Eunice Long died on December 27 last year. But before her passing, she penned her Own Words for the Gannawarra Times to provide a glimpse into her wonderful life.
OWN WORDS – EUNICE LONG (16/3/1925 – 27/12/2020)
IT’S been a hard, tough old life but it’s been worth it.
I was a Davey, from Mystic Park. Our grandparents had the old Mystic Park Hotel.
My father, William, was a soldier in World War 1, along with his brother Aussie and two of Mum’s brothers. One brother was killed in Flanders in 1917.
My Uncle Bob Davey was in the World War 2, along with cousin Stumpy O’Shea, Harry Scriven, Cyril Pertzel, Bob Fortune, Harold Fields and Arthur Fogarty. Sadly, Uncle Bob was killed in a bombing raid in Mersa Matruh. Another mate of theirs was John Gorton, who joined the airforce and was badly injured in a plane crash.School
I DIDN’T start school until I was six and when I started I sat on the doorstep all day because I was too shy. But then they had a bit of a garden going and I always loved to go out in the garden, so that sort of brought me out.
When we first started we stayed at the hotel all week because the farm was four and a half miles out.
Then when I was old enough to ride a horse. My brother and I used to ride, just the two of us. The others didn’t ride horses and they used to go in a horse and cart. I always loved horses.
Helping Mum
I LEFT school early because Mum had eight children. I came third. I had two older sisters, then there were two boys, twin girls and a baby who arrived 10 years later.
I had to help Mum with the kids. Mum had very bad legs as well, bad varicose veins. I looked after the kids and did everything I could to help – housework and milking a couple of cows.
Mum
MUM was a beautiful cook. She did everything. Made all her jam. We always got fruit from the Cross brothers, who lived on a farm and had heaps of fruit trees. We went around in the horse and cart when the fruit was ripe. Mum made apricot jam, plum jam – all the jams you can think of. She’d make dry biscuits, which she’d roll and roll, and they were beautiful.
I learnt to cook and to be a tidy person. Mum used to wash for everyone in a great big tub. Everything had to be clean. She would wash and iron everything. She starched everything and she’d blue them. She had a big copper outside. And the clothesline was on sticks.
Mum was an O’Brien, Mary Jane O’Brien, and I always said: “I don’t want to be a Davey, I want to be an O’Brian”. I loved my mum so dearly. She was amazing.
Toby Long
TOBY’s father was Garvey Long, who was very strict. He took his son out of high school when he was about 15. Toby used to drove cattle or sheep from Lake Cham to Swan Hill on a horse. He would sleep in the same sort of area as whatever stock he took. There was a little old shed near where his sheep used to get shorn where he slept on a mattress on the floor. He reckoned mice used to run over him and he was terrified of snakes.
One day when I was about 18 I saw Mum with the water jug – we had beautiful water on the farm from underground wells. I asked her what she was doing and she said, “Oh, Toby was going past with a mob of sheep and he wanted a drink”. I don’t remember seeing Toby. But later on, when I mentioned it to him he said, “I saw you flippin’ by!”
He was very tall and he was a year younger than me. I was a cradle snatcher!
He gave me a watch for my 21st birthday. I was working at the Mystic Park Hotel then. I worked there as a waitress for a year before we were married. There wasn’t much pay. I got more in tips. Toby and I were engaged for 12 months and married when I was 22.
Married life
AFTER we were married Toby worked for his father and we lived in a house beside Lake Charm near where the yacht club is now. I milked three cows and separated the milk and made butter from the cream and sold it to neighbours. That was until I got too busy with the babies, Geoff and David.
In about 1953 we moved to Phillip Island, where my first daughter, Julie, was born.
In 1955 we came back to Lake Charm and bought a farm and house next door to the Lake Charm picnic grounds, which are now the Lake Charm Foreshore Caravan Park.
We milked cows there and our other two daughters, Robyn and Dianne, were born.
Later life
AFTER the kids had all gone we had to move into Kerang because we couldn’t work things on our own.
We got a spec house in Lilac Avenue and lived there until Toby died. He worked too hard. That’s why he ended up having a stroke.
It was terrible the night it happened because there was no one there but my husband and I, and the ambulance took so long to arrive. That was 27 years ago.
Widowed
AFTER Toby died is when I did all my walking. I’d walk to the street over the railway bridge and do my groceries. I love walking.
I had a lovely little garden going and I grew beautiful tomatoes. I made my own pickles and jam – plum jam and apricot jam – and relish and tomato sauce.
In my mid 80s I decided to sell the house and move into a unit.
I was so annoyed when I fell and broke my pelvis and had to leave the unit.
Moving to Glenarm
I WAS in Bendigo Hospital for five weeks and they got me walking with a walker and doing physio, and then I came back to Kerang and was in hospital for a week. Then I came to Glenarm. They won’t let me go back to the unit.
In the mornings I usually go down and put the bibs out on the meal trays for the oldies.
I’ve got a white budgie called Elly I’ve had for about six months. He’s got big feet. He’s a very clever bird. He’s won prizes. He’s very cheeky. He’s too smart for his own good really. He used to fly over and pull my hair.
I spend a lot of time talking to my family on the phone.
Family
MY eldest son, Geoff, was 63 when he died of a heart attack in 2012. Out at Reedy Lake they’ve got an Apex Club monument for him because he worked very hard for Apex and did a lot of work at that park.
My second son, David, is 69. He has five children and lives in Barham.
My eldest daughter, Julie, lives in Brisbane and has six children and still looks after foster children full time. She has had more than six over the years who she has raised from small babies. My second daughter is Robyn, and she has four daughters and works at a Catholic school in Doreen.
My youngest daughter, Dianne, had twin daughters and they live in northern NSW.
Back to the pub
DIANNE and I went and stayed the night at the Mystic Park Hotel not long ago. The people there now do a lovely job. And they took photos and got me to write a story from when I was younger to put in their books. The next morning they were going off to work and they said, “We’re leaving the keys with you. Because you were a Davey and we trust you”.
