie went to Maggie’s kitchen tea which was held at Stamford Park. Connie remembered that the gardens were full of violets in flower and they were also used extensively for decoration in the house that night.
Lou married Mabel Dobson and Ann married Mabel’s brother, Gordon.
Ann, Mabel and Connie were great friends and together they worked hard on the Rowville Football Club’s Ladies’ Committee. In a little corrugated iron shed up the hill from the ground they sold food to the footy crowd at each home game and raised a lot of money for the fledgling club. Mabel cooked the hot dogs, Ann made the scones and Connie the sandwiches. Mrs Gilligan ordered in the ingredients for them as well as the lollies and chips and they did a roaring trade. Mrs Gilligan said, “Connie, you sell as many chips in an afternoon as I sell in the shop in a month.”
One day Ann told Connie that she’d overheard one of their customers say that she intended souveniring one of Connie’s good china cups that she’d been served her afternoon tea in. Connie confronted the woman who was sitting in her car but she denied that she had the cup. Connie decided to try a bit of bluff; she pointed to a very big man standing by the shed and said, “If you don’t give me my cup back I’ll have that policeman come over here and make you.” Connie got her cup back.
The other McIntyre family were two brothers, Don and Norm, who came from Mordialloc with their wives and children to market garden on land leased from Jack Gearon.
One of Don’s daughters was Violet McIntyre who later married Leo Gill. Leo was the boot studder for the Rowville footballers for 14 years. Connie and Violet were very good friends.
TAYLORS LANE
THE TAYLOR FAMILY
Alf Taylor was a really nice man. Like all the kids in Rowville he had to work hard when he was young. When Frank was the captain of the Fire Brigade Alf was the secretary and they were very good mates. Once Connie and Mrs Seebeck went to see Alf about some business to do with the Recreation Reserve. Alf was working in his milking shed and Connie remembered, “I’d never seen such a beautifully clean dairy in all my life; it was absolutely polished.” Alf’s wife Elva has worked with Connie for many years in organizing the stall at the Red Cross luncheons. “I don’t know what I’d do without Elva,” said Connie, “She’s a great back up and my great mate.”
Granny Taylor was “a good old girl”. She’d kill and dress her bull calves then take the carcasses to Prahran Market in her spring cart. They used to call her “Calfy” Taylor.
Frank did lots of things for her and she did lots of things for Frank. Alf was very good to his grandmother too. Granny was a tiny woman whose long hair was always done up in a top knot. She had an old draught horse that she used to lend to anyone who needed to borrow it for whatever reason.
Connie went around to Granny Taylor on Wednesday afternoons and they’d sit and talk and talk while doing their mending and knitting.
Connie gave Granny a piece of dolicus creeper with pink flowers from her father’s garden in Carlton and before long Granny had it growing over all of her sheds.
WELLINGTON ROAD
BERNIE AND AIMEE SEEBECK
The Seebecks came to Rowville in the late 1930s. Bernie had a plaster factory down on Stud Road near Tampe’s farm (which was beside Corhanwarrabul Creek). The Seebecks also owned the land now known as the Seebeck Estate. They had cattle on this property which was then named “Amberly”(a combination of their Christian names plus those of their sons, Bernard and Lyall).
Aimee was on just about every committee with Connie in Rowville in those early days.
THE GILL FAMILY
Granny Gill always enjoyed a day out in Dandenong on Tuesday market days. One day Connie and Frank brought her home and when Granny’s husband arrived home shortly afterwards she asked him, “Did you get the porridge?” When he admitted that he’d forgotten it Granny gave him a real ticking off.
Connie recently had a good time talking to the members of the Girls Brigade from the Rowville Baptist Church about the old days in Rowville. The girls enjoyed the talk – and the supper prepared by Connie and Alma Burfurd – tremendously; if ever you get the opportunity to hear Connie talk on this subject, don’t miss it. You’ll be highly entertained.
Interviewed by Bryan Power PHOTOS
First published in the March and April 2000 (Nos 202 & 203) editions of the Rowville-Lysterfield Community News
Connie came to Rowville from Carlton in 1937 after her marriage to Frank Fordham. She tells of her adjustment from city girl to country wife and mother.
“I didn’t know where I was going. It seemed back of beyond. I came up Stud Road in a jinker and it seemed as if I was never going to get there; I’d never been in a horse and cart that long before.”
Thus Mrs Constance (Connie) Fordham, one of our oldest and most public spirited residents, remembered her first visit to Rowville in 1935 to meet her future parents-in-law.
Rowville was quite a shock for city-reared Connie who had lived almost all of her life in Carlton, “never far away from the shops and trams”.
Con had met her future husband Frank at a dance at the Exhibition Buildings and they were married a couple of years later. Because the economy had still not shaken off the grip of the Great Depression, they had little chance to put away savings towards a home of their own, so they moved in with Frank’s parents in Bergins Road.
The only public building in Rowville then was the tiny post office on the south-east corner of the Stud Road – Wellington Road intersection.
The blacksmith’s business next door to the post office had closed because of Mr Bergin’s failing health. He died soon after Connie arrived in Rowville.
Apart from the Bergins and Fordhams, the only other families that Connie could recall living in Rowville then were the Manleys, Finns, Gills, Gearons, Taylors, Goldings, McIntyres, Dobsons, Hills, Drummonds, Martins and Robinsons. The Fordhams had moved from Footscray to Rowville in 1920 when Frank was only 13. Their thirty acre property extended from Bergins Road to Heany Park Road. At that end of the farm, Frank and his father grew Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflowers, tomatoes, peas and beans. Mrs Fordham senior raised cows and pigs at the Bergins Road end of the property while Connie had her hands full looking after the housework and her two baby daughters, Janet and Joan. At the same time she worked hard too on the farm and once came down with pneumonia after catching a chill while picking the sprouts crop.
