Last week May McGrath celebrated her 100th birthday. This week she went with her younger sister, Eileen, 97 and her nephew and his wife to revisit her old home. In this interview with Denise Dion she reminisces about her many years as a farmer’s wife in Lochiel.
It was the first time that May McGrath had ever been on a farm, she recalled.
She was just 19 years old and was visiting her auntie in Lochiel, from Sydney but it was a visit that changed her life.
While on holiday during 1928, she met George McGrath, the farmer she would marry six years later in 1934.
“It’s funny how in one day your whole life can take a different turn,” May mused.
There was no chance for the city girl born in Paddington and brought up in Bankstown, and the farmer’s son, to get together on regular dates and so they did their courting by correspondence, May said, with just the occasional meeting once a year.
When she left Sydney for her new life, in 1934, May left behind the modern conveniences, city life and electricity.
This was rural farm life: clothes were washed in a copper which was balanced on bricks with a fire lit underneath, the ironing was done with a flat iron heated on the wood fuelled stove and kerosene lamps were used when it got dark.
May recalled, “it was a slab house made from the felled trees on the property. The rounded sides were outside. It was all wallpapered and that would cover the joins and you couldn’t see what was underneath.”
They lived in the house until the 70s when they moved to Pambula.
The slab house remained until recent years but May was sad that it had not been preserved.
“I can’t understand why some of them weren’t kept to show the young ones,” she said. “They could have left them to show people the style.”
The McGrath dairy farm sold its cream to the Pambula butter factory and after the milk had been separated, the butter factory truck would collect the cream twice a week in winter and three times a week in summer.
“Fresh milk straight from the cows had a different taste but I didn’t like it so much, maybe it was too rich,” May said.
This was a totally different life from anything she had experienced in Sydney and once war was declared in Europe and men were being called up, the McGrath’s lost some of their farmhands and May had to learn to milk the cows.
Like many brought up on the land, her husband, George, was a good shot with a rifle and was quite keen to enlist but dairy farming was a reserved occupation and he was banned from joining the army.
May said that they had no fridge, not even a Coolgardie Safe but “when you’re young you can adapt”.
May said of farm life, “I adapted quite easily because I didn’t mind cooking and in fact I preferred the fuel stove because I think it was good for cooking cakes.”
Even when Lochiel finally got electricity, May continued to cook with her fuel stove.
George and May had one daughter, Maureen, who was born in Pambula Hospital’s maternity unit and who later attended Lochiel school but even though it was only a small family, May said that she was never lonely or bored in Lochiel.
“We grew our own vegetables and had a magnificent orchard. It was luxury food. We had the most beautiful apples, peaches, pears and apricots.”
During the summer and autumn evenings, May and her husband would sit and peel the excess fruit and she would bottle it, storing it in the large cupboard that George had made specially for the many jars that would see them through until the following year.
“We never wanted; we had plenty of vegetables and fruit. Hard work and good food - maybe that’s why I’ve lived so long,” May said.
They had a battery-run wireless which had to be listened to with earphones and sometimes she would read by the light of the kerosene lamp or do some needlework.
“The fashion was for hand-worked supper cloths and I embroidered them putting crochet around the edges. I remember one I made with scalloped edges; I had to stitch all around it but I gave it away to someone, I’m sorry now I didn’t keep that one.”
But there were times when it was unimaginably hard.
Everyone relied on rain to keep their water tanks full and when there was a drought, times were very difficult. Water had to be fetched from the creek almost half a mile away.
“I can remember one big drought with people praying for rain. We had to wash in creek water and had to carry water up from the creek,” May recalled.
Looking back now, she wished that she had kept a diary “but when you’re young you just cope with these things” she said philosophically.
There were high points though such as the dances at Nethercote Hall when local musicians got together and everyone brought cakes and pastries for supper.
“Everyone seemed to enjoy life,” May said.
On Saturdays, they would sometimes go into Pambula to do some shopping.
“Saturday night was shopping night and Mr Godfrey who ran the electricity for the lights would keep the lights on longer, maybe to 11pm or midnight,” May remembered.
There was excitement too when during the war, from their high vantage point on the McGrath farm, they saw the pall of smoke in Pambula River.
A Japanese submarine had been spotted and was bombed.
“This was history that you experienced yourself,” May said.
But looking back now May knows that as good as the times were overall, you can’t go back.
“If I had to go back now I would find no electricity and no water very difficult. I couldn’t do it now. I remember my sister coming to visit, early on and saying that she would die if she had live like that but I adapted quite easily; everyone was contented and happy.”
And maybe that is part of the secret of May’s longevity: contentment with your lot.
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