1921 My first year as a teacher

 

Gwen Jones c1920s © Catherine Maughan

My heart skipped a beat as through the steam I caught the first glimpse of the school house on the east side of the tracks. It was a small wooden building surrounded by large gum trees and a playground for the children. Tomorrow I would start my teaching career at Goongarrie State School. Ever since my mother died when I was eleven years old my dream had been to become a teacher.

I patted my brow dry with my embroidered handkerchief, quickly powdered my face and reapplied the lipstick. I did my best to straighten my dress but it was terribly crumpled from the train ride from Kalgoorlie.

As I stepped from the train a gust of hot dry wind caught my hat, threw it into the air and blew it along the platform. I must have looked a sight running after my hat with both hands full, a suitcase in one and a box of school resources in the other. A man with a ruddy complexion picked up my hat and in a broad Scottish accent said:

“You be the new school marm then?” I replied I was and he beckoned me to follow. 

Goongarrie Train Station 1949 © National Library of Australia

Goongarrie was mostly deserted and many of the shop windows were boarded up. A few wiry men, in need of a good scrub in the bathtub, sat on the bench at the front of the Goongarrie Hotel. As we rode past in the sulky I could sense their eyes piercing my skin. A willy-willy picked up the tumbleweed and it rolled down the main street. 

Mr McCorkill said that the last mine had shut down a few years ago and there was just a dozen or so prospectors left trying to eek out a living. I had never seen such a dilapidated place and I seriously considered getting on the first train back to Kalgoorlie. The voice in my head was my lecturer Miss Stoneman reciting Browning’s poem that she wrote in my autograph book ‘never turned his back, but marched breast forward.’ Chin up Gwen, I told myself, you are here to provide an education to the children of these poor wretches. 

The Education Department had arranged accommodation for me with Mrs McCorkill. Mr McCorkill put my belongings at the front door and left me with his wife who showed me to my room on the verandah enclosed with tin and hessian. It was sparsely furnished with a small wire bed and an upturned box which I thought could be made to look nice with one of my lace doilies on it. There was a wardrobe with a cracked mirror and a small wooden chair which looked like it might have come from the school-house. Mrs McCorkill led me out the back door to the outhouse and the washhouse. She said her son would light the copper and fill up the tub when it was bath-time and I could go first before the children had their bath. She left me to settle into my room and handed me a hurricane lamp. I wasn’t brave enough to tell her I had never used one and I hoped I would work it out without burning the house down.

Goongarrie Cottage 2021 © Catherine Maughan

The next morning I awoke at first light. The sun was pouring through the paper thin drapes and the crows and cockatoos were screeching at each other in the gum trees near my window. It was a few hours until school started so I walked one block south along Williams St following the train tracks until I reached the school. As I turned the large metal key the front door creaked eerily. I let out a small squeal as something flew past my head on its way out to freedom. The room was dark and I threw open the heavy drapes to find everything covered in red dust. My heart sank as my dreams of a beautiful classroom covered with pretty drawings and dainty curtains shattered before my eyes. The place was a shambles and it looked like the teacher had raced the children out the door on the last day of the school year. The chairs had not even been put up on the desks.

No point grumbling, I told myself, there’s work to be done. I swept and mopped the floor and rearranged the pupils’ desks so that they were in straight rows all facing towards the black board at the front of the room. I wiped several layers of dust off the desks and neatly arranged my chalk and blackboard duster on my teacher’s desk. Satisfied I was ready for class I walked back to Mrs McCorkill’s in time for breakfast.

“You’re up early love” Mrs McCorkill said. I nodded a yes as I spread a thin layer of jam on the blackened piece of toast.

“You lot better behave in class today or Miss Jones will give you a clip behind the ear” Mrs McCorkill waved her wooden spoon menacingly at the children. After they left to get their books she said they were good kids really but sometimes they get a bit over excited.

“I’m a bit excited today too," I said. I had been dreaming of standing up in front of my own class for a very long time. And today 14 February 1921 I was about to start my teaching career as the only teacher at the Goongarrie State School.

The school days were long as once the children left I had to prepare several lessons for students of different ages and abilities. There was no Monitor so I did all the cleaning myself too, such as washing down the blackboards and filling the children’s ink wells. It was only a small class though and almost half of them were the McCorkill children. On the whole they were good children but they found it hard to sit still especially as the desert days were mostly either boiling hot or freezing cold. There was a small fireplace in the corner which might be useful in the cold winter months ahead but it looked as if a family of rodents may have made its home there. I would have to ask Mr McCorkill to see to the fireplace. He seemed to be the man to see to get things done.

