Edna Irene Holmes née Deppeler 22/2/1924-8/10/2016
Edna was born in Yinnar South Victoria, the fifth child to Albert and May Deppeler and grew up on the dairy farm Lucerne. Edna was immensely proud of her family and their heritage and would often remind us that we came from pioneering stock because the Deppeler's were early pioneers in the district. Mum considered her childhood blessed and often told us of picnics by the creek, eating apples from the orchard, riding and wandering the local hills. This I found intriguing as Mum's sense of direction was pretty terrible but she never got lost on these expeditions apparently. The children all worked on the farm and the girls used to do the afternoon milking after school. Her Father called them his nightingales because the girls all sang at the top of their voices while they milked the cows.
It was a very loving family and their home was always open to visitors and friends and relatives to stay. She always scoffed at the way people these days cringed at sharing beds because she shared a bedroom with her sisters and a bed with her sister Thel. She said their was an indentation in the wall where she used to put her toe and use it as a base to push Thel back to her side of the bed.
As a very young child Mum wrote her name in the door of the family chiffoneir. When challenged by her father she initially denied it ' saying she could write better than that!' Her father very gently but firmly told her that it was extremely important to always be truthful and so she confessed. It was a misdemeanour she was ribbed about ever after by her siblings. That first lesson about honesty always stayed with her and she considered it a cornerstone in her values, always impressing on us the importance of honesty.
She went to the local school till she was 14 and old enough to leave. In her last year she completed a year of correspondence lessons under the supervision of the teacher, studying French, which she loved, and commercial principles among other subjects.
This enabled her to obtain a job in the grocery store at Yinnar Sth where she did the accounts.
She used to ride her horse Lady to work every day. Mum must have been a very good rider because occasionally she had to ride her brother Blue's horse and it was used to galloping at top speed. Mum said you no sooner put your foot in the stirrup and it would take off but she never fell off.
Mum always attributed her good health to growing up on the farm, eating home grown food and leading such an active life.
Her father had a Swiss heritage and he used to butcher their own meat, and make their own sausages and bacon. The girls used to churn the butter and the larder was always full of home made preserves, jams and chutneys. This tradition of a full pantry has been the source of much amusement from all of the next generation who declare that we could live out of our mother's pantry's for at least six months! Mum told us that her father used to show them all the parts of the animal when he was butchering so that they got very real and vivid biology lessons. They hand raised many calves and mum was proud to win a ribbon for her calf at the local agriculture show.
As she grew older she moved with Thel to Melbourne to work. Because she worked in the grocery industry she got men's wages and so it was considered a good job. I always wondered why Mum didn't go to art classes once she got to Melbourne but she told me they worked six days a week and very long hours so there was never the time. She had wanted to become a nurse but her father and the local doctor thought it was too hard a job for such a petite young woman. The irony was that when she joined the army during the war she was a nurses aid and did all the hard work!
After a broken romance with an American soldier mum decided she needed to do something different with her life so she joined the Army nursing corps. They trained at Darly near Bacchus Marsh outside Melbourne and she said she had never been as fit in her life. They never walked anywhere but ran. After her training as a nurses aid she was posted to the military hospital Heidelberg and worked there until she met Dad who was one of the patients. She credits nursing so many young soldiers with horrific wounds or illnesses with restoring her faith in men. Once she and dad married they were demobbed and moved to Gatton Queensland where Dad had come from. It was hard for Mum to leave her large family. She had her children here and lived a challenging and interesting life.
