Jos and Lilian Hasenbos
| First name | Jos and Lilian |
|---|---|
| Last name | Hasenbos |
| Country of Origin | The Netherlands |
| Date of Birth | 1958 - 1962 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1984 |
| Submitted by | Lilian Hasenbos |
Story
My grandparents from my mother’s side (Martin & Johanna Kemperman with 5 children) applied to immigrate to Australia from The Netherlands in 1951 yet due to health reasons were not able to go ahead with it. My parents (Gerard and Barbara Welling with 3 children at that time) also applied to immigrate (in 1967) yet did not go ahead with it in the end. My father’s sister did emigrate with her husband ( Clary and Anthony Byen) in the early 50’s.
In 1983 Jos and I (Lilian Weling at the time) came to Australia for a “look” (yet my instict already told me, we had to emigrate to Australia).
It was on this working -holiday trip that we got caught in the middle of the Ashwednesday fires in Victoria (near Cockatoo). We were very impressed with how the whole community pulled together during the fires and also how they all worked together to rebuild their lives.
It was just after that, that we decided that we definetely wanted to emigrate.
One of the things that we still clearly remember is how one of our new made friends pointed out to us that going to Perth is not a one-day trip from Melbourne and we really required to get some more money to get there. At that stage, we had just no concept of the distances in Australia being so used to the short distances in The Netherlands. Hence we looked for work and stayed around Victoria as by now we wanted to immigrate as well and wanted to look for ways to settle in when we got ‘approved’ .
( It was not until 20 years later that we were able to do the famous trip to Perth – and loved it!!!)
Our holiday finished on Melbourne Cup day – November 1983- ( We can remember this “strange” thing people did: Having “chicken and champagne” breakfast).
In January 1984 we got married in Holland. Our application to immigrate was supported by the many friends that we had made on our trip and in December 1984 we immigrated to Australia!
Our first job was in Thredbo for a year. After that we settled down in Gembrook, along the now rebuilt “Puffing Billy track”, Victoria, where we brought up our two children Robin (1986) and Tania (1989).