CONNIE FORDHAM REMEMBERS - AGAIN!

FRED AND ETHEL FORDHAM
Fred grew up in Port Melbourne where his father had a small goods business. Fred’s father died when his family of nine children were still young and Fred, like his brothers and sisters, had to leave school early to help support the family. Fred commenced work when he was only eleven. He had a variety of jobs but finished up working on the wharves and continued to do so even after he and Ethel moved to Rowville in 1920.
Ethel was a midwife and nurse and was called out at all times to assist with a birth or stay with ill neighbours. She and Fred suffered the loss of their first two children: their baby daughter died of diptheria and their 13 year old son, Albert, was killed in an accident while gathering mussels at a wharf. Following these tragedies Ethel and Fred fostered two baby girls. Frank was born in 1907 and was only 12 when the family moved to Rowville.
When mechanised cranes were introduced on the wharves Fred was put off and from then on he spent his time working on the farm while Ethel went on the pension.
In 1934 when Connie first met her future mother-in-law, Ethel was 60. She had a few cows and pigs and about a dozen chooks on their farm in Bergins Road. The farm extended over the area that is now traversed by Shearer Drive.
Ethel had a famously bad temper and she and Fred had some ding-dong rows. At the end of them Fred would always say, “What about a cup of tea, Mum?” That seemed to smooth matters over. According to Connie Fred “was a good old bloke”.
During the depression a bottle-o came one day to the Fordham farm. He was a very big man and had his wife and four children on the cart with him. Ethel gave the mother, Mrs Smith, a bottle of milk for her baby girl and asked her where they would spend the night. Mrs Smith replied that they would all sleep under the cart. Ethel pointed out a corrugated iron shed on the farm that had a couple of beds in it and said that they were welcome to spend the night there. The family gratefully accepted this offer and the next day the husband came to ask if Ethel minded if his wife and children stayed in the shed for the day while he went into Dandenong to look for work. Ethel agreed and the man went off - never to be seen again. Mrs Smith and her children remained living in the Fordham’s shed for seven years during which time they came over to the farm house for meals every day. To add further anguish to this family’s very sad situation the baby daughter wandered away from the shed one day and drowned in the dam.
Of course, in those days in Rowville there were no telephones so if there was an accident somebody would have to ride into Dandenong to fetch a doctor.

BOB AND GRANNY FINN
The Fordham’s southern neighbours were the Finns and their home was located on what is now 8 Wyndham Place. They were an elderly couple by the time Connie came to Rowville and all but one of their four children had left home.
On pension day old Bob would go into Dandenong and bring home a bottle of wine in the little case he always carried to town. After tea he’d light a fire outside using dry cow dung (the smoke of which kept mosquitoes away) and after a few sips of wine would start playing his piano accordion. Connie would take her two little girls, Janet and Joan, over to the fence to listen to Bob’s music. “It was beautiful,” Connie recalled.
Granny Finn was kind to Connie and let her bring over her washing when the Fordham water tanks were low. She used the old word “ye’ rather than “you” and would say things like, “If ye are going to Dandenong I’ll look after the girls.” On such occasions Granny was very indulgent and let them adorn her with all sorts of bits and pieces as they played “dress-up” games.
Like most people in Rowville in those days Bob and Granny battled to make ends meet. She once grumbled to Connie after a family member had given her a cushion for a present: “I’d wished they’d given me a loaf of bread and a pound of sugar instead.”

THE SYME FAMILY
Fordhams’ northern neighbours were the Symes whose home used to be opposite the entrance to the Waverley Golf Club. (Roy Bulkeley who was a groundsman at the Golf Club later owned this house.)
The Symes had a son nicknamed “Bunce” of the same age as Connie’s Joan. His mother made the mistake of buying Bunce a girl’s bike to ride down to the corner of Stud Road where the kids caught the bus to Scorseby State School. He was teased unmercifully about having a girl’s bike and often the kids would race from the bus before Bunce could get off. They’d take his bike to ride home leaving him to trudge up Bergins Road.

JACK AND KITTY FINN
The next family along Bergins Road were the Finns: Jack was a brother of old Bob Finn.
One evening when Connie was putting the chooks into their shed she noticed flames in the distance and ran to Frank (who was eating his tea) shouting that Finn’s house was on fire.
Frank wet a hessian bag and raced up to the blaze and fought the flames but was only able to save the tank stand. Jack was away at the time so the only ones to help him were the young Finn boys, Bill, Frank and Stewart. Kitty came down to the Fordhams for a cup of tea afterwards and said she’d never seen anyone fight a fire as desperately as Frank did that night. Young Frank Finn was stressed by the trauma and finished up in hospital with pneumonia.

THE BERGIN FAMILY
There were no other families in Bergins Road and the next building along that way was Nick Bergin’s blacksmith shed. By the time Connie arrived in Rowville Nick was an old man and well retired but she remembers the shed’s interior with all of the certificates on the wall. These certificates had been won at shows by horses that had been shod by Nick. Most of the horses had been show jumpers from Stamford Park.
Nick was a pleasant old man and Connie remembers him smoking his pipe with his smoking cap on. He had a nephew who was also named Nick but who was known by the nickname “Justice”.
Old Nick’s niece, Miss Elizabeth Bergin, ran the tiny post office from the house next to the smithy’s shed and Connie said that she was the most good-hearted person that she’s ever met. Miss Bergin was affectionately known to all as Auntie Lil. When she died Kath Manley took over the Post Office but she broke her hip and then her husband, Dan Gibson, became the post master. He employed a housekeeper, a sister of Mrs Golding, who suffered from epilepsy. One day she suffered a fit and Dan went to help her but stumbled and struck his head on a large tap in the kitchen and was killed.

