Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 471
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[Page 471]
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Peters (of ice cream fame) at Kingsland Rd, Strathfield. Madge and Alan came to a very nice Christmas party that the sappers put on in the lovely grounds one sunny afternoon.
During my last fortnight at Newcastle, I learnt of the death of my Father in the Wagga hospital. He had a peaceful end, passing away in his sleep in his eighty-first year of life. For his last few years, with mild Parkinsons disease (the palsy of the Bible), he had become very thin and shaky, but the official cause of his death was recorded as pneumonia.
I was granted compassionate leave for a week to attend the funeral and to comfort my Mother. Father was buried in the Presbyterian section of the Wagga cemetery, with a combined Church and Masonic service: there is an extra burial plot beside him.
A few days afterwards Mother returned to "Afton Water" and my eldest sister, Rose, stayed with her as long as she could, about a week. After that Mother had rather a lonely life, though the neighbours visited her frequently and my sisters and their families travelled down to her at least once a year. Mother tried having a lady companion for a while, but it was not a success.
"Afton Water" was now heavily indebted to the Bank of New South Wales and the Rural Bank, but it was carrying about twelve hundred sheep and a nice little herd of Back Angus beef cattle: a fine bull and about fifty cows and heifers. A trustworthy and competent old stockman was permanently employed (Kelly Bowman). He had worked all of his life on Monaro properties from Wagga to Tumbarrumba so Mother was able to carry on without much difficulty. Bowman had a wife and daughter living in Tarcutta and he usually drove home and back every second weekend. Tom Vardon enlisted early in the A.I.F., served overseas, but was never heard of again around Tarcutta.
During most of the year 1944, I did a tour of duty as chief engineer officer for the State. My staff and I were billeted in the Engineer Depot in rear of the Barracks, a section of which was allocated to us for office space. Here again, a very big