Grannie and Grandad Pearce

In August 1912, my Grannie and Grandad Pearce and their five children left Peebles in the border country of the River Tweed, Scotland. The family business was running an aerated soft drink factory utilising the natural spring on their property. But having eight sons meant too many workers, so three emigrated to Canada, and my Grandad to Australia.  

He took up an irrigation block in Victoria, in No 2 settlement, East of Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley.   Wheat had been previously grown there. 

The family of three boys and two girls along with Mum and Dad lived in a tent through those first long rainy months.  They cooked outside over a make-do fireplace, straining the muddy water through cotton to make it potable. Being an irrigation area, they had the nearby channel to wash in. 

The men built fences on the land and prepared it with the help of their horse to start a fruit orchard. 

Watering the rows of trees

Grandad was lucky to obtain a job as channel guard for the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission until the orchard was up and running.  He was paid 8 shillings per day for 5 ½ days per week.

Eventually, a two-bedroom weatherboard house with verandah was built and Grandad covered in the two ends for the children’s sleepouts. When they moved into their new home. Grannie looked around and stated: “My house is a palace”.

The neighbours were international with English, Dutch, German, Jewish Russian and American families and were known in town as ‘the Settlers’.

The newly built Presbyterian church was the centre for activities and also ran a school during the week there, for four years. 

Once the early fruit trees started bearing, markets needed to be found. The Shepparton Preserving Company (SPC) opened in 1919 to process the peach harvest. 

At that time many local young men were away in battle zones overseas. Families were involved in the Red Cross and Comforts Fund supporting them.  Cars and lorries were replacing horse-drawn vehicles.  Better road systems were needed as they were constantly bogged in wet weather, especially the lorries carrying tall loads of boxed fruit.

Loaded lorry and trailer with 'lugs' (fruit packing boxes) used for Melbourne market

Grandad died in 1922 of Pneumonia, leaving Grannie to run the orchard with the oldest son (my Father). Even though it meant more work, time and money, they took over the orchard block next door when the neighbour was forced to walk away. 

Grannie brought a small Oaktree from Scotland and had planted it near the house.  When large enough it was adorned as the family Christmas tree, which the extended family gathered around for many years.  Grannie lived to the ripe old age of 84, dying in 1954. Life had been hard, growing, weeding, watering, pruning, grafting, picking, sorting and packing fruit. They also cut ripe apricots, spread on trays and dried them in the sun. Jam and preserves were a big part of kitchen work.  But the whole family, men and women worked laboriously outside.

There was a large portrait of Grandad in Grannie’s house on the wall behind where she sat.  When we visited I was scared of her.  She was a real matriarch (although short in stature) sitting straight in her chair in black dresses with white lace at her chin. (A Scottish Queen Victoria) We would line up and walk past waiting for a kiss on the cheek as she greeted each of us in her broad Scottish accent. 

The portrait of Francis George Pearce (Geordie)

(Thank you to my Auntie Tib for her notes, For further information see:   https://thefamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2018/09/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-week-36-prompt.html