General News
28 October, 2025
The story of a Dutch migrant — 70 years in Australia : Part 2
In 1960 I met my present husband Henry Doran. We were married a year later on July 8, 1961.
We spent our honeymoon in Queensland, just when motels were first introduced.
Life on the farm was a whole new experience. I had to cook for the shearers, feed baby pigs and lambs, and teach day-old calves how to drink.
Our first son Chris was born in 1962, Rudy in 1966 and Craig in 1969. We took great pride in our children when they were babies and blossomed into young boys.
Harvest times were busy, being involved in haymaking, driving the truck, shifting irrigation pipes etc.
On Henry’s family farm at Carisbrook, I discovered an Aboriginal stone boomerang formation and initiation site. I contacted Heritage Victoria, and it is now listed on the National Heritage Register.
All three of our boys attended the Eddington Primary School, where I helped with religious instruction and attended when the teacher was absent. I became secretary of the Eddington Ladies Social Club, we worked not only for the community but also for the school.
All three of our sons enrolled at the Maryborough Technical school. I was on the school council and a cheque signatory, and served on the canteen for 13 years while our boys attended school. Since then all three of our sons have become self employed and very successful in their chosen fields. With four grandchildren following their chosen professions.
In 1969, I became a naturalized Australian citizen, pledging the “Oath of Allegiance of Australia and its laws”, to honour the flag and “Her Majesty the Queen”.
The ceremony took place at the Maryborough council chamber, as I didn’t think such a ceremony had ever been performed in the former Shire of Bet Bet. Local greengrocer Zoe Gazis was also naturalized that evening.
As an avid reader, crossworder, stamp and coin collector, photographer, gardener and historian, I’ve been kept busy with all my hobbies.
By 1980, Henry and I started our Dunolly Earthmoving Pty Ltd. business, and I became involved in the Dunolly Town Hall Restoration committee. The lovely historic town hall, which had been abandoned after the new council offices were built on the opposite corner of Broadway.
Norman Day was the heritage architect. It took many years and lots of fund raising to bring the town hall back to its original splendour.
At this time I became involved with the DRAMAS — Dunolly Drama & Arts Society.
This group conducted a number of fantastic music hall shows with the theme “Stars on Broadway”, to raise funds for a new hall piano. I became the secretary and front of house person. The local talent was extraordinary.
I joined the members of the Gold Rush committee for several years. These Gold Rush Festivals used to take place in the bush at Harvest Home dam on the Moliagul road. The re-enactments of the Welcome Stranger, bush weddings, naturalizations and name giving ceremonies complimented the tent city, people in colonial dress, fashions on the goldfields, gold panning and an array of different food and gold stalls.
In 1991, after 21 years, the festival in the bush folded for lack of volunteers. With leftover funds and funds from the Shire of Bet Bet, the band rotunda in Gordon Gardens, Dunolly was established.
During this time, Henry and I had become interested in the mining industry.
Henry held four EL mining claims in Dunolly and Moliagul. With some of his gold, found at Moliagul, he presented me with a new wedding ring, I called “My Welcome Stranger”.
That Christmas, he also presented me with a steel flagpole, so I could fly the Australian flag.
Following many years of low rainfall and lack of water for the gold plant, all four EL licences expired.
I joined the second Welcome Record (called the Yellow Book) and became its first secretary. Introducing “Letters to the Editor”, the “Trade Directory”, “Cookery Section” and “Mining Matters”. I became the mining correspondent.
With my neighbour we attended night classes at the Tech school to learn oil painting and Chinese cookery, followed by leadlighting, cake decorating, and calligraphy. With another neighbour, I joined a China painting class in Dunolly for several years.
I became involved in the Dunolly Rural Fire Brigade Ladies Auxillary as secretary and communications officer.
In 1989, I stood for council in the former Shire of Bet Bet. My platform was history, heritage, mining and tourism. I made history as the first lady councillor in the Shire of Bet Bet.
A councillor was not paid, nor received a laptop or mobile phone in those days. It was tough going with six other male councillors who only supported farming issues. I revoked a demolition order of one of the original buildings on Broadway – The Saddlery, and have written to council a number of times to draft a heritage policy, as we had already lost a number of historic buildings.
Together with three other locals, we created the “Historic Mining Village” on Crown Land on the Dunolly road. I had made a small scale model, embracing early pioneering trades, mining and rehabilitation sites, and all other aspects of mining. With our local shire facilitator, we took my model to Tourism Victoria in Melbourne which impressed the board members, but the consultancy fee was well and truly out of our reach. However, we established a monthly market on a new site for number of years to raise funds, but regulations ceased the operation.
With a friend, I opened the Dunolly Court House on weekends to visitors and tourists. We conducted court re-enactments with school students from Wesley College, held open days etc.
Originator of bringing together the court house, lock-up and stables as a police precinct, I became a tourist guide and published an abridged tourist book on Dunolly and Moliagul historic buildings.
I was instrumental in making the Dunolly Court House into a committee of management, similar as the Dunolly Town Hall was set up. We conducted field days on some of Henry’s mining claims demonstrating mining equipment and mining techniques. I became part secretary of the Prospectors & Miners Association of Victoria. Dunolly had the biggest membership at that time in Victoria.
I stepped down as councillor of the Shire of Bet Bet, when shire amalgamations were announced in 1993, as I did not believe that rural communities had much in common with urban communities. Following three years of commissioners, shire amalgamations took place in 1997, and a new Council was elected.
I was asked by the Mayor at that time, what the new shire ought to be called? I suggested “Goldfields”, trying to keep our gold mining history of the “Welcome Stranger” and “Golden Triangle” alive, as Maryborough councillors always aimed for a green belt around their town. The new name was adopted and is now known as “Central Goldfield Shire”.