SUNSHINE YEARS
Sunshine returned to my life in 1974 when I realized I was pregnant with our fifth child. I had been feeling the despair of poverty – making do on a truck driver’s wage, the loss of a car and the need to once more begin paying off a home. All my homemaking skills came in useful as I again established a vegetable garden. I began sewing school uniforms to earn a little cash. To this day Carol despises any food called soup or stew and refuses to eat ripe bananas, because I discovered that one of the fruit shops put aside boxes of spoiled fruit and vegetables, which could be purchased for only a dollar. We ate lots of apple pies, banana cakes, fruit salad and vegetable soups. My children were never hungry but they sometimes wished for the ‘take away’ foods that other families bought. Stewart’s work meant that once more he was frequently absent and I had to cope alone in emergencies, like when Paul had acute appendicitis.
The return to Dalby and Stewart’s employment in the family transport firm had a downside, in that there is always dissension and rivalry when family members live and work in close proximity. The bankruptcy of our business brought shame on the McIver family name. Stewart worked long hours partly to bring home extra money, but also to lose himself in his work. Less forthright women within the family began to see me as different to them and labeled me as “strong and capable“. This allowed all family members to look the other way when I was in need of assistance. I was slipping into depression when I realized I was pregnant. Stewart welcomed the thought of a new baby, saying he had neglected his other children and promised to become a family man after the birth of our son. Adrian was a much loved baby and I called him the “Sunshine of my life,” because he brought joy and hope back into our home.
Then Cyclone Tracey struck Darwin in the Northern Territory and once more our lives were changed.
There is and old saying, “It is an ill wind that doesn’t bring some good!” So it was with Cyclone Tracey. The city of Darwin was largely destroyed by the cyclone and had to be rebuilt. Goods needed to be trucked north from Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and many transport companies flourished. The four men in Stewart’s family established a new transport company to shift building supplies and other items from Brisbane to Darwin. Instead of working as a truck driver, he now supervised the loading of trucks in the depot at Dalby. This meant he slept in our bed at night and ate meals at home, but he remained absent from our lives as he worked long hours. The transport businesses prospered and our income improved so that by 1979 Stewart and I could afford to take our first overseas holiday. My mother cared for our children while we toured New Zealand for two weeks. It was there that I bought the beautiful suede suit of Wapiti deer skin that I’m wearing in the family photo.
The family, 1979
When Adrian was born the older children were all at school and I decided to become involved in the Dalby community, taking him with me to meetings or leaving him for short periods with his grandmothers. I joined the Dalby Queensland Forum Club, a group of about twenty women devoted to improving their speaking ability and knowledge of meeting procedure. Although nervous about speaking in public I thoroughly enjoyed reading for research, as I garnered knowledge on the differing speech subjects. While a teenager at boarding school I had been denied the opportunity to learn Art of Speech. Now, I was self-educating myself and relishing the drama whenever I stepped up to the Dais. An unexpected advantage was that when I picked up a book to read, my children no longer saw me as having idle time and available to be approached with their problems. Instead they respectfully told each other, “Mum is researching!” Another wonderful aspect of my years in Forum was the long lasting friendships I made with other women.
By 1979 my life had reached an enjoyable period, but it wasn’t to continue. My sisters and I each received a large legacy. I now had money and no idea of what to do with it. My father always said, “A man will create wealth, his children will conserve wealth and their children will squander it. Wealth seldom lasts more than three generations.”
Money brings responsibility. I would have conserved my wealth, as did my sisters, but Stewart urged me to invest the money to create a secure future for our children. He became concerned when I paid off the debt on our home, bought a new lounge suite and a set of stainless steel saucepans. For months he pestered me with suggestions until he finally shouted at me, “If you don’t invest your money, inflation will mean that you won’t have enough left within a year to buy a Holden Kingswood! You want me to spend more time with the family. Well buy us a farm where I can teach our sons farming!” He convinced me to act by persuading me that my actions would benefit our children. There was nothing I wanted more than to have my husband spend time with his family.
I bought an eighty acre farm 20kilometres from Dalby with a three bedroom cottage, an orange orchard, several rows of grape vines and about forty acres of cultivation land suitable for growing grain. I saw it as no more than a hobby farm, a property where Stewart and I could relax with our children at weekends. I envisaged myself baking bread in the oven of the combustion wood stove while Stewart spent time with our children teaching them farming skills. I didn’t invest my inheritance to earn money, I spent it to buy us a family lifestyle.
To be continued.
