Olive Minnie Parsons

  General Notes:

By Olive Parsons, edited by Wendy Clarke; some detail supplied by Bob Clarke, Olive's son, & Wendy.

I can't remember much about my Bolton grandparents, except that Grandad came out to Sydney before Grandma and got work before he sent for her and the children. There must have been about 5 in the family, all young. My Mum, Lillian, 14, had to look after the lot, Gran included, on the 6 months' voyage out to Australia. Mum always told me it was something awful - lice, vermin, sickness and death.

My Dad was a sailor. He was 12 or 13 when he joined the navy as a cabin boy; he was in China in the Boxer rebellion. He came out to Australia to deliver a warship, and transferred to the Australian Navy in, I think, 1909. He was supposed to go to England to sit for his captain's papers but he said “Bugger England!” He really hated England.

In 1924 he left the Navy - he was a Chief petty Officer then. He always said there was one regret in his career - at Gallipoli, when their ship had to sit out off Lonely Cove (Now Anzac Cove) and watch Australian soldiers being mowed down - they weren't allowed to go in and help. He always hated old Churchill for that; reckoned the old mongrel was the cause of all our boys getting killed.

When he left the navy Dad went to a place in Qld called Gregor's Creek outside of Kilkoy. Would you believe it? On a banana farm miles from anywhere, and I don't think he even knew what a banana looked like! Poor old Mum. I don't know how she stood it. I was only a baby then, and I was about five when he decided to move us to Yednia. He got a job on the boiler; he had his papers for working on the sawmill engine. I can remember Lil (my sister) dragging me up this huge hill on my first day of school, me bawling all the way. I thought they were going to chop my head off! George was five years older than me and Lil nine years older, and I used to cop hell from both of them.

There were a lot of tragedies with our family in Yednia. It was only a small village, just the sawmill and about a dozen houses. Dad still had the banana farm and mum had her fingers cut off by a young lad who worked for them. He didn't mean to do it - he thought Mum said to cut down a bunch of bananas and swung his knife just as she put her hand on top of the bunch. Then there was George. He shot himself climbing through a fence with a loaded gun, trying to get a plover to make soup for Mum. He nearly died that time. So did Mum when she found out; she was still in hospital.

After a few years Dad got the wander bug again. At the time the big-hearted government bureaucrats started giving out land to all returned servicemen. Dad was given one at Bapaume near Stanthorpe. I don't know how much they had to pay, if anything - I was about 8 then. Dad and Mum worked like navvies to clear all the stones and plant it. They had it beautiful; lovely vegetables and fruit. I was the only one left at home. Lil was married and George had cleared off up north somewhere looking for his fortune, He was only about 15. After all the years of hard work they were robbed blind, and Dad wasn't the only one - nearly all of then were the same. They used to send all their fruit and vegetables to the agents who sold their produce in Brisbane, then got bills back for transport, the agents claiming they had to dump them. We found out years afterwards they sold all the produce and kept the money. We were all hit hard because of the depression. No food. No money. Only way was to walk off and try to find something else, which they did.

They both decided to go to Redcliffe in the mid-30's - I can't remember the exact date but it would have been about 1935 or '36. Dad got a job on the Hornibrook Highway at 5 bob a week, they bought a block of land in Duffield Road, Margate, with what little they had left of their savings and he built us a beautiful two-storey home. He did it all by hand, bit by bit, cementing and all. I left school at fourteen at the end of 1938 and went to work as a waitress in a café in Redcliffe at twelve and six a week. Mum had turned our nice, big home into a boarding house by then to help make ends meet. That's how I met Bob. Lil and Tom lived at Louisvale; Tom worked there carting logs to the mill, and when some of the boys from the mill wanted to come down to Brisbane for Xmas. Lil put them onto Mum's boarding house. They were all young men, 3 or 4 of them, and when I walked in the door after work this nice-looking young fellow was singing and playing a guitar. I took one look at him and said to myself, “that one's mine.” It happened to be Bob and he was, for the rest of our lives until death did us part. (Note by Wendy Clarke: although Bob and Olive didn't meet until 1938 they grew up within a few miles of each other in the Kilkoy district).

By '39 we knew war was coming, things looked pretty bad. Dad got a job repairing ships in Brisbane when the war started, and Bob joined up. I never saw him again until 1943. He fought in Tobruk - yes, he was a Rat - El Alamein, Lebanon and Syria. In 1943 I had just joined the army. I didn't know he was on his way home. They arrived back in Brisbane, he said to get out of the army, which I did, and we were married on the 13th of March. We ended up getting married at the Methodist Church at Margate - the Church of England wouldn't marry us because it was Lent. Bob looked across at me, looked at the Minister, and said, “Mine isn't lent. Is yours, Ol?” I'll never forget the look on the Minister's face - in those days that was a terrible thing to say to a minister! That was on the Saturday and he left again on the Wednesday. I didn't see him again until 12 months later - the 9th Div was sent to New Guinea.

We left Margate in 1948 and went to Hervey bay for about 20 years, where we had 3 beaut kids. They have never caused us any trouble and I love them dearly. In 1962 we moved down South, landed at Newcastle (Blacksmith's Beach) where Bob got work as a painter at Cockle Creek for Conzinc Rio Tinto, then went into business for himself as a subcontractor with Macquarie Homes, a builder for the Housing commission. I did a bit of cooking in hotels and restaurants and worked at the High School Canteen for 10 years. Then we moved back to Qld when Dad retired and bought a house at Kallangur. After he died I battled on on my own for four and a half years but ended up having to sell as it was too much to look after on my own. At present I am in Cairns with my daughter, Maree, and my great-grandchildren, Debbie and Sam's kids.

  Some facts about her life:

• Education: Queensland Scholarship (grade 7).

• Religion: baptised in the Church of England.

• Occupation: waitress, canteen manager.

Olive married Robert Francis Clarke, son of Robert Joseph Clarke and Florence Emily Frampton, on 13 Mar 1943 in Redcliffe, Queensland, Australia.^{1 2} (Robert Francis Clarke was born on 16 Jun 1919 in Kilcoy, Queensland, Australia ⁴, christened in Jun 1919 in Kilcoy and died on 12 Oct 1998 in Redcliffe Hospital, Queensland ⁵.) The cause of his death was carcinoma of the rectum.