Gallery Samples Stories of our Ancestors | Page 38

As time went by and yet more babies were born, Ida’s migraine headaches became intensely
painful. There was no rest for her, no soothing darkened room and no pills to relieve the pain.
She was alone with crying babies and her temper, always tenuous, grew more and more
frightening especially for the older children. There was never free time for Ruby, never time to
be a child or a teenager, never time to read.
Ruby would delay going home from school by surreptitious visits to the library and sneaking
home her borrowed books. The outside toilet was the only place she could steal a few moments
of reading peace before her Mother’s strident voice would demand she stop wasting time and
come and work.
School for all the children was St Mary’s Government School, situated over the road from St
Mary’s church and close to the Convent. St Mary’s was a free school for the poor of the Catholic
community. It was a Primary School, the highest class being Standard Six. No school uniform
was required. All the ‘rich kids’ went to the fee-paying Convent and wore a uniform. The two
schools were separated by a never-crossed invisible line alongside the Chapel, but they were
run separately and I doubt whether even the nuns mixed. They certainly each stayed within
their respective schools and one never saw them together. Possibly they belonged to a different
Order. When Ruby completed Std Six and was eligible for high school, there was no money to
send her to the Convent. Neither was it deemed necessary that she have any further education.
However, according to legal statute she was not allowed to leave school until the age of 16. The
dilemma was solved by keeping her at St Mary’s in Std 6 for another two years.
Looking at this sad story from afar one wonders why she could not have attended one of the
other Government schools, Russell High for example. I can’t help wondering if the clergy, who
were more concerned with her Catholic soul than her education had something to do with it.
So poor Ruby who loved school and wanted nothing more than to study had to leave school at
sixteen having written Standard 6 three times. Then she was forced into taking up menial work
in a factory, a tragedy which shamed her all her life. Eventually she was apprenticed to Miss
Child as a learner dressmaker and she could hold her head up high again.
In spite of all the lost dreams of education and the responsibilities of siblings and domestic
dreariness, Ruby and her sister Tilly seem to have been exuberant teenagers, particularly as
they grew older and became more involved in friends and parties. Although they had to
contribute to the support of the family with their wages they now had a little money for
themselves. The brothers, especially Gordon were avid honkey-tonk piano players and most
evenings after dinner duties were complete, and the little ones in bed, there would be singsongs and lots of laughter encouraged by Jack. Usually there would be friends, or at least the
priest visiting as happened in big Catholic families.

38