Antonius (Tom) van Gerwen

Story

I am the eldest son of Harry and Zus van Gerwen and knew the difficulties my parents were experiencing in Holland. They could not see a good future for their six children and were hoping that Australia would be the place to do it in. After saying goodbye to our loved ones we went on board the ‘SS Sibajak’ and streamers were thrown as the final connection with family and friends. As the ship started to move one by one the streamers broke, tears started to flow and slowly the wharf and the people on it faded into the distance. This was the beginning of an adventure for 6 weeks and a feeling of uncertainty the closer we got to Australia and Melbourne and when we arrived on the 3rd of March 1955 our life and our future in Australia began.

I fell in love with Australia the moment we arrived and although Mum, Dad and my siblings took somewhat longer to make up their minds, once we settled in Canberra, it was not very long when my parents knew they had made the right decision. All of us found our niche in the work place, have found partners and have loving children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren.

My first address was Capital Hill Hostel, where now Parliament House stands. Finding work was no problem, if you lost your job on Friday you could walk into another one the following Monday. I initially worked for Parks and Gardens, mixing soils, where now the National Library stands and later in the building trade on the Bega and Allawa Flats, the YMCA building in Civic (now demolished), making concrete sections for huts for the coaxial cable between Sydney and Melbourne and building the pylons for the Kings Avenue bridge. However, it seemed that something was missing. A friend introduced me to the world of science and insects which interested me very much. I was able to successfully apply for a position as Technical Assistant with the CSIRO Division of Entomology and worked there for 3 years. I had fallen in love, got engaged and had plans to marry but needed more money. I resigned, against my better judgement, found another day job and worked evenings and weekends doing anything I could lay my hands on in order to achieve my goal. Shortly after I got married in 1961 I was able to get my job back at CSIRO where I stayed until my retirement 35 years later. Through sheer hard work I was able to achieve all my goals at home and at work. At work I wanted to become a professional scientist and did my degee in Applied Science part-time, looking after my wife and by then 3 children with a housing mortgage and doing lots of overtime at weekends. I may have done all the work and study but if it had not been for the support of my wife and children and the encouragement I had from my boss and work colleagues I would not have been able to achieve what I had set out to do. I was mainly involved in research of the Australian Sheep Blowfly, the Australian Plague Locust and a few short projects on subterranean pasture scarabs and moths, the American cockroach and pests of stored grain. I can look back on my career with great pride and enjoyment in having been involved in research trying to reduce the impact of the sheep blowfly on the sheep industry in Australia. I am still involved with CSIRO but this time as the volunteer coordinator of the Volunteers Scheme in the Australian National Insect Collection housed in Entomology on the Black Mountain site.

I have achieved more than what I had ever envisaged. Anything can be achieved by anyone when you put your mind to it and what better place to do it in than Australia the best country in the world. However, all this may never have been achieved if my parents had not made this unselfish decision to leave family and friends to give their children a better opportunity in life and to succeed in what ever job they chose. I will be forever in my parent’s debt for what they did for myself and my siblings. I am so very, very proud of them and love them so very much that rarely a day goes by that I do not think of them.

Thank you Mum and Dad.

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