Mr McCorkill was a pioneer of Goongarrie having arrived during the early days. He had built up a business with his horse and donkey wagons moving machinery and stores for people throughout the goldfields. He told me how they had to fight hard to get the Education Department to build a school. When the school was built in 1909 there were many children attending but now it was hard to keep the school open with only a handful of children attending.

Goongarrie Station Building 2021 © Catherine Maughan

Mr McCorkill was also the mail contractor and he collected the mail from the train and Mrs McCorkill sorted it. We all raced home for lunch on mail days. I was so excited to hold my first pay packet and I dreamt of all the things I would buy myself when I got home to Kalgoorlie. There were no shops to speak of in Goongarrie and nothing to spend my money on except the weekly board of 32 shilling and 6 pence to Mrs McCorkill. 

I settled into life at Goongarrie and enjoyed going for walks to get some fresh air. On weekends I explored about the town and one day I found myself in the cemetery. Like many goldfields towns it was a tough life around the turn of the century when Goongarrie was in its heyday. I read the headstones of men killed in mining accidents and young women who died in childbirth, like my poor mother, may she rest in peace. I paused at each grave and said their name aloud. Whenever I came to a grave of a young babe or child I found myself crying. I’m not sure why but those graves upset me a great deal. Some of the graves were unmarked and only had a small wooden cross, nothing to say who lay there or who they belonged to. The cemetery was a sad lonely place and there weren’t many people around now to visit them. When the wildflowers were in bloom I would pick them and place them on the graves and ask God to bless them.

Goongarrie Station Grave 2021 © Catherine Maughan 

Goongarrie is a beautiful place really, much like what I imagine Kalgoorlie and Boulder might have looked like before all the trees were stripped for the mines. The town is surrounded by scrub - mostly mallee and acacia – which the mallee hen likes to nest in. On my walks I often saw their distinctive mounds or nests but only rarely did I see the birds. They stay perfectly still when they hear something and their colouring is an excellent camouflage so chances of seeing them are slight.

Not far from the townsite there are massive outcrops of quartz and iron which extend along the margin of the large salt lake. When full, Lake Goongarrie covers an area of almost 60,000 acres. After rain the lake is a haven for all manner of birdlife, including water birds normally found at the coast. The air is filled with the sound of great flocks of budgerigars and the usually dry red ground becomes a beautiful carpet of yellow, white and purple as the desert flowers bloom from seemingly nowhere. Lake Goongarrie is particularly beautiful in the late afternoon as the setting sun throws brilliant shadows of red, pink and purple hues across the lake.

After rain I sometimes took the students to Lake Goongarrie for an excursion and the children and I took off our boots and waded in the shallow waters. Some of the parents came along too including Mr Jack Williamson, a prospector, who took the photo and gave it to me as a memento. Can you see me at the back holding the young child?

School Excursion at Lake Goongarrie 1921 © Catherine Maughan

Mr McCorkill was often away on business so Mrs McCorkill and I spent many an evening chatting and doing embroidery together by candlelight. She was a kind woman and she made a lovely cake for my 19th birthday on 4 May. However, life in Goongarrie was rather dull for a young woman and I looked forward to the holidays when I would catch the train home to Kalgoorlie to see my family and friends. I especially loved meeting up with my best friends Annie and Queenie and we spent many evenings dancing, playing cards, music and games.

Towards the end of my first year the teaching inspector made his visit. As I was still on probation this was a rather nerve-wracking experience, so I was pleased, and relieved, when the report came back to say that I was conducting the school very successfully. 

On the last day of school the students helped me clean the blackboards and put the chairs up on the desk. I gave each of them a small present I had sent up from Kalgoorlie - a packet of marbles for the boys and a pretty doll for the girls. 

"Thank you Miss Jones. See you next year," the children called out as they ran off home excited that the long summer school holidays were here.

I locked the front door of the school house and hurried back to Mrs McCorkill who had made me sandwiches for the train ride home to Kalgoorlie. It had been a hard first year on my own but I had learnt a lot and the children were delightful. I was glad I had become a teacher and I looked forward to many more years of teaching.