At another time Frank bought two thousand chickens and Connie, who had never seen a live fowl in her life before she went to Rowville, cared for them so well that only three of the birds died.
In the winter Mrs Fordham senior scalded the milk from her cows to make clotted cream which found a ready market through the stall she ran at weekends in Ferntree Gully Road opposite the old Scoresby State School.
Frank sold the farm produce to fruit shops in Dandenong and also sold from a stall in Lonsdale Street in front of what is now the Westpac Bank. Twice a week he took his vegetables to Victoria Market. As well as this, Frank was a plasterer and found work in his trade whenever he could in those difficult times. At one time he obtained a licence to clear the timber from what is now known as the “bald hill” behind Heany Park Road. He sold the wood to bakers in Dandenong and the wattle bark to a tannery in Footscray.
Despite their hard work there was never much money and Connie recalled how difficult it was at times even to find the few pence for her daughters’ bus fares to attend Sunday School at Scoresby. She, herself, used to walk to the Methodist Church at Scoresby where the services were conducted by the Reverend Blainey, the father of the historian Geoffrey Blainey.
Connie was a great walker. For ten years as a young woman she walked from Carlton to her work in Collingwood. On winter Saturdays she’d pay the two pence fare on the cable tram at midday knock-off time in order to get home quickly to watch her beloved Carlton play at Princes Park. Until old age caught up with her in recent years, she could be seen walking around Rowville, especially when making the annual Red Cross collection in March.
Connie’s involvement with Red Cross commenced during World War 1 when she was a schoolgirl at the School of Domestic Arts in Bell Street, Fitzroy. The grades used to compete to raise money to qualify for Red Cross certificates. Once Connie walked home to Carlton at lunchtime to get the two pence that enabled her grade to be the first to reach the target of five shillings necessary to obtain a certificate. “We thought we were lovely,” Connie laughed. She collected tins, glass and bottles to sell for Red Cross and her Girl Guides group made soft toys to sell at the Red Cross stall at the Austin Hospital.
In the late 1960s when Con was secretary of the Rowville Progress Association, a request came from Red Cross Headquarters for a contribution. Connie and Frank, Alfie Taylor and Harry and Rose Raymond volunteered to do a door knock collection and raised so much money the Red Cross asked them to form a local unit. Connie has been a member of that group ever since and has been awarded a long service medal by Red Cross.
Connie’s record of public involvement is remarkable. She was the foundation secretary of the Mothers’ Club at Scoresby State School when 16 of the 18 pupils there were from Rowville. She was also a member of the School Committee. For 35 years she was a member of the William Angliss Hospital Auxiliary, secretary of the Rowville Progress Association for eight years and also secretary of the Social Committee. She was a long-time member of the Recreation Reserve Committee of Management, President of the Football Club Ladies’ Committee and a member of the Gymkhana Committee. Rowville Netball Club has honoured her with Life Membership.
Frank too was a member of many of these groups and was Captain of the Rowville Fire Brigade for a number of years. In 1981 Frank was made a Life Member of the Victorian Rural Fire Brigades’ Association for his services to Rowville R.F.B.
Connie counts among her most satisfying achievements her part in the establishment of Rowville Primary School. “I’d walked around and got all the names and sent them to the Minister. When they opened the school, they toasted me with champagne, believe it or not!” Connie is also very proud of the fact that she was the first person in Rowville to receive the Civic Award from the Knox Council for her services to the community.
Connie has vivid memories of the World War 2 years in Rowville. “The Americans were very generous men. They’d come down to buy eggs and say ‘Fill my hat up’ and if it was eighteen shillings and they gave you a pound, the kids got the two shillings. They never took the change. Then they put Bergins Road out of bounds and, of course, that was the end of our eggs. Then down comes the driver for some eggs for the head man in the camp and Frank said, ‘Oh well, go back and tell the Colonel that seeing the boys are not allowed to have eggs, there’s no eggs for him either!’ So we sold our eggs in the next ten minutes ‘cos he took the ban off!”
However generous the Americans were, they were no match for the Australian soldiers when it came to turn-out and marching. “The Australians used to look lovely when they’d march up Bergins Road to church – all polished up but the Yanks used to march down here – but they were sad They didn’t ever march, they just slouched around, I’d never seen such a slap happy lot in all my life.” Con couldn’t recall any problems occurring for the district when the soldiers were here. However a tragedy did take place towards the end of the war when there was a prisoner of war camp for Italian soldiers in Wellington Road where the SEC station is now. “The prisoners were allowed out but all the roads were supposed to be out of bounds but you’d see them here – they used to swim at Heany Park. They weren’t supposed to go into peoples’ houses: we were told by the Commander of the camp that we could be heavily fined or put in gaol for two years. One prisoner used to go out at night and he was told he wasn’t to leave the camp and he did and he got shot and killed. He was only young too – about 23. That was an uproar in Rowville.”
Connie has lived in Rowville now for 52 years. She is amazed by the development – and the price of land! However, she believes that Rowville is now a better place in which to live and is grateful for the many kindnesses of her Rowville friends among whom she particularly numbers her fellow members of the Rowville Baptist Church.
Interviewed by Bryan Power
First published in the November 1990 edition of the Rowville-Lysterfield Community News.
