Ms Olive (Poppy) Winifred HENDERSON

  General Notes:

These reminiscences of Olive Allsop (nee Henderson), the first daughter of John and Sarah Henderson was forwarded by Barbara Rounsevell in about 2005 for inclusion on the website. It includes a paragraph about each of Olive's siblings and gives some fascinating insights into life on "Fern Tree Farm" near Ardrossan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Barbara was unsure when this was written but the second to last paragraph seems to indicate that it was towards the end of WW2.


On this first day of May, here in my little kitchenette in far away Ballarat, I, Olive Allsop, nee Henderson, born at Fern Farm, Ardrossan, S.A., find a small bowl of cream in the frigidaire, and decide to turn it into a pat of butter, and while I stir, I find myself confronted with a large wooden churn, full of cream, in a snow white dairy.

On the shelves each side are large shallow pans of milk with the cream rising, to be skimmed for the next churning, and dozens of eggs to be packed for marketing day. As in fancy I churn away, all the faces of the family crowd before me, because believe me,
one and all have taken their turn at making the butter. And as I hesitate and the handle becomes idle, I hear my brother call; "You are not churning that butter!" We were such a large family, ten in all though my eldest brother Thomas Wills died before I was old
enough to remember him. But his chubby face, taken in a picture with my Mother and two older brothers, comes before me as I write. Billy Dunstan, my sister's boy, was very like him in ways, because everyone who knew Tom proclaimed him an ideal little boy, and our Bill was and is, all that and more.

Then next, I see my brother Isaac (called so because there was always an Isaac in the family). He was a brilliant boy at school, and would have gone far had the opportunity been his, and it could have been, but my father was then a struggling farmer on 1300 acres
of Mallee and Limestone country and he felt it was clearly his job, being now the eldest son, to come home and be a farmer which he did. He was a great lover of horses, as was his Uncle whose name he bore, and who had ridden in races with Adam L. Gordon. (Note: here she is referring to Adam Lindsay Gordon the famous rider and poet from late 19th century). My brother knew Gordon's poems by heart, and I can hear him now saying them to us; how we loved them. He taught me to ride on his black mare Ida, and I think how proud I was to use his hunting crop with a silver dog's head for a handle. He bred some good Arab stock, the sire of which he purchased from Sir James Beaucout.

Bill, the next I see, was always a humourist, and the kindest hearted boy in the world. He loved to sit with Mother at night, and get out the best china cups (white with a gold and ruby red band on them) and make her cup of tea, and how he, too, loved his cup of tea. These two brothers were fast friends, and had many escapades together. Bill, always the most daring, one day removed all his clothes, and raced along the public highway, at which time our pious neighbour, Mrs Hill, driving home from her weekly trip to market, spied his nude form flying through space like a wood nymph. She, having no sense of humour, shook her whip at him, and said, "I'll tell your Father" which she did. Fortunately, my
Father had been full of daring and mischief himself, and thoughts of his own boyhood often proved a salvation to his seven mischief seeking sons.

Jack comes to me next, always so tidy and neat, and kept all his belongings tidily tucked away. He cut the family's hair in later years, and so often I've sneaked into his drawer (how plainly I can see everything in it) and taken his hair cutting scissors, to cut out a dress or blouse, but I always saw that I got them back before he arrived. He was progressive and ambitious and his untimely death later in W.A. was a great blow to us all.

I see Osmond, the fifth son, affectionately known as Ob, the family nickname, with his black twinkling eyes which closed right up when he laughed. He was full of the the joy of living; how their faces all come to me over this old churn. He made possible a lovely trip to Sydney for my only sister and 1, before he enlisted to fight overseas (he was the fourth to go). Oh what fun we had on that trip, the boys we met, the trips we had; I see a lovely
collection of browny opalescent glassware my sister brought back, given to her by an admirer. Osmond, coming back with us to S.A. and joiing the Machine Gun Coy; went overseas and was only in the line for 29 days, and so his life ended, happy, laughing chap.

Now I see George, resembling very much Jack, in fact they were often taken for each other, and oft times girls got them mixed, much to their amusement. He enlisted for overseas (the first of the family to go), was at the landing, he was invalided home just before armistice was signed, with a permanent injury to his hand.

