by Mary Durack
Found the enclosed when turning out the old store. Hardly evidence of the indifference of station owners to their aboriginal employees!
When the news came through in August ’94 that his brother Stumpy Michael had died at his house near Brisbane, leaving his affairs in a bad way, Grandfather laid down his pick and shovel and said he must go home at once. When in Kimberley ‘home’ to Grandfather seems to have been anywhere between Goulburn, Brisbane and Cooper’s Creek, but when on that side of the continent ‘home’ was the station on the Behn.
He left with Uncle John by the first south-bound ship from Wyndham, carrying with him a small box for burial in the Goulburn cemetery, for he had felt that Grandmother would never rest peacefully until brought to lie in hallowed soil beside her little ones. The task of disinterment had fallen to Father, who wrote sadly:
It is of importance to Pater that this be done, but alas how little remains of what was so dear, everything having mouldered away in so short a time to but a few poor bones.
Uncle John took up his erratic diary to record their trip, the reunion in Sydney with his youngest brother Jerry and Grandmother Costello from her home then at Blackney Creek near Yass. In Goulburn they went at once to visit Dr Gallagher of St Pat’s, who had continued an animated and regular correspondence with his ex-pupils throughout the years. Removed for a while from headmastership of the college to a parish post he had been quickly brought back to his old job when, with the financial ruin of so many established families and competition from new secondary schools in other colonies, the college faced disaster. The priestly scholar had girded his loins, his tongue never more eloquent, his pen never busier than in presenting the cause of the institution whose reputation he had done so much to build.
A bundle of letters, cherished for fifty years, tell of the steady return of the college to solvency and the rebuilding of the bursary schemes that had lapsed in the depression. Uncle John’s request for a suitable motto for their venture in Kimberley Dr Gallagher had taken most earnestly, writing no less than three times as further inspirations came to him.
My idea is that it shall suggest some historical association or classical memory, or thought taken at least in part from the Inspired Vol. or some elevating sentiment consecrated by ancient use while fitting in also with the present surroundings of time and place.
Now all my acquaintance with the classics does not bring to me a single sentiment which would be entirely apposite. Nearly all classical allusions (Greek and Latin) suggest the pastoral life as connected with quietude and repose—the shepherds pipe and seed and song. In a word it is idyllic, while our current of thought connects it more with progress and the development of a country’s resources. Those, on the other hand, which I have culled here from the Old Testament seem much more appropriate and one or two are wonderfully suggestive…I cannot say that any satisfy me, but you might take the Bible upon your journeys, and as I have marked chapter and verse, read the context. Then you might by a little change, or by blending the most appropriate parts of two or three of them together, work out one to fit in with the vignette.
To these I would add one of my own viz the Latin Equivalent of Tennyson’s line in the ‘Passing of Arthur’:
‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new.’
Vetera cedunt novis.
which is true, as the old race is yielding to the progress of civilisation and to the white man…
In Brisbane they were met by a flock of relatives, Tullys, Scanlans, Skeahans and Moores with their tales of bare subsistence through droughts and floods and the big bank smash of ’91.
‘You would hardly know Thylungra,’ Sarah Tully told them, ‘the fences and yards falling into ruin and no life about the homestead any more. Oh Patsy, what came over the Cooper when you all went away?’
Grandfather comforted her with soothing words.
‘You did right to stay. We would all have done better to remain and battle through together.’
‘But they tell us it’s splendid country over there and that you’re doing well now with the great gold strikes.’
Grandfather agreed.
‘Yes, it’s good country enough, and thank God the boys are getting on at last and our debts near paid, but for myself it was too late to put down new roots. For my liking there is too much of the rough mountain scenery. I miss the big level plains and the skyline nice and clear upon all sides.’
For his sister Poor Mary Skeahan he had news of her two boys Jack and young Jerry who had joined the family recently in Kimberley. Jack had proved a good, resourceful stockman and did not apparently regret having stowed away on the Rajputana in ’86 and young Jerry was putting up a good, straight line of fencing on Argyle. Later he hoped that the two boys would get a block of land of their own and that perhaps their mother and father and the two elder boys would join them. Poor Mary, however, seems long since to have lost hope of anything turning out trumps for the Skeahans and could only nod through her tears.
In 1905 after the terrible news that her son Jerry had been clubbed to death by blacks with the rest of the passengers on a lugger making for Darwin from Bradshaw’s run, she gave voice to the grief and frustration of her life in one memorable remark:
‘Only one prayer the good Lord saw fit to grant me—that he gave me no daughter to face the sort of life that I have lived.’
In the sorrowing house of his sister-in-law Kate, Grandfather heard the tragic story of his brother’s end—how he had stayed in hospital in Fremantle until the doctor wrote saying he must be persuaded to return while there was still time. There had been a few weeks only together after all the years of waiting and they had made the most of the precious hours. Michael had said she must not be worried when she heard of his debts, for Lissadell was a wonderful property and with the new markets his mortgage would soon be paid. Father Dunham had come from Roma to be with his old friend at the last and to preside at his funeral and had paid a beautiful tribute to his great goodness and character, and John Costello had had his son Michael write a long In Memoriam poem which had been printed and sent to friends and family:
I think I hear your hopeful voice
As in ‘the early sixties’ when
We dared the desert’s toil, and then
Faced the bush hardships as our choice.
