Showing posts with label Pakenham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakenham. Show all posts

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Home Deliveries to Cora Lynn in the 1940s and 1950s.

The Rouse family have had the newspaper delivered to Cora Lynn and Vervale since the end of World War Two. Dad remembers that Mrs Simcocks, from the Garfield Newsagency, used to deliver papers and the mail in her Chev (or it may have been a Dodge, it was a big American car). In the late 1950s, Mrs Simcocks got a VW Beetle and used that for deliveries.  We also got the mail delivered by Mrs Simcocks - apparently she took it from the Garfield Post Office to the General Stores at Vervale and Cora Lynn, where it was sorted and then delivered it with the papers.

If you lived less than two miles from the Post Office / General Store at Cora Lynn or Vervale, you didn’t get a mail delivery you had to pick it up from the Post Office.  Mrs Simcocks would also bring out small parcels such as items from the Chemist or even meat from the butchers if you rang early enough. The Rouse family on Murray Road always had the Sun News Pictorial delivered and this continued when Dad and Mum got married in 1956 and moved onto the farm on Main Drain Road. Sadly, our newspaper deliveries stopped at the end of June, 2017.

This is Grandma and Grandpa (Joe and Eva Rouse) and Delacy* the dog, taken around 1950. Joe's reading the paper, delivered that day from Garfield. I think Grandma has her apron in her hand. It's taken in front of the toilet, obviously a sunny spot!.

After Mum and Dad were married in 1956, they also had the bread delivered from the Garfield Bakery. Clarrie Lindsay delivered it on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Mum always ordered a Vienna loaf and this was delivered, unwrapped, and put into the letter box, which sometimes meant that if Mum and Dad had been out during the day it was a bit crusty when they took it out of the letter box a few hours later. In the 1950s, some of the owners of the bakery were the Umlaufts and the Lowndes.

The butcher, Mr Cumming, from Bunyip also delivered meat to Grandmas. Dad says that the butcher came out in his van and would do the butchering on the spot - the carcase had already been skinned etc, but he would just cut off chops etc to order. It sounds like a bit of a health and safety nightmare, but obviously people were made of sterner stuff in 1940s and 1950s!
This photograph shows some of the shops in Main Street in Garfield. 
It is possibly an Anzac day service as they appear to be laying a wreath, 1960s.

Mum always went to the butcher in Garfield; she went to Jimmy Fawkners, who was up near the Opp shop. She also went to Ernie Robert’s grocery shop (where the cafe is) which was a general store and also had hardware, crockery and groceries. Philip and Vera Wharington also had a grocery store in Garfield and they also stocked haberdashery.  However, around 1968 Robinsons in Pakenham opened up an experimental self service store and Mum began to shop there. Robinsons had operated a grocery store in Pakenham from the 1950s and later had the SSW store until Safeways took it over (around 1980)

Grandma, and most of the surrounding area, also had groceries and other goods delivered from Dillon’s store at Cora Lynn.  Les North, the delivery man, would come around the day before and take the order, which would be delivered the next day. The Cora Lynn store had opened in 1907 and the Dillon family took over in 1927 and operated it for decades.

* the dog was named after Grace De Lacy Evans, of Vervalac, Iona. She married Percy Pratt on June 24, 1919. Mr Pratt is on the Iona Honour Board, you can read about him and the other soldiers with an Iona connection, here.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

100 years ago this week - an account of two acccidents near Pakenham

An account of two dray accidents appeared in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal, 100 years ago this week, in May 1913.


South Bourke and Mornington Journal May 8, 1913. Page 5.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

100 years ago this week - Place names and railways

What was happening in the area 100 years ago this week? These are  two railway related articles and are from the South Bourke & Mornington Journal of November 7, 1912. Available on Trove  http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper

 South Bourke & Mornington Journal of November 7, 1912, page 2

Pakenham is a northern neighbour to the the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp, however as this article is about both railways and place names - two of my favourite historical subjects - then I had to include it. The Gippsland line to Sale was opened in stages - Sale to Morwell June 1877, Oakleigh to Bunyip October 1877, Moe to Morwell December 1877, Moe to Bunyip March 1878 and the last stretch from South Yarra to Oakleigh in 1879. Originally the only Station open between Dandenong and Pakenham was at Berwick.



South Bourke & Mornington Journal of November 7, 1912, page 2

The article, above,  lists all the revenue taken at the stations between Oakleigh and Bunyip, including the now defunct stop at the spur line that went to the Necropolis at Springvale and Jefferson's siding - a siding established for the Jefferson timber mill and later brick works at Garfield. It closed in May 1912.  The Necropolis (or Springvale Botanical Cemetery as it is now blandly known as) opened for burials in March 1902 and the railway line from the Springvale Station opened in 1904 - February  for visitors and March for mortuary trains. The Mortuary trains ceased in 1943 and the last visitor train was December 1950.