Basil the seventh son, now I see, his swift cunning at stalking anything that walked of ran, of lifting watermelons from right beneath their owner's noses, stood him in good stead later in life, as he was a fine soldier and won the D.S.O. of which we were all so proud. He enlisted from Queensland, where he was at the time, and we did not see him to say goodbye, his leave was not long enough to enable him to get horne.

Rosa my only and favourite sister, is before me now, and in imagination I am putting on her a dress which I am making for her. It is pink satin, and trimmed with little bunches of violets;
I think her first real evening frock. Now she is fidgeting and wriggling while I try to fit it, and me very touchy and impatient, with not much sense of humour in those far away days, losing my temper and threatening never to do another stitch for her. Her hair as I see it is lovely and curly and honey coloured, so pretty, but how she hated having those tangles combed out.

Leonard the baby, who was very small when my Father died, the result of accident at the age of 56, now looks at me with those grey-blue eyes and long black lashes. He was a cute little fellow, and so very spoilt by us all, most of all by my Mother, but of course she was very lonely when Father died, and I think he filled a great loneliness for her. He enlisted at 17, so very young for a boy to go to war.

Now I see my Mother at one end of a long table with a large tray of cups and saucers, and a huge brown earthenwear teapot, and my Father at the other end, with a mammoth stack of plates, and a large dish of bacon and eggs or what ever the meal was. What a business it must have been to work out the meals for us all. I see that large bread tin, set th the sponge to rise overnight, to be mixed in the morning. The boys all took turns at mixing the dough, and what a batch it was; the smell of that home made bread is in my nostrils now.

The turnip and bacon pies Mother made, oh how wonderful they tasted; our own grown turnips and home cured bacon. Father took such pride in his bacon curing, I see the hams for Grannie, Uncle Tom and Uncle Willie, their Christmas present. Jack followed in his footsteps and excelled in bacon curing, took prizes at country shows. I see his rose garden, too; he was an ardent lover of flowers and proved it, as we had no water except that from an adjacent tank, so you can guess it entailed a lot of work. I have not seen many finer roses tham those that bloomed there. How proud he was of it.

Then I think of all those pranks performed during the early youth of these, my brothers. The killed the peacock belonging to an aged neighbour; they tarred the house of another, an old runaway German sailor, and incidently ruined their own clothes; they rode all the young calves, and set the dogs onto every cat in the countryside; and I think maybe Ob. painting the pig green one of the things most recounted.

I think of Mother during that last war with her four sons away fighting, knitting at night while we were in bed, and so often, when we got up in the morning, there the fire would still be glowing, revealing the fact that she had not, long gone to bed.

Now I think of colt breaking, pig killing sausage making, new calves, pigs getting out of the sty, the jingle of harness at night telling us they were home from outback, the barking of dogs, coursing meetings, dog biscuits; the bleat of sheep, the curlews on a still frosty night; the plover calling, the early mushrooms, the sweet smell of tussock flower, the salty tang of the sea, picnics at the beach, bird's eggs, shooting rabbits; barley waving in the wind; harvest time, taking lunch out to the winnower, Basil and Leonard bringing the cows home from the wells, Leonard with Mick in the sulkey coming home from school at night.

And now how we are scattered; Leonard away at war again; seven years fighting in all the second generation fit and able to go; caught up in this second war, their faces now come before me, I see them as young, fresh happy, normal lads, following in their father's footsteps, and good stock of the John and Sarah Henderson who set out wheat farming under primitive conditions, and reared us so well.

All these thoughts through my mind, started by that little bit of cream and that little pat of butter. The churn fades away, and, alas, all this imaginary seeing of my family circle too, but how refreshing it has been, and though we are far apart, we are still Kith and Kin, and after all, I think the old adage, "There are no folk like our own folk," proves itself out as the years fly by, and most of our happy recollections and dreams are of our very own, and
the fun we had. And we find the unpleasant happenings are easily swamped out by the happier ones. And so that visionary farmhouse and surroundings fade too, my little pat of butter complete, and so to realistic things once more.

Olive married John Richard ALLSOP on 24 Apr 1937. (John Richard ALLSOP was born in 1881 in St Arnaud, Victoria and died on 6 Aug 1967.)