I have known Alma for about 9 years now and we have chatted from time to time, me usually listening as she can talk about many subjects at any time of day.
At the moment i'm feeling quite nostalgic with a bit of a thing for oldies. Their life stories and memories intrigue me and i love comparing it to how we live today!
P.S I have highlighted my correspondence in colour for you to make it easier to read.
Alma was born in Gympie Hospital and the year was 1931. At the time her family were living in Kenilworth which i learned, is in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.
Her father owned a saw mill (to cut down timber) and sold it to be a Bridge Builder. This career move took them to many different surrounding towns and Alma said she went to 22 different schools!
So i understand you were a member of the CWA?
Noooo, my mother in-law was but they did get me to sing all the time, i used to stand in front of a whole hall of them- by joe i would be a bundle of nerves!
And i used to sing at the Gympie City Council as well. I never liked doing it much.
Did you do any craft while growing up? Get into crochering or knitting at all Alma?
Yes i used to do "fancy work".
Doilies, tablecloths and we used to do like a blanket stitch along to finish the edge off you know. I used to knit jumpers for work.
Did they take you long?
No because we didn't have TV in those days, we had nothing else to do. Mum was a sewer, she sewed suits and high end stuff. She played Hockey. I remember her catching the boat from Brisbane down to Sydney to play, they wore those big bloomer things on their legs! (she laughs)
Alma's fancy work
What were your school years like?
Well i just scraped in with 52% or something like that for my High School scholorship. We moved to Gympie about that time, that was around the war years. I could never get Algebra! No matter what i did i could never grasp the idea! We had sewing classes and cooking classes. And then i had my first job at the solicitors, bookeeping. Two others after that and I was married at 20.
Wow! Really?
Oh Yes.
Yesterday Alma gave me a whole bag of neat vintage scarves that she used to wear.
David (Alma's late husband) and I used to go to so many do's , him being in finance and all, we went to so many dinners and outings ohhh this is why i had them all!
In the end we got all the staff to go for us, i was done fancering round at night in the cold! (shakes her head)
So did you stay up Gympie way for a while, where did you go from there?
Oh yes we were there for some time. Then we moved to Main Beach in the early 1960's.
The boys surfed (Alma's son's). We lived on Main Beach Parade along the front there across from the beach and it wasn't expensive.
I remember looking out the kitchen window one morning and seeing all the boys laying on their surfboards on the grass i think they had slept there all night! We were there for about 4 years.
Then we moved to our big house at Benowa and there we stayed until the kids were all grown up and moved out.
Alma's lovely house was featured in the Women's Weekly magazine
It had parquetry flooring and cork ceilings, wowzers!
As you can see the magazine is of some age, with Prince Charles not even been crowned yet!
Was that all you needed from me today?
Yes, lovely. Thank you so much Alma.
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