a perspective from the Goldfields by Fiona Kealley
I didn’t choose to become a “Woman in Forestry”. I just happened to meet and marry a forester, and he has shared his passion for forestry with me since the day we met. I fell into the role of “forester’s wife” and it took me on a journey that culminated in thirty-three years in Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the Goldfields region of Western Australia. The Kealleys were an inland forestry family.
I grew up on the north-west coast of Tasmania, where most of my extended family still lives. At school I showed an aptitude for languages and was fortunate to receive a scholarship in 1977 to attend the Australian National University in Canberra. In my first month at University, fate arranged for me to meet Ian Kealley, just as he was completing his Forestry degree, and destiny sealed my future.
The Kealleys: a family reunion at Goongarrie in 2016: Eleanor, Ian, Fiona and Philip
Mum had hoped that I might meet someone no further away than Victoria! Sorry Mum.
We spent the next two years apart while I completed my Asian Studies degree and Graduate Diploma of Education, but we never lost touch. I then made the move to the West in early 1980. There was a short time living in the forestry settlement at Kirup while on university vacation, then 8 months in Busselton where Ian was working in operations, followed by three years in Bunbury where Ian was with the Inventory and Planning Branch.
We were married in January 1983. One thing I will say about this time is that it wasn’t always easy. I had left all my family and even though I picked up some temporary teaching positions, the WA Education Department wasn’t ready for my specialist languages teaching at the primary level.
Then in early 1984 the Forests Department was looking for a replacement for Bill Brennan as officer in charge of the Kalgoorlie region, and Ian was appointed.
Even though it was a mutual decision to move, my introduction to Kalgoorlie and the Goldfields was traumatic. The department’s Goldfields region occupied nearly a third of Western Australia, extending to the South Australian border, and much of it was very remote. Ian was totally dedicated to “learning” his region and his job, and this involved long trips away, sometimes ten days at a time. His oversight of the sandalwood industry took him way up into the Murchison and Gascoyne, sometimes nearly a thousand kilometres from home. This was well before the era of FIFO or DIDO! I was left on my own, and then when Ian returned he would be straight back to work on his responsibilities in Kalgoorlie.
I also had to adjust to the climate and the landscape. Only those who have been to both places can imagine the contrast between the soft, rolling green hills of northern Tasmania and the vast, arid woodlands and mulga plains of the Goldfields and the deserts to the east. However, over time I began to understand the beauty of the outback and to love the woodlands with their multitude of
beautiful tree species. I even became very much aware of the eucalypts and flora, though I am nowhere near the botanical expert that Ian is.
I worked hard to make every day as positive as possible, and as a result I was rewarded by a life that was good in so many ways. I sometimes get the feeling that many forestry people have resisted moving out of Perth or the southwest because of the perception that the Goldfields offer only a remote, hard and unforgiving life, but in my experience the resilience, mindfulness, experiences and strength gained as a couple and family far outweigh any negativities, and the beauty of the landscape, once you get to understand it, never fails to uplift the spirits.
When we first moved to the Goldfields there were only four staff members in the Forest Department’s office, including Ian, plus me acting as a volunteer. Before we had children, I would often accompany Ian on his bush travels. To this day, camping in the outback is what we call ‘therapy for the soul’.
On those trips I met many fascinating identities. We visited sandalwood pullers at work or in their bush camps, and prospectors and miners. I had many a cuppa sitting at the kitchen table with pastoralists and their families. I used to marvel at their isolated lives. I met women who would travel 80kms and back to attend a Book Club meeting at another station. One told me a very funny story, summing up the hardiness of station children. The School of The Air teacher asked a small boy “What is 3×9?” “27” he answered. The next day, the teacher reviewed his answer. “What is 3×9?” The boy responded “27, you dopey bastard. I told you that yesterday!” Following this exchange, everyone on the network listened agog to the resulting discipline from his Mum … the small boy had left his finger on the talk button while it was in progress!
I also used to help with the inventory and post-harvest assessment work, and soon became an expert sandalwood spotter. The inventory is done from a vehicle with one person driving and the other counting sandalwood trees at a given distance from the road over another given distance. Sandalwood trees have a way of melting into the surrounding vegetation, and it needs a sharp eye to spot them.
When we first arrived in Kalgoorlie we moved into the beautiful old iconic Forester’s home in the leafy suburb of Lamington. This was the first forestry house built in Kalgoorlie, back in the early 1940s. I fell in love with this house and our small family grew up there, following in the footsteps of the Brockways, Donovans, Richmonds and Brennans, all famous names in the region.
