Eric Albert Wills & Gladys Mary Florence Gard

Father worked, as Blacksmith for a boss, the wage was seven shillings a day five and a half days a week from 8a.m. to 6 p.m. or onger to finish urgent jobs (no overtime paid in those days). Father was able to purchase a Cottage in the center of Richmond, for about two hundred pound with an acre of land. It was closer to his work and was then the first house on Campania Rd; we had a lovely pear tree three or four goosberries a few chooks & a cow. In 1906 a baby sister arrived Gwen.

As we grew a bit Mum loved her flower garden in front of house & dad had nice vegetable garden, it was watered only by rain. We had to depend on our three tanks, but if it was a dry summer and tanks got empty a man with a tank on a dray would sell us water from under the bridge where the town cattle and horses went to drink. We did not use this water for drinking but reserved our tank water for this.

In 1908 Joyce was born. Our Granny and Grandfather Godfrey were very good to us, from their farm they often brought us fruit & meat when they killed a sheep or pig, they had Bees and lovely honey. I sometimes stayed with them a few days, had lovely homemade bread. I remember the dairy & large flat milk dishes. The milk was scalded in a can standing in a pot of boiling water then tipped into the dishes to set for two days (for cheese I think). There were almond trees & grapevines.

Granny sometimes had six or eight cows to milk; Grandfather had a team of Bullocks, some horses, lots of hens, ducks, geese, turkeys and guinea fowl. I remember pea stacks grown for pigs, which we often hid in.

Later on Dad bought another paddock joining us, which we called the top paddock, the one joining the house was called the tater paddock. The big pear tree was in the one near the house (I am now seventy-two and the tree still stands); we climbed up it, fell out of it, had a swing in it, and ate the pears long before they were ripe. Well we got along O.K.

I started school at age of seven years. We enjoyed our happy go lucky days, had our fights, games, cats & dogs. I had a lamb at one time and a pet duck my granny had given me. Not much money but always plenty to eat. When Joyce was four yrs old Wilf arrived; we were all very thrilled with new baby. I was then nine years old; we older girls, Gertie who would then be twelve years old & myself nine did most of the housework to help Mum.

Old Grandfather Robert Gard of Brighton was very sick so he gave us his old horse named Jack & a cart. On Sundays instead of putting the baby in a large pram & taking fishing rods & a billy to boil and a picnic, we were real smart we hitched old Jack into the cart, Dad & Mum on front seat with baby & Joyce, us bigger ones on the seat with backs to them. Dad would drive out around the back roads to shoot rabbits generally ending up at Endfield where we all got a good afternoon tea & perhaps a bag of apples etc.

Dad's sister Sarah Askey who lived in Hobart had a ladies bike to sell for 1 Pound, we had a money box & counting out our coins had enough to buy it for Gertie & me, what a thrill to sail along. Dad got a boy's bike from a friend for 2 pound so there were two.

Gertie & Boy, as he was always called, joined friends rode about like the Bikies of today. How pleased I would be if Gertie didn't want our bike & I could go with the gang. Sometimes I would get A loan of Arthur Sainsbury's fixed wheeler & go riding with his sister, I used to have some busters, as it had no brakes only put your foot on the wheel.

The time went on and the First World War was in full swing, I went five years to school without missing a day left at age fourteen. Things were bad, shortage of sugar & we all gave up sugar in our tea, we collected papers to send to troops, sugar bags to make sand bags to send to soldier boys. Dad would have liked to go but couldn't leave Mum & the children, although Gertie was nineteen & Boy seventeen, he was a big strong boy & wanted Dad to sign the paper for him to enlist.