STUD ROAD
EHRENFRIED EXNER
As a young man Ehrenfried worked for Granny Taylor and eventually married one of her daughters - Ethel. Ethel and Ehrenfried had an adopted daughter. Ethel and Connie were the only two Rowville women who were members of the William Anglis Hospital Auxiliary. Connie’s husband Frank was one of the locals who worked from time-to-time on Ehrenfried’s market gardens which were located on the site of the present Stud Park Shopping Centre. Ehrenfried often was the MC at dances and balls.

JIM and IVY HILL
Connie recalled: “Jim Hill could play any mortal instrument.” Once at a dance in Dandenong the dancers stopped just to listen to him play the violin - he played it so beautifully.
Jim was a very good mechanic and could fix anything from a bike to a truck.
Ivy once tripped over her young son’s toy truck and broke her ankle badly; she was in the Alfred Hospital for a long time before it came good.

“WISH” DRUMMOND
Wish was the owner of Stamford Park and was a very generous man. He donated 10 pounds for trees to be planted at the recreation reserve when it was being developed and offered the use of a room free of charge at the Stamford Hotel for meetings of the fire brigade when Frank was captain.
He was a councillor for a term and when he heard Connie’s secretarial report at the Annual General Meeting of the Progress Association he was astounded by how many things had been done. He said, “You should have that report published in the paper.”

THE McINTYRES
There were two separate families named McIntyre in Rowville. Jack, Lou and Ann McIntyre came to Rowville from Heywood in the 1940s and lived on the farm next to the Dobson family.
Jack married Maggie Martin who lived up on the corner of Taylors Lane and Kelletts Road. Connie went to Maggie’s kitchen tea which was held at Stamford Park. Connie remembered that the gardens were full of violets in flower and they were also used extensively for decoration in the house that night.
Lou married Mabel Dobson and Ann married Mabel’s brother, Gordon.
Ann, Mabel and Connie were great friends and together they worked hard on the Rowville Football Club’s Ladies’ Committee. In a little corrugated iron shed up the hill from the ground they sold food to the footy crowd at each home game and raised a lot of money for the fledgling club. Mabel cooked the hot dogs, Ann made the scones and Connie the sandwiches. Mrs Gilligan ordered in the ingredients for them as well as the lollies and chips and they did a roaring trade. Mrs Gilligan said, “Connie, you sell as many chips in an afternoon as I sell in the shop in a month.”
One day Ann told Connie that she’d overheard one of their customers say that she intended souveniring one of Connie’s good china cups that she’d been served her afternoon tea in. Connie confronted the woman who was sitting in her car but she denied that she had the cup. Connie decided to try a bit of bluff; she pointed to a very big man standing by the shed and said, “If you don’t give me my cup back I’ll have that policeman come over here and make you.” Connie got her cup back.
The other McIntyre family were two brothers, Don and Norm, who came from Mordialloc with their wives and children to market garden on land leased from Jack Gearon.
One of Don’s daughters was Violet McIntyre who later married Leo Gill. Leo was the boot studder for the Rowville footballers for 14 years. Connie and Violet were very good friends.

TAYLORS LANE
THE TAYLOR FAMILY
Alf Taylor was a really nice man. Like all the kids in Rowville he had to work hard when he was young. When Frank was the captain of the Fire Brigade Alf was the secretary and they were very good mates. Once Connie and Mrs Seebeck went to see Alf about some business to do with the Recreation Reserve. Alf was working in his milking shed and Connie remembered, “I’d never seen such a beautifully clean dairy in all my life; it was absolutely polished.” Alf’s wife Elva has worked with Connie for many years in organizing the stall at the Red Cross luncheons. “I don’t know what I’d do without Elva,” said Connie, “She’s a great back up and my great mate.”
Granny Taylor was “a good old girl”. She’d kill and dress her bull calves then take the carcasses to Prahran Market in her spring cart. They used to call her “Calfy” Taylor.
Frank did lots of things for her and she did lots of things for Frank. Alf was very good to his grandmother too. Granny was a tiny woman whose long hair was always done up in a top knot. She had an old draught horse that she used to lend to anyone who needed to borrow it for whatever reason.
Connie went around to Granny Taylor on Wednesday afternoons and they’d sit and talk and talk while doing their mending and knitting.
Connie gave Granny a piece of dolicus creeper with pink flowers from her father’s garden in Carlton and before long Granny had it growing over all of her sheds.

WELLINGTON ROAD
BERNIE AND AIMEE SEEBECK
The Seebecks came to Rowville in the late 1930s. Bernie had a plaster factory down on Stud Road near Tampe’s farm (which was beside Corhanwarrabul Creek). The Seebecks also owned the land now known as the Seebeck Estate. They had cattle on this property which was then named “Amberly”(a combination of their Christian names plus those of their sons, Bernard and Lyall).
Aimee was on just about every committee with Connie in Rowville in those early days.

THE GILL FAMILY
Granny Gill always enjoyed a day out in Dandenong on Tuesday market days. One day Connie and Frank brought her home and when Granny’s husband arrived home shortly afterwards she asked him, “Did you get the porridge?” When he admitted that he’d forgotten it Granny gave him a real ticking off.

Connie recently had a good time talking to the members of the Girls Brigade from the Rowville Baptist Church about the old days in Rowville. The girls enjoyed the talk - and the supper prepared by Connie and Alma Burfurd - tremendously; if ever you get the opportunity to hear Connie talk on this subject, don’t miss it. You’ll be highly entertained.
Interviewed by Bryan Power

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