Your courage and your kindness rare
Would that I had the words to praise.
Oh pioneer who raised the herds
And trod the unfrequented ways…
Grandfather undertook to go into the widow’s financial position and although prepared to find the estate in poor shape he was shocked and shaken to discover the full extent of his brother’s indebtedness. The land smash had left Michael in a hopeless position with assets whose value on the market was far below the amount of his mortgages and time had done nothing to solve his problems. Not only was he deeply in debt to the banks to the tune of nearly £34,000 but he had mortgaged his interest in Lissadell to his friend and partner Lumley Hill, who, finding himself in the invidious position of being a co-executor of the will as well as a creditor of the heavily encumbered estate, quickly resigned his office in favour of a Trustee Company. The ‘equity of redemption’ in Stumpy Michael’s mortgaged property was now up for public auction from which the widow hoped, rather unrealistically, to derive at least a modest income after the debt was cleared.
In Sydney Grandfather and his son stayed at Kimberley House, a hotel in York Street that had recently been taken over by his Uncle Darby’s widow and her unmarried daughters. This establishment was quite a step up from the country hotel at Molong and the family was now in comfortable circumstances with the two youngest boys training for professions—Lawrence for dentistry and Will for medicine. From here Grandfather wrote his family at Argyle:
Kimberley House.
Jan. 21st ’95.
…A few lines to let you know Johnny, Sonnie and myself are all quite well thank God and hope the arrival of this will find you Michael,
Pat and Mary and Birdie all enjoying the same blessing.
Dear Michael I received a long letter from you the day I sent the wire from Goulburn after the interment of your dear mother’s remains…
Tell Birdie on today I bought her a watch. It was thirty guineas but as I was buying two I got a shade nocked off. It is a real beauty. The other was for Sunnie, a gold one also, and I think my poor boy is deserving of it as you know I have promised it to him four years ago if he passed his Junior before his cousin Ambrose, and he has done better even than we had hoped with all these honours and distinctions…
Mr Dunn, the finder of The Wealth of Nations is here and we have had a long chat last night and he would make people mad concerning the reefs at Coolgardie. He tells us about 200 miles from Coolgardie there is splendid saltbush country, well grassed and mulga country on a lake called Lake Carey. Another Lake he told us of is 90 miles long but brackish though his camels would drink it and while there they got fat.
Dear Michael, if you were here with Johnnie that country would be worth going to see. If it is as good as he tells us there is a fortune in it on account of it being so near the Murchison and Coolgardie goldfields. You could send your bullocks overland to there and we have been told they are now making a stock route on up to the Kimberleys. Dunn is going back again and tells us he is going to explore up north from the Wealth of Nations in our direction…Only for this infernal pain I have in my hip I would never go back to the Kimberleys until I would see it as them that goes there first they have the pick of the country besides a chance of dropping on to some golden country or reefs as you would be in the middle of the golden country as well as the cattle country. Dunn tells us there is fresh water creeks running into this big lake. It is very level country he tells us. When you get this letter we will be in Perth and if you suggest anything you could send a wire care of Connor.
Sunnie is going back to Brisbane on tomorrow when ye’re Uncle Michael’s part of Lissadell is to be put up for sale. Cousin M. J. D. (Long Michael) is in Brisbane and we will wait here until he comes after the auction. I cannot say when we will leave with the cattle as we have not as yet heard whether Connor has arranged with the Melbourne people for the boat. They are to let us know.
My darling children I am your ever loving father
P.D.
The boys, however, were too much occupied in other directions to pay any attention to these suggestions, and felt that Grandfather should now be encouraged to continue work on the new house at Argyle that still stood as he left it when he took his job on the road.
House still in abeyance [Father remarks during this time], matters of more vital moment requiring our full attention but all here agree it will be more fitting that the pater should proceed with this than take on work with the Road Board which we cannot but feel to be unnecessary and somewhat humiliating to the rest of us.
Grandfather, although willing enough to go on with the house on his return, did not refrain from mentioning how, in the days of his great energy, he had taken building in the stride of his many activities.
He now hung doors, fixed windows with real panes of glass, plastered, painted and paved, but as the work neared completion depression closed in on him again.
Poor Aunt Kate wrote desperately of an intrigue to rob herself and her children of their heritage, telling how before the sale of her husband’s share of Lissadell it was being whispered around that the property was practically worthless and that it would be twenty years at least before it would be clear of encumbrances. Only one man had bid at the auction, acquiring the sole right to Lissadell, except for such stock as was owned by Long Michael, for £1 over the mortgage. The bidder was Lumley Hill. Aunt Kate had put her case in the hands of a solicitor named Charles Lilley, who felt so keenly for the widow that he had agreed, despite her penniless state, to institute proceedings requesting that the sale be set aside on the ground of ‘breach of trust’ on the part of Mr Hill.
After a long hearing the Judge had declared that if Kate Durack had a case at all it should be based on fraud rather than breach of trust, whereupon Lilley marshalled fresh evidence for a new hearing, alleging that Lumley Hill had fraudulently deprived the estate of a valuable asset.
