From the Land Down Under to the Rising Sun

Milton and June first arrived in Japan in December of 1948. Their first furlough back to Australia was in December of 1953 with their two (at the time) children and they stayed until February 1955. This was chronicled briefly by both June and Milton, especially because it was on that furlough that Dave was born in Australia. Oddly, neither June nor Milton wrote about the next furlough in 1960 which would end up being the last full family furlough. Fortunately, I have photographs and people’s memories to fill in some of the gaps.

In Milton’s stories, he briefly explained why this 1960 furlough was the last “official” one but other than that doesn’t go into details

Milton: “June and I agreed to forfeit the costly family furlough that caused havoc in the work and upset in the children’s education. This upset was caused because the Australian school year began at the end of their summer in February. The school in Japan started in September”

So on December 4th 1960, this time with four children, they depart for Sydney. After this furlough, June and Milton would later just go individually to Australia or the United States to visit churches and see family for short visits, always leaving one parent behind to handle the kids and church. 

I see an urgency in Milton’s face in this photo, maybe he was giving some last-minute instructions to the people who would be running the church in their absence. Over on the left, you can see some boys in school uniform giving themselves a self-guided tour. I am sure they were part of the send-off group! Milton and June must have felt worry for the youth ministry they were leaving for a year but also anxious to see their families who they hadn’t seen in five years. “Poppa” Matthew Whan, Milton’s father had passed away in September 1960 just three months before this departure so I can imagine there was a sense that despite the upheaval it was time to go see family down in Sydney.

Something I learned from combing through the pictures was that Mrs. Yoriko Koarada, (previously Tsukamoto) stayed at our Kobe house during our absence. I had never even thought about the logistics of leaving a house empty for a year and there was my answer written on the back of this photo.

From the present tense wording of that caption, I interpret that Yoriko sent some pictures to Milton and June while they were away, including the next one of a meeting. If you have been reading this blog (thank you) – you might remember the two sisters in Beppu that became an integral part of June & Milton’s work, there. By 1960, Yoriko has married (more on that in another blog post) but has moved from Beppu to the Kobe area

I was also reminded that we had a family dog, so Yoriko and her family must have taken care of it as well.

The Wayne family embarked on a journey from Kobe to Sydney that would take 12 days, arriving on December 16th. The travel to Sydney was by a freighter ship that had space for just a few passengers. There were twelve non-crew ticket holders on the “Suez Maru”. How do I know this? Well from some previous research I knew the date of our arrival in Sydney and from there I was able to stumble upon archived images of ship manifests. So here it is!

When Margot saw the next photo of her and Dave on a deck, she distinctly remembers “that kid on the ship” and that he was traveling with his mother and that it was a lot of fun.

The boy in the photo looks to be the 3-year-old listed in the manifest as Mr. G. J. Schmutter but I think Margot remembers playing with the 5-year-old brother. And in the interest of accuracy, Dave is listed on the manifest as 5 years old. He was five when we departed but just a few days later during the voyage, he had his sixth birthday!

Margot also added a little more info on the journey:

“Everyone got so seasick, but we were having a great time. The ship tipped so much that at the dining room everything nearly slid off the table but there was this rim around the table just for that purpose”

When she texted that to me, I zoomed in on the following picture and thought “I see the rim!” I would never have noticed it.  It is under the tablecloth but noticeable just to the left of June and in front of me.

The very vague memories I have are probably only there because I have had these pictures in my “baby” photo album. I am pretty sure Mom included the next picture because my faint recollection is that I thought our waiter was the best.  He must have been on duty for our dinner every night for two weeks so he somehow made an impression on me.

Darelyn provided some details from the perspective of someone who was there and saw our arrival.

“I know there was great excitement and the Whan home in Burwood was being reorganized to give the Wayne’s a separate living area. Not sure how they all fit in, as the back of the house had two reasonable-sized bedrooms a living area and a huge laundry room, I guess they shared the kitchen and pantry with Nanna and Aunty Rewa.

The backyard was huge, with two tennis courts and lots of fruit trees and a big garden, so there was plenty of room for kids to play.

(Mary: I checked on Google Maps for 2 Belmore Street, Burwood and it is now a large apartment building with 16 units) Not much of a yard left ha ha)

Darelyn: I think Mary was about four years of age, as I remember Nanna coming and telling us that Mary had just said to her “Nanna what are all those cracks on your face?” That sure got a laugh from everyone.