Dad was working for himself & Boy was his assistant, very few customers paid money for their work at Blacksmith shop, instead would bring Dad meat or a load of wood or hay for cows & horse, or potatoes and other veggies, so it dragged on for five years. One by one, the boys that went away, were killed, and we used to cry. Mum had a brother (one of seven) who always lived at home and farmed well, he went off and enlisted and was killed in Egypt soon after he arrived. (Dear Uncle Bert, we all loved him). He was always there to take he horse out of the cart and give him a feed, and put him in again when we were going home. Well, great joy came 11th.August the Armistice was signed; the war was over, a few boys to return. I was now sixteen and a half.

Things were so bad in business, Dad was offered a job Blacksmithing at Cygnet, and he sold up all we could do without, animals, carts, and ploughs and paid all our debts and went to Cygnet. Gertie and Boy, who worked in Richmond, stayed on. Gertie worked in a shop, and boarded with our cousin, Boy worked on the thrashing machine and lived in a hut. I was very unhappy leaving all my friends. Len had left school, he went to work in the Cygnet cool-store, and I had to stay home.

Mum was never well she was unhappy leaving her home in Richmond and being further away from her mother, we could not get a decent house and lived in an empty shop right on the street, beside the Post Office. We stayed there for two years, then got a house up Golden Valley Rd, which had land. We were able to have a garden, and Mum was happier. She had made friends, and we all went church.

Rev. Cloudsdale came and started a hockey team, girls and boys. I had other boyfriends, and we used to have fun on our trips to play hockey, which had become very popular at Huonville, Ranelagh and Geeveston. When we went to Huonville or Ranelagh, Eric would drive the dray, with boxes for us to sit on, take about ten of us, others would drive also. Dad by now brought a pony and trap, they would go too.

After a time, Eric Wills and I got very friendly, he lived home on the orchard and helped his father only for keep and pocket money (about two shillings). We often went for a walk because we had no money to go to pictures, I living at home, got my keep. Gwen and Joyce at work, Wilf at work, Gertie had married and gone to Launceston.This was part of depression after world war one. Dad was on better wages, but it seemed to all go on rent and food, few clothes.

I got very unsettled, Eric and I both couldn't see anything before us, and we were now over twenty one, and wanted to get married, so I told Mum I was going to work in town. Eric and Reg had rented part of Harold Clark's orchard, and were going to work that, and help at Guy's Road. Perc was at home, Reg always worked away, and Mr. Wills was well then, so we went by boat up to Hobart Regatta. Gertie and Carlos had returned to Hobart, he was working in a shop (Moran and Cato). I stayed with them, and Eric went home. I got a job of housework, one pound a week and keep. Eric and Reg only kept to their orcharding for one season.

I stayed at my job till I was twenty-five, and Winnie Barwick, our cousin, wanted a mate to go to Sydney, for a working trip. I had saved sixty pounds, and thought I was rich. There was a fuss about me going Eric said he could do nothing, as his father was ill, so he must stay home, and work the orchard again.

Mum and Dad didn't like me going, being so young at twenty-five those days, but I booked with Winnie on the Zealandia and set sail. Such an adventure for me! Jobs were waiting for us; an aunt of Cousin Rosa had got them for us. I was sent to Brighton Sands to a doctor's place, and Winnie went to Kograh to a piano tuners home. I had lots of time off, but saved money, had a to trip to Jenolinan Caves at Katoomba, and all the beaches. We went to Sydney 1st July and intended to be home for Christmas but early December I got a letter telling me to come home as Mum was in Hospital for gallstone operation; we got home in middle of December.

Winnie went back to her Father on farm at Tea Tree, he had sacked his housekeeper and as Winnie was his only child was so very glad to get her back. I stayed two days in Hobart to see Mum, then went home to take charge and get ready for Christmas. Gwen, Joyce and Wilf were at home and Dad at work. Mum came home in New Year, I stayed with them till February, Gwen and I could not get on together, Joyce got her holidays from shop and we went to Hobart Regatta then out to stay a week with Winnie. She drove her car and took us over to see Gertie at Pawleena. They took us to see Granny at Endfield, and then we went into Richmond & back to Hobart.

