Sunday 31 July 2016

Reflections on Nana Rainbow - a Butchulla Elder

Members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are advised that this blog contains names and images of deceased people.


Chantel Van Wamelen belongs to the local Butchulla community. She is in her final year of university studying a Bachelor of Human Services and is a community support worker at Centacare, Fraser Coast. Through her studies at university she became interested in her family history and researched her Great Grandmother known affectionately as Nana Rainbow. She reflects on how government policies impacted her Great Grandmother and her family’s life.


Chantel and her Great Grandmother Nana Rainbow


“Queensland had a number of policies implemented to manage Indigenous people. In Queensland the Chief Protector was able to enforce protection polices to the effect that Indigenous people could be removed into large, highly regulated government settlements and missions. Children were removed from their mothers at about the age of four years and placed in dormitories away from their families. At about the age of 14 years, the children were sent off the missions and settlements to work” she continued.
"This happened to my Great Grandmother Eileen Rainbow nee Gala". 
Eileen Rainbow as a young woman.

“At the age of 10 she was removed from her mother in Hervey Bay and placed in a Cherbourg dormitory with her sister Maudie” Chantel explains.  She was separated from siblings at age 13 -17 and sent to Blackall to work on a station. She then worked as a nanny and servant for a local lawyer’s family in Maryborough.  She reunited with her mother Emily Gala and with her siblings. She remained close with them until they all passed. She met my great grandfather William Rainbow in Maryborough and married him and they started their own family. They moved to Childers and she worked for a family called the Kingstons".
Nana Rainbow and her grandson Noel (Chantel's father).
Chantel continues “This has had an impact on me by people doubting my identity and our family’s connection with the local Butchulla community. It resulted in deep losses of identity, culture, language, history, family and community. In the face of this hardship, our family have drawn on our incredible strength of character and unshakable knowledge of our Aboriginal identity. We have worked to find all the documentation and oral history to ensure that our links to our country and our ancestors is kept intact"


“The repercussions that this policy had on Nanna Rainbow and her family were devastating and huge” reflects Chantel.  “We may never know the full ramifications of these events as she rarely spoke about what had happened to her. I am not sure if this was out of shame or fear or if the events were so disturbing that she couldn’t bring herself to discuss it.” “My Aunty Annette has said that when my Great Grandmother, her mother and her sisters would get together around the camp fire they would grieve together by crying and wailing. Being separated would have caused loneliness, dislocation, deprivation of affection and love, and created stress and grief.” Chantel continues. “It was thought to have made them stronger women and pulled the family unit closer together.” Chantel said “It changed their ability to practice traditional culture. The woman only carried out traditions amongst themselves and not around others. The trust in governments and mainstream society was destroyed and they lived in fear of this happening again”.



Nana Rainbow and the younger members of the family.

Chantel concludes "Recent land rights success handing ownership of K’Gari (Fraser Island) back to Butchulla people has been a positive step forward to acknowledge Butchulla people. I am very proud to be part of this process and we have great hope for our future”.

Tags #Butchulla #K'Gari #FraserIsland #Frasercoastlibraries

Sunday 24 July 2016

Local History Local Music – Alfred and Olivea Wynne

The first tower for Radio 4MB was erected at the residence of A. P. Wynne, 669 Kent Street, Maryborough. This photograph shows the pole being transported from the Hyne & Son Sawmill in lower Kent Street. Walkers Limited Shipyards is shown in the background of the photograph. This image is part of the Maryborough Wide Bay & Burnett Historical Society Inc. collection. Copies of this image can be purchased from the Maryborough Wide Bay & Burnett Historical Society Inc. Contact emailmuseum@maryboroughhistoricsociety.com.au
Fraser Coast Libraries and Maryborough Wide Bay and Burnett Historical Society Inc are working together on a Historypin project Local History Local Music found here 

During this project we have discovered that Alfred and Olivea Wynne were significant members of the local area's musical community.

Alfred Percy Wynne and Olivea Jean Wynne were business owners of Wynne’s Music Store in Maryborough. They married in 1913 and established the business in 1919 in the old Chronicle building, Adelaide Street before moving to Kent Street. Details can be found here

Mr Wynne was the secretary of the Philaharmonic Society and Secretary of the Wide Bay  and Burnett Musical Festival Council. Details found here 

Mr Wynne as managing director of 4MB in 1932 was very involved in developing commercial broadcasting in Maryborough. The first broadcast was from the Wynne’s home in upper Kent Street. Details found here  and here

Maryborough Family History  (Pin Interest collection) 673 Kent St - Alfred and Olivia Wynne's house from where 4MB was first transmitted.
It then moved to above Wynne's music store in 1937.


Alfred Percy Wynne died in 1966 and Olivea Jean Wynne died in 1968. They bequested $200 000 to the University of Queensland to be used as scholarships for Maryborough students. The 50th anniversary of this bequest is coming up and the University is keen to find out more about this philanthropic Maryborough couple.

Do you know why they donated this money to University of Queensland?

Have you or anyone you know completed studies with the help of this scholarship and live in Maryborough?

Do you know anything about the musical history of Maryborough?

Please come along to our special Historypin Local History Local Music chat group Tuesday 12 noon on the 2nd of August at the Maryborough Library E Space and help us keep our musical history alive.

Tags: #AlfredWynne #wynnes #musicstore #Historypin #localhistorylocalmusic #frasercoastlibraries #maryborough

Friday 15 July 2016

Arnie Twigg and Maryborough Gasworks


Arnie Twigg retiring from looking after the Chronicle files 5th June, 1987.
This image is part of the Maryborough Wide Bay & Burnett Historical Society Inc. collection. Copies of this image can be purchased from the Maryborough Wide Bay & Burnett Historical Society Inc. Contact emailmuseum@maryboroughhistoricsociety.com.au Identifier: Image CP440 
Arnie Twigg was a well known character around Maryborough. In the days when lights were gas lit and not automatic, shops still wanted lights on outside of their businesses at night. His job was to use a stick, with a hook on the end, to turn the lights on outside of the Maryborough shops. He would return to turn them off in the morning. “He was a little man, often on his own, walking the streets at dusk and dawn” a reader remembers.
Gas was big business in Maryborough. “The Maryborough Gas and Coke Company Ltd was formed in 1878 – the directors being many Maryborough businessmen namely – Henry Palmer, John Walker, John Graham, J.Gilbert, R.M. Hyne, W.Young and E.Booker" (Scougall, n.d.).
If you walk into Bowen Street Maryborough today you can see the brick building which was constructed in 1883.  It was designed by Willoughby Powell, and over the entrance is the motto in Latin Ex Fumo Dare Lucem (Scougall,n.d.). Scougall says, “I am told that the translation broadly means to bring light from smoke."
Gas became the predominant source of lighting from the commencement on the second of August, 1879 through to the fifties. Information about this beginning can be found here 
Expansion plans can be found here
After this time demand for gas diminished, until March, 1965 when “the change over from a coal gas plant to a reforming plant using liquefied petroleum took place" (Scougall, n.d.).
With the reduction in the demand for gas, Arnie’s services were no longer needed. He moved on and worked for a time organising the Chronicle files.

Do you have any more memories about Arnie or the gasworks?

Scougall,I. (n.d.) The Golden Mile, Local History Talk, Maryborough Library. Also found in the Local History Vertical Files.

Tags #Gasworks #Maryborough #Arnietwigg #frasercoastlibraries