In an effort to compromise, the widow was offered a yearly allowance of £200 from the proceeds of the estate, but John Walsh, one of her husband’s executors, then refused to sign the transfer of country. Exasperated, Lumley Hill declared that the allowance would be forfeited unless all claim to Lissadell was waived in a signed acknowledgement that the payment was a voluntary and charitable concession on the part of the present partners in the property—Long Michael and himself.
Grandfather was deeply distressed over this affair and felt the helplessness of his position keenly, particularly when letters from Charles Lilley made known that the widow and her family were existing at that time only by the patience and charity of the tradespeople. He blamed himself bitterly for not having enquired more deeply into his brother’s affairs before his death and we read in Father’s diaries how he tracked back and forth between Argle and Lissadell ‘in an effort to thrash this painful matter out with Long Michael’. I can find no evidence, however, that Grandfather blamed his cousin for his part in the affair. The two had always held each other in high regard and one gathers that although Long Michael’s role throughout is somewhat vague, he must have put his case quite clearly to Grandfather. Certainly his evidence at the hearing did not assist the widow’s cause. Testimony of the potential value of Lissadell might well have done so, but Long Michael spoke only of the many disabilities and uncertainties facing the Kimberley pioneer. He may well have spoken from conviction for it would have been difficult to testify with any accuracy to the potential value of the property at that time. It would, moreover, have been hardly human to boost its possibilities when he stood to lose by doing so. It may have been taken as a matter of luck that the output of the station over the following years was some four times his reckoning, for who was to have known that Kalgoorlie gold was no flash in the pan, that Western Australia was now the golden colony of the continent, its population to rise from some 50,000 at the time of the first strikes to over 184,000 within six years? It would seem that all attempts at compromise were at Long Michael’s instigation and after his marriage in 1905 he offered to adopt one of Stumpy Michael’s daughters. Kate Durack, however, declined the offer and would hear nothing in his defence.
Tall and straight by nature, the very idea of accepting charity never allowed her to unbend her back again. She hung, beside the photo of her beloved husband, the gilt-framed family tree of the McInnes-McLeods, showing their descent from many royal lines, took in boarders and continued valiantly to fight her already defeated cause.
As for Lissadell—Long Michael was to become sole owner after the death of his partner and in 1927, with no family of his own to carry on, was to sell out to William Naughton for the sum of £72,000.
34
GLIMPSES OF ‘THE NAUGHTY NINETIES’
The years 1895 to 1896. Social life in east Kimberley. The Pierce family. Police and settlers. Native prisoners. Women in the cattle camps. The half-caste question. Killing for the blacks. Patsy Durack interviews black miscreants. Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in ’95. The tick question arises.
From the beginning of ’94 there had been a definite feeling that Wyndham was to become a port of substance, but the idea of moving to the official site seems never again to have been mooted. The town was nobody’s special pride and responsibility. To the station people it was no more than a business depot and its residents were for the most part government officials serving three-year terms of which they made the best or the worst according to temperament. Many of the younger people assuredly made the best of it and social life in east Kimberley was never as lively and convivial as at this time.
When Magistrate Frederick Pierce, his lovely wife and daughters took over the residency on the slope of Mt Albany the young men of the district b
egan finding more frequent and pressing business in town. A racing association organised several meetings a year, while picnic parties were extended to camping expeditions, when the young people, heavily chaperoned, rigged mosquito nets on the banks of lily lagoons and sang plantation songs around blazing camp fires. Apprehension of dawn attacks from natives added zest to the adventure and even Miss Norma Pierce’s experience of discovering a snake in the voluminous sleeve of her nightgown did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm for the great outdoors.
The station men vied with each other in escorting the pretty Misses Pierce, mounted on their race-horses, for long rides across the white salt marsh. The sisters, two at a time, were as often at Argyle as my aunts, Mary and Birdie, were in Wyndham, the arrivals causing a stir of excitement either at the station or the town. Aunt Mary often pointed out to us a little thicket by a spring, a few miles outside Wyndham, where after the long hot buggy rides from inland they had bathed and changed for their triumphant entries. In these days of carefree sun dresses and shorts, the elaborate outfits they wore seem incredible, photographs of picnics and tennis parties at Wyndham and Argyle in temperatures soaring over one hundred degrees showing the men complete with coats and ties and the girls in veiled gem hats, leg o’ mutton sleeves, heavily tucked and embroidered blouses, pinched waists, long, substantial skirts and buttoned boots.
Father, making sly digs in his journals at the ‘amorous delights’ of his brothers and cousins, himself became deeply absorbed in the project of establishing a racing stables at Connor and Doherty’s Ascot depot a few miles outside Wyndham. Romantic musings on ‘the captivating brunette’ whom it is his ‘happy lot’ to escort on riding and duck-shooting expeditions run through his diaries for quite three years, with delicate references to ‘stolen tresses’ and letters ‘written in a clearly defined, beautiful hand which would at once betray a mind capable of no intrigue and a spirit filled wth the loftiest human feelings of her divine sex’.