I sent Joyce home and stayed to get work again, I got into another Drs. home, he was retired (Dr. Wolfhagen) with a young wife and child. It was close to Redchapel Ave. Sandy Bay. I was very happy there; they treated me like an equal, which was something in those days. In September Gwen & Archie got married, Mum wanted me to come home to live again, Eric's Father had died while I was in Sydney and he was very miserable so I went home. It was lovely to have Eric coming nearly every night and someone to go walks with on Sunday, but still no nearer to getting married.

Mum died in September of following year so I was left with Dad & Joyce. Dad got put off from his work so we went up to Brighton to live, Uncle Hal persuaded him to buy a little four room shack out on the flats from Brighton Station. Wilf had got in with Mary and married before he was nineteen. They have been very happy she has made him a good wife and mother to his sons Don & Peter. Dad, Joyce & I did lots of fishing & shooting, Dad did a little bit of work in an old shop over on the rocks which was owned by Uncle Hal, Noel Jacobs came up often, he had a Motor Bike, but Eric didn't get up very often.

Eric and I were nearly twenty-nine and his brothers and mother were beginning to see they were not being fair to him. They arranged that he take over the orchard, Mother, Reg and Perc to live there, Reg paid ten shillings a week board. Perc was paid thirty shillings a week to help Eric; Granny Wills was paid ten shillings a week (no pension in 1930's). Eric also had to pay mortgage at E.S.& A. Bank. If we married we would have to live with them so we decided it would be better than nothing, and were married on February 5th at St George's Battery Point. We all got along very happily. Gran had a little pony & trap that Will & Mick had given to her, they had come home from the First World war and bought neighboring orchards in Nichols Rivulet, they had back money paid from Army; they bought Motor Bikes & Sidecars. Eric bought six good cows that we milked and I bottled cream & made butter & jam.

Tom arrived the following year January 15th. and we were very happy. Things went along all right for us we had our ups and downs of course but bad luck and good, six years went by and Peter came along December 3rd., another boy! But when I brought him home dear Eric said how happy he was, but when Peter was seven weeks old Tom became very sick & after a week he was taken away to R.H.H as a suspected polio victim. What a blow to us, two weeks later Eric followed him to R.H.H. then into Vaucluse infectious disease hospital but only lived three weeks.

Peter was ten weeks old, apple season just starting. Percy had married and lived quite close so we joined forces to work together, but in three weeks Eric had passed away, after waiting ten years for him to be only married seven years, I don't know how I came through it. But Eric's last words to me were "take care of little Peter" I was not allowed to go into town & take the baby for fear of infection, so it was three months before I could see my darling Tom. He had been sent to St. Johns Park Hospital, it was full of children & adults who had this dreadful disease.

One of Tom's legs seemed so small and useless. Next time I was able to visit him he was lying in a plaster cast because the paralysis had gone to his back & he was looking so tiny & helpless. You can guess how I felt with his Daddy gone, but I daren't dwell on it too much (after forty years it still hurts a lot). He was sent home in September I think, looking very weak & thin, I had to take him to St Johns every week to do physiotherapy. He was allowed to start school the following year and grew stronger.

He did well at School but at age twelve had bad appendix which had turned to peritonitis he was ill a long time. Next year he fell out of a tree up the gully with friend Jerry Renahan & broke his arm, while still in plaster he developed Chicken Pox but gradually made the grade.

Peter grew into a fat little boy & started school at six he wasn't very keen but managed to get through. We stayed on the farm for ten years after Eric's death my Father had come to live with us also Gran Wills sister Auntie kit, Perc & May with son Stan next door we all worked apples together but had a lot to contend with.

I think you should remember everything from the time we left the farm in 1949. I have written a lot more than I have intended to but it has made me live over childhood and growing up. I had two little boys, now I have seven plus three girls Sandra is my only granddaughter, (she first called me MaMa and it stuck) I have two lovely daughter in laws who have always been kind to me. Your ever loving MaMa. Saturday, March 22nd 1975