Mum only ever spent one day at school and she remembers another girl digging her fingernails into her hand and making her hand bleed. The scar would show up on her hand some days. But that along with mum becoming unwell her dad didnt send her back to school. So mum did school by correspondence.   Her schooling results  showed mum to be very high in all her subjects.  

Mum would travel with her dad alot and was close to him. She would often remember and tell me things that he used to tell her about his younger life. How he thought the world of his mother and would try and help her.  How he tried to shoot a sheep for his mum when his father went away for their meat. He had to mix his own gunpowder and shot for the shotgun and when he shot the sheep the old sheep was still standing but his head was black from gunpowder. He was only 8 years old.  Mum said his father wasnt a nice man who would give him beatings.  His mum died at the age of 52.   

Mum also said her dad was a very good football when he played for wimmera teams but that also gave him the bad knees that plagued him later on.

Mum would spend some of her time helping with bagging grain sewing up the grain bags with a big hook needle and string. It was hard work but she enjoyed spending it with her dad who liked to talk about the past. Mum said her dad would make her wear pants when the fashion was dresses. He didnt like make up especially lipstick thought that was horrible stuff. 

Her dad was 67 when he died. Mum said he had an enlarged heart that after years of heart trouble and then lung and breathing difficulty with mum sitting up with him and giving him his medications every night.  Then got up one morning to go check on his sheep because there had been dog trouble with his flock he hadnt come back.  Then mum goes to look for him and finds him in a paddock facedown.  Mum missed her dad and even in her later years said she still wished he had been around and that i could of got to know him.

Mum was born in St Arnaud Victoria her parents John Simon and Jessie Isabella.  Mum had 2 older brothers John Herman ( b.1930) and Ivan (b.1932)

Mum had a memory of an old house and riding her pedal bike along the hallway.  She thought it was the old house they lived in before the family packed up all their life snd moved up to Queensland.  Mum was about 2 years old.

Mum loved all her different animals her horses and foals her lambs her dogs and cat 'Tulleybuc' and she loved her birds and had her avairy of birds.  She also had one doll she loved when she was about 4 years old named 'Shirley'.  

Mum always loved being around her brother Ivan who showed her how to knit with two large nails. She was always talking about different times she spent with him and reminisced alot about her younger years.