This is the second article in a new Pastoral Times series by Jacquie Marshall called ‘Looking back with Jac’.
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Through it, I wish to take you on a journey by recollecting life through each persons' unique perspective, connecting us through life experience and treasured memories.
My primary aim is to capture the memories of the older members of our community, in the hope these interviews will preserve history for families and enrich all of our lives as readers.
I am inspired by the words of Melchor Lim: "Listen to your elders’ advice. Not because they are always right, but because they have more experience of being wrong“.
This time I spoke with someone who could be described as “the happiest local lady” - Orana Residential Aged Care resident Pat O’Brien.
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Speaking with our older local residents is such a privilege, and honestly so heart warming.
I was beyond excited for my visit with Pat O’Brien.
On my way to her room I was guided through the outdoor area of the Orana Residential Care Facility and I found myself constantly staring at the beautiful surrounds.
The gardens were stunning, the yards well kept, there were numerous social settings to sit and chat and even a pet dog who looked right at home.
I had never met Pat previously, but upon entering her room I felt immediately at ease due to a combination of her warm personality and the homely environment she had created in styling her room.
Pat said she was both nervous and excited and not quite sure where to start, so we agreed to guide each other through the process.
But little guidance was needed.
She spoke her first word and we never looked back.
We began her story with the day she was born, November 20, 1928, at Deniliquin Hospital.
Pat is a true blue local, the daughter of Mary and Stephen O’Brien.
She describes her mother and father as “the most loving parents”.
“Dad was a quiet man, very clever, he could do anything,” she said.
“He was a dairy farmer, but he never wanted to be one. He wanted to be an engineer on a big ship.
“Mum was just a wonderful woman.”
Pat grew up on the family dairy farm, ‘Selbourne’.
“It was five miles out of Deni on the Lawson Syphon Road,” she said.
“We were reared on the farm; it was a simple life but such a good life.”
Pat refers to her brother Laurie O’Brien (dec) and sister Josie Jackson, 92, when she says “we”.
The children went to school at the convent in town, run by the Sisters of Mercy nuns.
“We would get dropped off on a Monday morning by mum and dad to board all week.
“Then they would pick us up on Friday evening to go home for the weekend; it was great going home.
“We were only seven or eight, and we did that until we were 12.”
After that time they rode their second hand bikes five miles one way to school and back everyday, to the same convent.
“We had to, as we were not well off,” she said.
“Faced with every kind of weather, not everyday was a good day making your way to school.
“There was a strong head wind, a strong tail wind, rain, hail and terrible dust storms where you would have to get off your bike and walk. We met the lot.”
When it came to grocery shopping, and other jobs in town, the family would use a horse and jinker.
“It was very bare then. There was no (Mulwala) channel, just very vast plains.
“The wind would blow across us. We had coats, gloves, hats and blankets and it was still cold.
“By jingo it was cold; they were cold, cold days.
“The winds used to come in August, the seasons have changed so much these days to back then.”
Pat finished school at the age of 16 and helped on the dairy farm after that.
“There was always a job to do,” she recalled.
She has the most fond memories of life on the farm, especially learning to cook with her mother.
“Mum was a marvellous cook,” she said with such clarity.
“I was seven or eight and my first job with mum was sifting flour.
“Then she took me through all the stages of baking and cooking.
“My sister Josie was a dad’s girl; she loved doing all the handyman jobs with him. I always loved cooking.”
Pat’s first job off the farm was a nine week stint at the local newsagency, then owned by Mr and Mrs Walker.
She was to look after the store while they were on holidays.
“I remember cleaning out the whole front display window, and when I tried to put it all back I had so much left over,” she giggled.
“I was in quite the spot.”
Pat then found her way to a hairdressing apprenticeship with Mrs Levy in Deniliquin at the age of 18.
She did that for two years, and completed her last two years in Bendigo.
When she returned to Deniliquin, her father was not well so she helped again on the family farm.
