Robert Field

Story

My father was born in Jackson Michigan USA. A small town, 1 hour from Detroit. His family was a fairly poor working class family with 7 kids one which died very young

His story started when he arrived in Australia on 30th Jan 1960 for a two year posting as a Marine Guard at the American Embassy in Canberra. Like many marines he fell in love with an Australian girl. She was a secretary at the embassy. They met when my father offered to walk her to her car, to protect her from a persistent ex boyfriend who was waiting for her outside the embassy. One thing led to another and they started dating. At the end of his posting he returned to the USA only to find out that the girl he had left in Australia was pregnant. She went to the USA to be with him, and shortly after they were married, and I was born (Mark Robert). A year later my brother appeared (Curtis Franklin), we were both born in Jackson Michigan where we were living at the time. My father left the Marines and worked in a variety of jobs before deciding that, as he loved Australia, and my mother was homesick, he would move to Australia and try to find a better job.

With a young family (He was 24 and my mother was 23, I was 2, my brother was 1), he headed off on a 27 hour flight to Australia, on a Pan America Boeing 707. The family arrived in Sydney Sep 1964

After being picked up in Sydney by my uncle and aunt, the family was driven to Canberra (a 5 hour drive, back then). When they arrived, the central lake (Lake Burly Griffin, the lake which this bridge spans) was just being filled. And everywere you looked there was a lot of nothing. A true bush capital. Being from a small town it suited my father so he did not mind. My father was told there would be a job waiting for him, but when he arrived, there was no job.

He found work as a laborer worked on the water reservoir on Oaky hill. The family only had one car, an old Morris Minor. Most days when my mother took my father to work, the little car would only make it half way up the hill. She often needing other workers to help her get the car up the dirt track, so she could drop off or pick up dad from work. On these trips my mother would tie me and my brother into the seats with rope so we would not get hurt as it had no seatbelts.

Eventually my father found a stable job driving Government cars and busses. The family settled in what was then the outer suburban area of Canberra called Woden (now central Canberra) and had two more children, Derek William, and Michelene Anne, giving them 4 kids aged 4 or under. We all grew up in Canberra seeing many changes, such as New Parliament house being built, and the Canberra Bush fires.

My father is now divorced and all the kids except for me are living in either Sydney(Curtis and Derek) or Melbourne (Michelene). My mother Annette is living on the gold coast with her new husband.

My Father still Loves Canberra and is now naturalized. He is more Ausy than most people I know, and has no desire to travel overseas again, either to visit relatives or for a holiday. As he says, why would I? I am happy here.

< Back to the Stories