Lionel Edgar Laws family story part 2 1916-1923

Part 1 can be viewed here http://familytreeblossoms.blogspot.com.au/2018/02/lionel-edgar-laws-family-story-part-1.html
Continuation of the Lionel Edgar Laws family story as told by Frank Goodall Laws to his children Helen, David & Alan

In those days wages and conditions are nothing like they are today.  How my parents fed clothed and kept us I will never know.  We were always well fed and clothed.  My eldest sister Lill was a stalwart.  She stayed home and helped keep things moving.  She made most of our clothes and cooked and helped my mum.  Our family could never repay Aunty Lill for what she did for us in those days.  At Warwick my mother bought a Wertheim washing machine, wooden manually operated.  She also bought a piano (a Hapsberg) and both were bought on terms.  This piano was a really good one. Aunty Thelma has it now.  It has been renovated and modernised in appearance.  For years my mother did her washing by boiling up 2 kerosene tins on an open fire and lifted all the water she used. No set in tubs in those days only round galvanised tubs.  My father’s work took him away from home most of his time.  He told me that in 1916 he decided to have some home life.  He applied for and was successful in obtaining the job of Shire Engineer at Allora. On 16 June 1916 we shifted from Warwick to Allora.  All our family went except Uncle Lionel who took over the contracting work, which previously he and my father carried out, Victor who left school in 1915 and had many jobs.  He was working at Flitcrofts coachworks as a striker for a blacksmith when we shifted to Allora.  Richard was overseas at the war.

Allora Shire Council with Lionel Edgar Laws 3rd from the right in the back row & Jacob Holmes 2nd from the left in the front row.

Lil and Jess learnt music at the Warwick St Mary’s Convent.  Jess also learnt painting there and at the Warwick Technical.  Lil stayed home and helped my mother.  Jess worked at Poulsen & White Photographers where she did retouching of plates.

My fathers appointment as Shire Engineer carried a salary of 265 Pound per annum and he had to provide his own conveyance, a horse and sulky for which he received no allowance.  His salary did increase sometime after to 350 Pounds per annum and he still had to find his own transport, however some relief came a few years later when the Queensland Main Roads Department came into being.

In the beginning of Main Roads work, it was supervised by the Shire Council.  The first Main Roads construction on the Darling Downs was in the Allora Shire about 3 miles from Allora- Banndons on the Warwick road and on Collins Hill on the Toowoomba Rd. The allowance my father should have received was 2 ½% of total cost but the Shire Clerk claimed he should get half of this and my father had to agree.  He kept his job as Shire Engineer until May 1925.  I will tell you more of this later.

Referring back to our arrival in Allora, We first took a rented house in Geck St at 15/- per week. (This is the street Mum and I set up our first house later in 1929).  Lily stayed home and helped Mum. Jessie got a job in the Shire Office as assistant to the Shire Clerk not immediately but some little time after our arrival.  Frank, Fred, Colin and Jack all went to school at the Allora State School.  Owing to the War the cost of living was increasing.  Many manufactured goods were in short supply.  Local stores holding stock kept putting up prices on stock held.  This was common all over Australia and a word called profiteering was coined for this practice.

Some eight or nine months later we shifted into a bigger and better house with more land in Jubb St (near Grandfather Stay’s saleyards). Uncle Lionel and Victor did not move to Allora but stayed in Warwick.  At this time Allora had no electricity supply no water supply and no refrigeration. Lighting was kerosene lamps and later petrol lamps.  Some houses (only a small number) had a lighting system installed.  These were Gloria Wizarde Quirks systems. They were actually petrol operated.  A container holding 4 gallons of petrol was installed and through air pressure pumped into the tank by hand pump to about 50 lbs pressure.  The petrol was forced through a hollow brass wire to lights permanently installed in homes and shops etc.  Each light had its own generator and a small brass tube which when heated generated gas from the petrol and this was forced into a mantle which gave the light. An example mabe be seen at http://tgmarsh.faculty.noctrl.edu/hollowwire.html

We had two petrol lights at that time, one as standing table lamp and the other a Hurricane lamp type and also kerosene lamps and candles.  Earlier in Warwick we only had kerosene lamps and candles although Warwick had town gas for street light and some houses and shops had it at this time.  Electricity was produced in Warwick for supply to consumers soon after we left there in 1916.

I first met Mum when I went to Allora School we were almost 13 years of age.  In December both Mum and I sat for the High School Entrance Exam at Warwick. We both passed. Mum also sat for State scholarship and passed.  I did not sit for this.  In January 1917 Mum went to Ipswich Grammar School as a Boarder. 

*1 When Marjorie was away at Ipswich Grammar School Frank was friendly with Eva Jensen sister of his friend Peter Jensen.

I went to the Warwick State High School.  I travelled by train each day.  Riding 4 miles on a bicycle to catch the train at 9am and the same on return in the evening at 6 pm and then ride 4 miles home.  I went for two terms. I left to start work at Allora in Barnes & Co. a grocery and hardware store.  The vacancy was caused by a young man about 19 who had enlisted.  I stayed in this job for nearly 9 years.

We were living in Allora when news came through that my brother Richard had been killed in action.  This was a great blow to my Mum and Dad and also to all the family.  It was the first break in the family. My mother never recovered from this loss. Both Fred and Colin went to the High School for about a year.  Fred left to take a job as a compositor at the Allora Guardian Newspaper to learn printing but later switched to plumbing when he was apprenticed.  Colin took a job with the same firm as I worked.  Jack came on later and joined the Post Office as a telegraph messenger switchboard operator.

In 1919 Aunty Lil who was keen to be a nurse went to Brisbane and trained to be a nurse at Pyrmont Hospital later to become St Martin’s when the new War Memorial Hospital was built on the site of Old Pyrmont.  

2 sisters outside the hospital

Aunty Lil was one of two of the first nurses to graduate from St Martins and later became a Sister and was a Theatre Sister for some years.  Aunty Jess changed from her job at Allora and joined Deacon & Co as a bookkeeeping typist and stayed there for some years.  Uncle Colin Laws was a tremendous help to my Mother in the home. My Dad also was a great help.  In the meantime our house in Jubb St was put up for sale and we shifted to a house in William St near the Showground.  Aunty Jess decided to become a nurse and she also went to train at St Martins and completed her training. Both sisters were at the hospital for some time together.

When we came to Allora my sisters became friends of the Holmes sisters Bess, Linda and Norma-daughters of Jacob Holmes.  Through them Uncle Lionel met Aunty Bess and Uncle Vic met Aunty Norma.  Uncle Lionel and Aunty Bess were married on October 22nd 1919 and lived at Warwick where Uncle Lionel was still contracting building roads and bridges in the district.  Uncle Lionel was the first of our family to marry.

Some four years later, Victor married Norma at the Church of England Glengallen Church on 6 June 1923.

Your Mum, Marjorie Stay, spent four years at the Ipswich Grammar School.  She returned home at the end of the School year.  She passed her Senior and was keen to go to University but her parents said they could not afford it and she was forced to finish school.  She obtained a job in the office of the Allora Butter Factory as Assistant to the Manager and after a while just about ran the office. She kept this job until she left to get married.  She and I became friendly a year or two after she came home from Grammar.  She was a very good tennis player and had a good singing voice.  She was keen on her  Presbyterian church and belonged to the Choir and Guild and was organist for some time. 

* 1 Comment added by his daughter Helen.