Maria (Mieta) Van Sebille (nee Van Aalst)

Story

(As told to her granddaughter Imogen.)

1952 Holland was such a mess after the war. My husband Kees & I decided there was no future there for our five kids.

At first we wanted to migrate to Brazil. So we started to learn Portuguese. Then, one day we got a visit from a friend of Kees. He had been a missionary in Brazil & he told us it would be unwise to go there with our children -it was too rough & young & uncivilised, he said. Kees listened & said, ‘well then we\’ll go to Australia!\’

My younger brothers Friedus & Pete were already in Australia. Friedus helped to get everything arranged. We sold everything we had. We cleared up the taxation. Then we found out I was pregnant with our sixth child. They wouldn\’t let us travel because I would be seven months pregnant. So we had to call the whole thing offÉanother houseÉnew furniture.

But before our new little girl was a year & a half old Kees started again, ‘we should go to Australia. There is no future here for our kids, we really should go.\’ He wrote to friends who lived in Mackay. They wrote back that Australia was the land of milk & honey. They urged us to come. So again we sold everything.

This time when my mother heard we were going she said, ‘my two boys are in Australia, now you are going & you\’re taking my grandchildren with you. I\’m not going to stay here. We are going too.\’ So my mother & father sold their corner shop business & got ready to migrate too.

In October 1952 we set sail for Australia from Rotterdam: mum & dad with their two little ones Anne & Gonnie; Kees & I with 6 children under the age of 8. We went on the ship Fairsea Ð it took six weeks. We went via Bremerhaven in Germany. There we picked up hundreds of German migrants. They were made to go below at first – t was after the war & Germany was still in the bad books. It only took a few days though for the Germans to occupy the whole of the ship.

We were supposed to go to Mackay. Our friends had arranged for us a house & a job there. My parents were planning to go to Canberra to be with Friedus. One day on the boat my mother called Kees & she said, ‘Kees come & look, I have a map of Australia. Here is Mackay & here is Canberra. We will never see one another! I should have stayed in Holland, look at the distance!\’ Kees & I talked it over. I said, ‘It\’s really not fair you know they came to be with us.\’ So we decided that we would also go to Canberra. Of course in Canberra there was no accommodation & no job waiting for us.

The children got very ill with dysentery while we were on board the ship. It wasn\’t because of the food. You only needed one child to get it & they all did. I know that two children even died on that trip. They had to go overboard. When we left Holland our little girl at age 18 months was just able to walk. She couldn\’t walk anymore by the time she got to Australia, she was so weak.

It was a relief to get to the harbour of Sydney. Then we had a train trip to Canberra. I think it took about five or six hours. It was dawn when we arrived in Canberra. When we got there I remember thinking ‘this can\’t be it !? Canberra is the capital of Australia.\’ It was no more than a bus shed, that station.

My brother Friedus had built for my mother & father what he called a ‘bungalow\’ in his backyard. It was quite a big building that he made. It was very long & thin & had three rooms. Kees, the children & I all slept in that bungalow, while my mother & father stayed in the house with Pete, Friedus & his wife & daughter. It was only a two-bedroom government home, but with the bungalow we had 16 people living there!

Because my sister in-law went to work I looked after her daughter as well as my own kids & my sisters Gonnie & Anne too. The older children were going to Catholic School in Manuka. We had to make sure they had summer uniforms, winter uniforms, blazers, straw hats & gloves. My mum didn\’t like housework or cooking much, but she was a great seamstress. I washed & cooked for these sixteen people & mum sewed & sewed. She was good at that & I did what I was good at.

Through his work at University House, Kees got us a house in Red Hill. We lived in there for 18 months, although we could hardly afford it. Then we got our house in O\’Connor. I lived there for twenty-eight years. It was difficult at times but I have never regretted coming to Australia. I love this country.

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