Sunday Selections # 115



Welcome back to Sunday Selections!

This once-a- week-meme was originally begun by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock, as a way to showcase some of the many photos we all take, but don't get around to showing on our blogs.

Go on over and give Kim some sympathy, she has much pain in her hand right now and can't be working on her hand-made ceramics. 

The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to me, River, somewhere in your post
3. leave me a comment so that I know you've joined in and can come over and see what you've posted.
4. hop on over to The Elephant's Child to see more of her wonderful photos.

I usually go with a theme for my Sunday Selections but this week I have only two photos for you. 
Still a theme though. 

Recently, Andrew put up an article about the Nissen Huts that housed floods of  immigrants to Australia after World War Two.

I commented on his post that I was sure I had a couple of photos of me on the steps of such a hut. 
So I went searching for them.....and I was wrong. 
I'm not even sure if Bonegilla Migrant Camp, in Victoria,  had Nissen Huts at all. 
Certainly the steps we're sitting on aren't attached to a Nissen Hut. 

It's also possible that in this photo we aren't even at the Bonegilla Camp anymore.
I'm sure I was one year old here and by 18 months old I had a baby brother, and he was born in Melbourne.

That's my older sister in the photo, she wasn't happy being in a strange new country and not understanding the language. We were from Germany and German was all she knew at age 4.
The food was probably a shock too. I'm told it took her a long time to adjust.

This must have been taken in the winter, J is wearing her boots and I actually have clothes on, instead of just a singlet and nappy. Look, I'm even wearing shoes!

So apologies to Andrew, no Nissen Huts here after all.

I have only one clear memory of that early time and that is of J and me eating breakfast or lunch in a very large dining hall with big wooden tables perpendicular to the walls on either side, and a wide aisle between them.
I questioned Mum once and asked where that had been, but she told me it never happened.
Just like we never lived in -------??
 Huh?
(We did, briefly, on ------ Road. Mum let that slip once and it fit with my memory, but I let it slide) 


Comments

  1. It still could be a Nissen Hut, the ends were often made of timber. Never mind, great old photos.

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  2. Gorgeous old photos - and I love the small you.
    My father also came from Germany and I don't think he ever did adapt to the different food. Well adapt maybe, but I know he missed the tastes he grew up with.

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  3. Wonderful pictures! My grandfather on my mother's side was the first in the family to be born here in the US in 1906, and they also immigrated from Germany.

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  4. Such a tiny you.

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  5. Oh, how I love those old photographs. Thanks for sharing.
    MOH and his first wife emigrated here from the UK in 1960 and lived in South Australia for 2 years. I am sure when they were first there they did live in a Nissen Hut. As a youngster I remember there being quite a lot of them in Perth for migrants and had friends who had lived in one when they first arrived in WA.I

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  6. Andrew; I hadn't thought of that. I meant to google images of Bonegilla but got sidetracked by huge yawns and falling asleep.

    Elephant's Child; my parents missed the tastes they'd grown up with too. A few times a year mum would travel to Adelaide Central Market from Port Pirie and come home with stuff that only they would eat and my sister too. The only German foods I liked were the coffee cakes and the apple strudels.

    Cindi Summerlin; 1953 for us, born in Germany, learned to walk on board the ship, then grew up totally Aussie.

    Delores; I'm not much bigger now, only five feet tall. We'll just ignore the almost four feet around shall we?

    The Wicked Writer; thank you. I believe my mum took them, she seemed to always have a camera on her.

    Mimsie; I'm very grateful for the Nissen Huts that were everywhere, they provided shelter when needed for people who came with next to nothing. A handy stepping off place for all of us.

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  7. These are terrific photos, River.

    The snippets you tell us about your mother just leave me more and more intrigued....

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  8. Kath Lockett; both parents would tell stories about the past which just didn't gel with my memories or even with each other's tales.

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