Marjorie Joan Dow

Marjorie Joan Dow

Female 1910 -

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  • Name Marjorie Joan Dow 
    Birth 3 Dec 1910  Oodla Wirra, South Australia, Australia Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Person ID I5223  Tucker Family Tree | The descendants of James Tucker
    Last Modified 2 Mar 2007 

    Father Andrew William Dow,   b. 3 Nov 1871, Gum Creek, South Australia, Australia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 7 Feb 1948 (Age 76 years) 
    Mother Ethel Laura Hawkins,   b. 24 Feb 1880, Warnertown, South Australia, Australia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 27 Apr 1955 (Age 75 years) 
    Marriage 10 Jan 1907  Methodist Church Warnertown, South Australia, Australia Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F0731  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Noel Mebberson,   b. 7 Nov 1909, Leicester, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Children 
    +1. D. Mebberson
    +2. J. Mebberson
    +3. G. Mebberson
    +4. A.J. Mebberson
    Family ID F1602  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 8 Jul 2022 

  • Notes 
    • Known as Joan.
      Joan was born in Oodla Wirra. Her father had been transferred there from Warnertown about twelve months earlier. Oodla Wirra was like many tiny towns in Australia at that time: sadly most, including Oodla Wirra, are now gone. The little town died when the new railway line by-passed it in later years. The town centre was the General Store, with Post Office, a wood and iron Hall, with tennis courts, a wood and iron Church, the Railway Station and house, two rows of houses for the railway workers and the School and house just across the sandy creek on a slight hill. There was a little bridge over the creek, for use, when the creek ran after heavy rain.

      The winters were very cold, ice on the water buckets, stiff dish cloths and so on; there were three falls of snow in the years they were there.

      They spent the war years there and yet to them they were happy years. It was a big occasion when Wirth's Circus special train stopped there for water on the way to Broken Hill; the children were all taken to the train to see the animals, if possible. Another big night was when they had a travelling picture show come to show a film in the little Hall.

      Joan remembers the day the Armistice was signed. Her mother and she had been staying at Willow Lodge, and her Uncle Hart, who owned a car, drove them back to Codla Wirra, via Wilmington and Melrose and as they passed through the little towns word had just come through by telegraph that the war had ended and all the children were being let out of school and the town flags were flying.

      In the Christmas holidays at the end of 1919, her father was transferred to Whyalla and they were very sad to leave Oodla Wirra. Bill went ahead of his family who followed him on a tug boat from Port Pirie. They were very seasick on the way over; her young brother was only three months old at the time.

      Whyalla, then, would only be described as a frontier town; it was so isolated that the only access was by boat or over rough roads to port Augusta, across the gulf by punt. The tug left Port Pirie twice a week with mail and supplies for the town. It was so different from Oodla Wirra that the two girls, Hazel and Joan went through what might be called "Culture shock". They couldn't believe it when they saw girls fighting like boys in the playground.

      Their father was always a good teacher but it took him some time to get the school under control. The children soon had a name for him "Old Whiskers", Many odd and funny things happened in Whyalla that could not have happened anywhere else.

      Noel and Joan lived through the depression years in Whyalla. Bill was not out of work, and with the help of the Company that ran the town, there were no food queues and no-one went hungry. The young ones enjoyed life, even if money was short; there was the beach in the summer, tennis, dances ( six pence a time) and always the pictures, as they were called then, on a Saturday night. They could also go horse-riding.
      As the town grew, new buildings were added to the school and assistants sent from Adelaide.

      Water was always a problem, as there were only rain tanks; the Company houses had evaporated water laid on, undrinkable, but it could be used for baths and so on. Bill locked the school tanks at the end of each school day.

      He was transferred to Grange School in Adelaide in the holidays at the end of 1932. Joan and Noel were married January 1933, just before her parents left Whyalla. She spent the first five years of her married life at Iron Knob; then they went to Woollongong, New South Wales, where they have lived ever since. Their life has been a mixture of good and not-so-good years, like many Australians. They visited England when Noel retired but were glad to come home to Australia again. (The Tucker Family in Australia, 1992)


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