“Mum couldn’t do it on her own,” she said.
As she grew older, Pat began to find herself noticing a young man about town by the name of Terry O’Brien.
“I didn’t know him, but I thought he was alright,” she said with a wide smile.
“I met him outside Dalgety’s one day, I was there to pick up Josie from work.
“I looked up and he was just standing there.”
As though it was yesterday, Pat recalled “that was a Thursday, and on Sunday I looked up the road and saw a car coming down the driveway - it was Terry”.
“Dear old dad was outside in the garden with me, and he looked up and said ‘who’s that coming down the road?’.
“I replied ‘I think it is Terry O’Brien’ ”.
On the following Tuesday they began ‘courting’.
“Terry asked if I would like him to take me to the ball.
“That was the beginning of what would have been 68 years of marriage this year,” she said with a hint of tears in her eyes.
Pat’s beloved husband Terry passed eight months ago.
“Terry was a beautiful man.
“He never changed; he was just a darling,” she said with her heart full of love.
Pat’s favourite past time was attending weekly balls in Deni and other dances around the district with Terry.
“I loved dancing, I would dance all night,” she said with the biggest smile.
“If there was a dance we would be there.”
Pat recalled a ball where airmen and WAAF’s attended.
“You couldn’t move, it was packed,” she said.
“These young guys had just left school, you know 18 or 19.
“They would buy a bottle of beer and put the bottle in the hedge outside, then have a swig and put it back,” she said laughing.
“It went to their head pretty quickly and it wouldn’t take them long to get a bit silly. Poor little buggers.”
Pat and Terry married in September 1955, in Deniliquin, and went on to have seven beautiful children.
“I loved motherhood”, she said with such excitement.
“As soon as I got married I told Terry I wanted a baby straight away.
“Our first were three under three,” she sighed, not quite knowing how she made it through.
“It was full on, but I had a wonderful mum and plenty of family support.”
Pat now has 13 grandchildren and is waiting for great grandchildren to arrive.
“I think they have all gone on strike,” she laughed cheekily.
AMong her other proud achievements, Pat listed the first home she and Terry had built at 365 Sloane Street.
“It was only two bedrooms.
“It was a lovely new home and as the family grew, the house grew,” she said.
Pat’s love of gardening began at that beautiful new home.
She was a member of the Deniliquin Garden Club, which was established in 1978, and later became a life member.
“I made some beautiful friends and we all love gardening,” she said.
Pat always looks on the bright side of life, although counts the loss of both her parents and a son at the age of 18 as some of her most challenging moments.
“He was riding his motorbike and hit a table drain,” she painfully recalled.
“It was terrible. There were days where I just didn’t want to get out of bed, but you had to for the other children.”
Pat has one special memory of when her son came in one day and said he wanted to get the tusks out of a wild pig.
The course of action she took was to put it on the stove and boil it.
“How long will this take, how long is this pig’s head going to be like this?,” she asked.
“Four days it took,” she said with her lips all curled up.
“If he only knew what I had to go through, not to mention the horrible smell.
“But the tusks eventually came off and they were mounted on a board.
“The things you do for your kids.”
Pat loved taking the kids out to the farm and watching them drive around the paddocks and riding the horses.
“One of the boys came flying past on the horse one day and told me he was ‘being Roy Higgins (renowned local jockey) today mum’; God love him,” she said with delight at the memory.
“The farm was by the river so they would go down fishing and throw a tractor tyre in and float to the other side of the river.
“The farm provided us with so much fun.”
Pat was still all smiles when it came to the end of our chat and summed up life perfectly.
“I’ve had a full and very interesting life; I’ve always been happy.
“I met a beautiful man; you’re lucky when you get a good man.”
I thought I would try and seek her secret formula to life and how to look as amazing as she does at her age.
“I always ate well and I was always busy,” she said.
“Cooking nice food helps a lot.”
For now Pat said she is adjusting to life without her husband, and loves being surrounded by her family and friends.