I haven’t blogged for almost a week. Sure, I’ve sent a few e-mails to mailing lists and responded to things that couldn’t wait but I haven’t really indulged my main writing passion which is this blog. The reason is that I felt I couldn’t post another thing until I acknowledged the passing of my Grandmother.

Last Friday night I received a phone call from my father telling me that my grandmother (his mother) had passed away and that they were going into see her at the home. The next morning I called home to see what arrangements were being made for the funeral so I could figure out if I could attend or not.

Initially I didn’t think I would be able to make it by my beautiful wife Nicola convinced me that I should just put everything aside and head back up to Queensland where most of my family lives – she then proceeded to book flights and pack my bag (thank-you Nic, you have been wonderful).

Grandma often looked her grandchildren when our parents had to go off and do something. I remember my little brother and I misbehaving badly from time to time and then hiding under the bed while Grandma used to try and find us (and tell us off for whatever we did wrong).

I also remember sitting on the floor of her house at Brackenridge pulling out miscellaneous items from her cupboards and playing with them. She had a yellow glass ashtray that I used to turn upside down and pretend was a flying saucer (even then I was a geek).

The funeral service was held on Wednesday (yesterday morning) and I felt it did a good job of paying respect to an amazing person. My Auntie Sherida put together a history about my Grandmother – I’ve posted it here because I think its appropriate.

Ethel Atkinson Denny

Ethel was born Ethel Kathleen Atkinson on the 23rd of July 1915. Her brother Willy was by then, in the trenches somewhere in Europe and never saw this youngest daughter born to their parents William and Mary Atkinson at Gayndah. Ethel was the youngest daughter, and second youngest child, of a family of elevent children comprised of five girls and six boys. The girls were: Lil, Violet, Phyllis, Ivy and, of course Ethel who we are farewelling today. The boys were Willy, Joe, Jack, Arthur, Harold and Bert, the youngest child and Ethel’s only surviving sibling who still lives on his cane farm property at Bundabert (and who is not with us today). Ethel’s parents also raised Lils’s three children, Snow, Jessie and Jean. Ethel was particularly close to Jean, who was her bridesmaid before marrying an American soldier and going to live in America where she died some years ago.

Ethel’s childhood was, by all accounts, a happy one. Although the family was poor, her parents enjoyed a happy relationship and, like most families of those times, they made do. The house Ethel was born into was small for such a large family and consisted possibly of only three rooms, including a kitchen with a dirt floor and a closed-in verandah where the girls slept, with beds lined up in boarding school dormitory fashion. Each girl had a peg at the top of their bed where they hung their clothes. There were not many changes of clothing and the children mostly went barefoot. The boys slept in the shed and the evening meal was often cooked over a campfire. There were lots of household chores for Ethel to help with – fetching water from the river, churning butter, baking bread and collecting eggs (which her moether sold to neighbours). Winters were cold and winter clothing limited.

Ethel’s father was a horseman and so too was Ethel’s brother, Joe, who had achieved considerable fame as a world champion buck jump rider who travelled the eastern seaboard with a renowned rodeo show. Ethel herself learnt to ride very early in life, probably around four years of age, and this was the only means of getting to school. She was educated at the Gayndah Convent for her primary education and Granite Hill state school at Mount Debatable for her junior secondary education. From there she won a scholarship to Brisbane State High which she attended in 1931 and 1932.

Ethel chose nursing as her profession. she did not have to develop a caring attitude and a compassionate nature for these qualities were second nature to her. Ethel completed her general nursing training at Nambour Hospital where all of her children were later born and then her midwifery course at Maryborough Hospital. In 1940 she was offered the position of Matron at Lady Musgrave Hospital, Maryborough, subsequently taking up the same role at Adevale Public Hospital in 1941 and Quilpie Hospital in 1942. Following marriage and children, she joined the staff at Selangor Private Hospital in Nambour in 1960, before working at the Maroochydore Medical Clinic from 1960 until 1966. From 1967 to 1968 she worked in the Brain Surgery Unit at Royal Brisbane Hospital before taking up her final nursing position as Matron of the Gayndah Hospital in 1969.

Ethel married Ernie Denny on the 28th of November 1942 at the Mt Carmel Church, Coorparoo, with Ernie, having enlisted, wearing his army uniform and Ethel having to scrimpt, save and scrounge coupons to buy her wedding dress and put on a wedding spread for their guests. Ethel and Ernie gew up as neighbours at Gayndah, with her mother helping to deliver many of Ernie’s siblings, for his family had even more children than her own.

When Ernie went to serve in the South Pacific, Ethel was matron at Quilpie Hospital, subsequently moving to Buderim when their first child, Kathleen, was born in 1943. Ernie had to wait until the war ended to see his firstborn. Ethel’s move to Buderim was fortuitous, it seems, for they subsequently bought land and built a house there that still stands, and is occupied, today. Ernie worked the rich soil of Buderim, growing strawberries, bananas and vegetables and grew free range chickens. By the time Sherida was born in 1947 and Narelle in 1949, Ethel had found and purchased a home at Maroochydore because Buderim, hard as it is to believe today, was too isolated and public transport non-existent. Following the move to Maroochydore, Patrick was born in January 1951 and following his untimely death, Lyle was born almost two years later in December 1952. Ernie travelled from Maroochydore to Buderim to work the farm and Ethel, showing an entrepreneurial streak, established a fruit and vegetable stall underneath the house at Maroochydore. A loyal customer base soon developed for the fruit and vegetables where fresh and of the highest quality.

When the children had left home, Ethel sold the Maroochydore house (the farm at Buderim having already been sold) and eventually Ethel and Ernie bought a house at Brackenridge where Ethel continued to live following Ernie’s death. Ethel loved her home at Brackenridge where she spent approximately 30 years. On the 9th of February 2002 Ethel moved into Abbey Gardens wheree she spent the last three and a half years of her life. She adjusted well, showing great fortitude, courage and grace.