Hutchison family recollections by Beverley Mutch

My mother was (Esther) Jean Hutchison, daughter of Alec (Alexander?) and Philomena Hutchison. Her siblings were Vera, Eric, and Philomena. All are deceased.

Whylonga was the family property of Annie, Norman and Alec. I know there were several other brothers, but all had died before my time. I think Jean was born at Whylonga, but she grew up in Sydney. I know she and my father, Roderick McIver, spent their honeymoon there in 1936.

When my father went overseas in the early part of WW2, he wanted my mother and me to move from Sydney to Whylonga for our own safety in case of invasion. I know we moved there before Pearl Harbour – it was my birthday and I can remember the consternation of Annie, Norman and my mother.

Life at Whylonga was simple – there was no electricity, so all cooking was done over the kitchen open fire or occasionally in the fuel stove. The battery-operated radio only went on for the evening news and Dad and Dave. We used kerosene lamps and candles for light, and flat irons heated by the fire to warm our beds in the winter. We lived at Whylonga until some time in 1944, when we moved back to Sydney so my mother could assist in the care of my father’s mother who had been diagnosed with cancer. She died not long after, and we remained in Sydney. (My father had been captured in the fall of Singapore, and was a POW of the Japanese for 3½ years.)

From the time my father returned from the war, we spent many holidays at Whylonga with Annie and Norman, always travelling from Sydney by steam train. My grandfather Alec seemed to divide his time between Whylonga and his home in Sydney. My sister Jenny Anderson was born in August 1946, and I clearly remember us spending time at Whylonga while she was a ‘babe in arms’. Indeed I can recall us leaving Nimmitabel at the end of that stay on the afternoon of the night that several buildings in the town burnt down – I think the service station, general store, and ??? They later joked that my mother must have dropped a match!!

I used to go out with Alec and Norman to check the rabbit traps, and they taught me at a pretty early age how to (safely) use a 22 rifle. Rabbits were prolific in those days, and I’d often go out by myself and usually came back with a number of rabbits which they would feed to the dogs. I was taught how to milk, and how to make butter. With no refrigeration, foodstuffs were kept cool in a meat safe or in the coolest room of the house.

After my marriage in 1955, I lived in Melbourne until moving to Canberra in 1967. I know Alec died in late 1955, and Annie died in late 1957. I didn’t get to Nimmitabel in those years, but my mother made regular trips there from Sydney.

In the 1967-1970 period we made a few day trips from Canberra to see Norman, usually taking a picnic lunch. My young children loved the opportunity to see what life in the country was like.

When Norman died in 1971, my then husband (Bob Cooper) and I, along with several of the family, went to the funeral. Bob was one of the pall-bearers.

In July 1999, my sister and I, with our husbands, went back to Nimmitabel to scatter our mother’s ashes at the site of Annie’s and Norman’s graves.

From: Beverley Mutch mailto: mutches@austarmetro.com.au

13 December 2002