(Mary: oops! In my own defense I was more like 3 ½ not 4, ha ha… after Darelyn provided that little anecdote it did trigger a memory for me of my mother – Nanna Whan’s daughter-in-law, retelling that story for laughs when I was older. I don’t remember saying it to Nanna! Pretty funny though if I do say so myself) 

More from Darelyn:

I do remember Uncle Mit coming to preach at our church in West Ryde and the one thing that stuck in my mind is that he said the Communists would be coming to take over Australia within 10 years

Stan and I would get up to a bit of mischief when we were together. I remember one time we were in the front verandah and Nanna came in and said, “Oh Must clean that glass tabletop”.

It was a large white wrought iron table with a glass top and amazingly enough, it is still in the family! Anyway, while Nanna was gone to get the cleaning gear Stan and I decided to take out the glass top and hide it!! Nanna comes in to wipe it clean and there’s nothing there! She was not happy, but we couldn’t stop laughing.

Darelyn: Just recently Graham and I took a drive out to Camden and Cobbitty villages about an hour from Sydney. We can both remember going to those places as children and have not visited them since then. We both remembered a place called Teen Ranch at Cobbitty. It was a Church run camping site for young people.

We found it, and it’s still operating today! I am now pretty certain that the reason our family went out there was to join the Wayne’s who were interested to see how it was run. It had been started by a Sydney evangelist and five young Canadian men who called themselves the King’s Men.

“Teen” and “Ranch” were not words common in Australia, so it was very American, which seemed really cool to us in the early ’60s. There was horse riding canoeing hiking archery and camping out etc. that kids would enjoy.

I think we visited the place a few times while the Wayne’s were in Australia. It seemed a hot and dusty place I remember the ranch had fencing around the place, it seemed then to be in the middle of nowhere!

We did go to some of their services I think they had a huge tent on the grounds where they had the rallies for the young people.

Now Teen Ranch is on the Main Street of a busy little village and has been threatened with closure after all these years, as they are about to build an eight-lane highway through the middle of the property!

Mary:
Another camp captioned in my photo album was the PSSM camp. No one remembers what that acronym means but here is a photo of June doing kitchen duty:

Perhaps this was a camp affiliated with the church they attended in Sydney, Stanmore Baptist Church and there was a camp happening, Milton, I am sure volunteered without hesitation.

Stan also gave me lots of good information as he is the oldest and probably remembers the best.

During our furlough year, Dave and Margot attended Burwood Primary School. I sure wish I had some photos from that! Stan went to Homebush Boys High School (and went there for the next year when he stayed in Sydney.) These next three pictures are courtesy of an old classmate of Stan’s from the Homebush Boys High School days. They have remained connected via Facebook. (Hope he doesn’t mind I’m using them!)

At the end of this furlough in February 1962, Stan stayed in Australia for another 11 months. I had assumed it was due to the school calendar differences. The school back in Kobe was on an North American academic calendar. But Stan explained that it was also a specific difference with the Australian school system at the time. After year 3 or 9th grade (if I have this correct) students would receive an “Intermediate Certificate” and this was very important. So, Milton and June left Stan with a family they knew to finish off Year 3 in Sydney and get that certificate. Ironically the education system eliminated the intermediate certificate just a few years later so it ended up not being necessary.

During our furlough year Stan remembers going on weekend trips with our dad to go preach somewhere in more rural areas and remembers hitting a kangaroo on the road.  The family stayed at Burwood as home base and didn’t travel for extended periods of time so the children could attend school. When the furlough ended, Stan said he stayed with a family my parents knew but also he visited our grandmother (aka “Nanna Whan”) every Wednesday and did stuff with his cousins.  He also joined the Army Cadets and took every opportunity to go on weekend camping trips with the Cadets. (I see a family trend here with camping)

Another event on this furlough was the wedding of June’s brother Geoff Furner to Joyce (Joy) Johnston. This happened on September 23, 1961 (I found that date on Ancestry as there was no date written on the back of this picture.)  Pretty sure the young girl in the picture is Joy’s niece. 

Because we arrived in December 16^th1960 and then left about13 months later in early February 1962, we had two Christmases in Australia.

Even though I was just short of turning 4 on that last Christmas, I do have a vague memory of coins in the Christmas pudding (cake). Coins back then did not have metals that would be poisonous now. Stan said there was also something done where coins were put in foil, and you wouldn’t know how much you got until you opened it up. I have no recollection of that, and I hope I am retelling it correctly.

Stay tuned – next blog post will be back in Japan and back to missionary story shenanigans.