Family van Pelt
| First name | Family |
|---|---|
| Last name | van Pelt |
| Country of Origin | Indonesia |
| Date of Birth | 15/12/41 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 28/05/51 |
| Submitted by | Wilhelmina Penders |
Story
My family came to Australia because of the political situation in Indonesia in 1951, when after a horrendous civil war the Dutch were asked to leave. After much soul searching my parents decided to come to Australia after being strongly influenced by an Australian lady (Aunty Margie), who lived next door to us in Semarang and who told us that Australia was a great place for bringing up kids.
We flew in by air in a Constellation. We stayed overnight in Darwin and the next day we flew on to Sydney. The only eventful thing I can remember from the journey, that my youngest sister Els, who was only 8 months old, nearly died from lack of oxygen. She was a terribly fractious baby and we were all happy she stopped screaming on the plane, until my mother realised that she was going blue in the face. She was given oxygen and revived and lived to tell the tale.
Our first impressions of Australia was that it was a strange land, as all the children wore uniforms!
We lived for 18 months in Migrant Hostels, first in Bathurst and as it was too cold for us there we moved to Nelsons Bay NSW. There we were housed in an old army camp which was used as a migrant camp. That was the strangest part of my life as it was a great mixture of all sorts of people, from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Netherlands, Ukraine, Yugoslavia were living in the one small area.
It was a veritable United Nations. My mother was a school teacher by profession and my father was a lawyer. Dad was living away in Canberra for a long time as he had obtained work in the National Library. My mother was always used as a translator as she could speak Dutch, English, German and French. Sometimes this must have been very hard for her, as she was called in if people were seriously ill or in one case where a child died.
After 18 months in the hostel my father managed to find a house to rent and the family moved to Canberra in November 1952. There my mother had to learn to housekeep, as she did not have a clue how to cook or keep house. She received most of her cooking lessons from Mrs Woodrow, the lady next door. My mother was a gifted artist, pianist and organist, and was often asked to play at weddings and funerals. For years she also accompanied the Dutch choir from Father J. de Mooi.
After her retirement she turned out lots of beautiful paintings.