Mary Appelman

Story

I was born in a little village in North Holland called Wognum, the youngest of 12 children, 7 girls and 5 boys. My father had decided to seek a better life and more opportunities for his large family in the post war years when the depression had made work was difficult to come by. Although we were accepted by the Immigration Department, our family however, was deemed too large for the Bonegilla Migrant Camp and so my father was required purchase a property, sight unseen, in Victoria some 12 months before our arrival.

News soon spread around the village and when a neighbour said to Dad ‘I hear you are going to America Kees’ he replied ‘No Griet, we are going to Australia’ to which she replied ‘Well it\’s all up that way isn\’t it.’ My kindly father just smiled.

The time for departure had finally arrived in November 1952 and so we left our beautiful two-storey brick home. I was only 18months old and my eldest sister was 24. We sailed on the ‘Fairsea’ and finally arrived in Melbourne on a hot day in January 1953. We were met at the wharf by a bus driver from Toolangi near Healesville where my father had purchased a potato farm. Several shocks awaited our family on that day. Firstly the bus driver had only one arm but still managed to drive the bus through the city and the mountainous roads to Toolangi. The second was that this new land was not only hot but it did indeed have mountains unlike the flats of North Holland. Thirdly we arrived at our new home to find in was a mere log cabin in the midst of the bush, miles from anywhere, and the cabin was infested with rats and an assortment of bugs. Ventilation however was adequate, with wind rushing through the gaps in the logs.

There were two squatters living in the cabin, and although there were 13 of us, my wonderful father allowed them to stay as well until they found alternative accommodation. The final shock came when our house lot of furniture had been delivered to Sydney instead of Melbourne and so we had to camp in our dirty miserable little cabin for 3 months without the comforts of home. For the first few weeks we all slept on straw on the floor, Mum and Dad in the middle with the boys on Dad\’s side and the girls on Mum\’s side. Mum and the older girls immediately set about in usual Dutch fashion cleaning our new dwelling to make it liveable. Our family soon grew even larger when the Dutch sweethearts of two of my brothers joined our family in Australia.

Unfortunately for us, we had managed to buy a potato farm the very year there was a glut of potatoes and consequently they sold for peanuts. My father and two of the older boys soon went out to find work in their proper trade as bricklayers leaving one brother to continue working the farm. They quickly found work in the Alexandra and Eildon district and only came home to Toolangi on weekends. The older girls were gainfully employed doing house cleaning. In late1954 the decision was finally made to sell the farm and rebuild a new house in Alexandra, which we did. The whole family managed to get ample work and everyone old enough to earn a wage, pooled their earnings to help Mum and Dad get a new start in life.

After some happy years in Alexandra, the boys, by now married, gradually moved to the Dandenong area where there were more prospects for bricklayers, and so finally in 1961 Mum, Dad and the younger members of the family joined them.

My parents never doubted their decision to migrate from their beloved homeland, and were very happy to see each and every one of their children make a good and honest living in their new adopted country. Likewise, they never wished to return to Holland and always called Australia home, and how grateful we all are that they had the courage to make such a difficult decision.

We have now celebrated 56 years in Australia and have made a great contribution to its population, with our family having grown from the initial 13 to a current total of 146 and still growing rapidly.

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