During Tom's teen aged years and early 20’s, he helped work Miss Turner’s farm. He also took on any seasonal work around the district that was available such as sewing crops and harvesting, working in shearing sheds, trapping rabbits for their pelts and meat, and generally doing any other farm work available. Tom also spent some time, working at Crawford’s timber mill and added another room onto Miss Turner’s cottage for her.
He worked with the Macphersons and Darks, building many of the dams in Mirranatwa and the Valley with their horses and scoops. They dredged out the soil using draught horses to pull a very basic scoop along the ground with chains attached to the horse’s harness. They would skim a little off the surface at a time, digging deeper and deeper until eventually the dam was formed. This was long and arduous work for all involved and lasted from sunrise to sunset.
Dam BuildingOld dam scoop (minus the long wooden handles)
Cropping and harvesting was always hard and dusty work. The ploughing was done with either a single or two furrow horse drawn plough. At harvesting time, the ripened crop first had to be cut with a binder, which tied the stalks with the grain still attached into bundles called 'sheaves'. The sheaves were then ‘stooked’, where ten to twelve of them were placed into small tee-pee shaped stacks with the cut ends facing down so that the hot sun could continue to ripen the grain.
Harvesting Crops
Next, the stooks were loaded onto a horse drawn dray with pitch forks, to be stacked ready for threshing where the grain was removed from the straw. The actual threshing machine was powered by a steam or oil engine or tractor. As the sheaves were fed into the hopper, they travelled over the rollers and drum to shake the seeds free. It was hot, itchy and very dusty work which would often leave you with sore or irritated eyes and a bone deep feeling of exhaustion.
Threshing Grain
It was while working on the threshing machine at one of the local properties, Fordleigh, that Tom met his future wife, Amelia Edith (Millie) Hansford.
Millie was born on December 23rd, 1905 in Footscray, the third of thirteen children to George and Edith Hansford. Being the eldest daughter in such a large family, Millie often had to stay home from school to help out with the younger children. Her education was somewhat limited as a result and she barely reached grade 6 level before leaving school and gaining work, initially sewing children’s clothing.
Later, Millie worked as a housekeeper and child minder for Colonel Stanley Goble, who, together with Flight Lieutenant Ivor McIntyre, was the first to circumnavigate Australia by air in 1924. Millie spoke of the problems they encountered on their historical trip, including the incredibly painful blisters they had from working the foot pedals and controls of the plane with their feet for 44 days straight. Neither could walk for days after their return.
The seaplane flown in the 1924 circumnavigation of AustraliaGoble (left) and McIntyre met by 10 000 excited fans
When the Goble family went overseas, Millie went to Victoria Valley to work as a housekeeper for her mother’s sister and husband, Aunty Lou and Uncle Buzz Crawford. In August, 1925, about a year after Tom and Millie met, the couple were married at the Methodist Parsonage in Newport, Melbourne, where Millie had grown up.
Amelia Edith (Millie) and Thomas Henry Clutterbuck - Wedding