But I soon discovered one of the worst aspects of Ian’s regular trips away. This was the lack of contact. There were no satellite telephones in those days, so often I would not hear anything for days at a time. This caused me some angst, especially later when the children were sick, but at the same time it also made me more independent. Both of us were sorry that Ian missed many important dates in the calendar because of his commitment to his job, but this was just the way it was. I used to think I was pretty tough, but I have to admit I lost it once, collapsing into tears when I couldn’t open a jammed window by myself. Loneliness and fatigue had taken their toll.
Ian did have a departmental HF radio with Royal Flying Doctor Service frequencies, and when he could he would report in to home. On the weekends it was my responsibility to take the sched calls on the radio telephone, and it was always a huge relief to hear that he was OK.
The first year was the most difficult and I badly missed my family support, but I eventually began to make friends. When Ian returned from his trips I would drag him along to various clubs and community groups and he never complained. We made friends that have lasted to this day. There was an important step forward after our daughter Eleanor was born (in 1987) and I became involved in the Nursing Mothers’ Association as a Breastfeeding Counsellor. I stayed in this role for over 10 years and trained many other Kalgoorlie mothers to be counsellors. My closest friends come from this time. We were like sisters, closer than many sisters actually are. None of us had parents at Kalgoorlie we could fall back on, so we supported each-other. We also looked after each-other’s children in times of need. I can still remember Ian returning home, covered in red dust and exhausted, to find a multitude of children in our back yard. But he was always full of news, pleased to be home and he would always have a special treat for our dog, Tess, maybe a sausage or even a kangaroo tail.
I also volunteered on many committees. I was involved in school councils, working groups and P&C associations and other committees including the Goldfields Women’s Health Care Centre Board. In 2006 I received the inaugural Goldfields Volunteer of the Year award. I had discovered, like so many forestry wives, that being strongly involved in the community is the secret to enjoying life in a remote centre.
I can also remember the tough times associated with the birth of our son Philip in 1989. I was in hospital from 24 weeks, transferred by the Flying Doctor to Perth. After a total of seven weeks complete bed rest in hospital, he was born at 31 weeks. Things were not made any easier by having an anxious toddler at home, and my dad being diagnosed with terminal cancer in Tasmania. I will always be grateful to the department’s General Manager, who arranged for Ian to move to Perth for the entire time I was in hospital, and until Philip was a month old, running his vast region from an office in Crawley. By this time the Forests Department had become “CALM” and Ian had been appointed the inaugural Regional Manager of the Goldfields Region, with greatly increased responsibilities.
But there were also the good times. The children and I were exposed to so many unique experiences through Ian’s role as CALM’s Goldfields Regional Manager. There were the many camping trips to remote areas and to the Esperance coast. Best of all was appreciating the respect from the many people we met. Perhaps the most humbling experience was the friendship and contact with traditional Aboriginal people, as Ian built up friendships, took them to see their traditional lands and developed strong partnerships over land management and conservation. Eleanor was fortunate to accompany her father to a meeting of the Federal Court in Jameson. The judge flew in by plane dressed in traditional robes and an interpreter translated the case. What an experience for a young teenager! Philip went on many similar trips and spent time having chats with his father looking out over the desert landscape from around a campfire. I know both our children will carry these memories with them, as they live in the city now.
A highlight in my life came in 1996 when I returned to teaching at North Kalgoorlie Primary School. In 2000 I was appointed as the school’s Languages teacher and for the next fifteen years I taught children to speak Indonesian. This was my dream job, the one I had been trained for.
Goongarrie Station came to form a major part of our lives. It was the place we went to have a break away from town. About 90 km north of Kalgoorlie, this former pastoral station was purchased by
CALM in 1995, and we would camp in the homestead. We shared Goongarrie with many families and with international visitors over the years and even ran specialist events for woodworking and star gazing. I remember well one visitor, Felix Skowronek, a Professor of Music from Seattle, USA, who was working with Ian on the use of goldfields timber for the manufacture of woodwind instruments. Felix asked me whether there would be a Camp Counsellor on site to occupy the children. My response was “There are two rules for the children here, Felix: (1), stay away from the well, and (2), don’t bother your parents.”
The kids had 100,000 ha to explore and did so. They would disappear for hours on end.
I have met many fascinating characters like Felix during my thirty-three years with Ian in the Goldfields. There have been foresters, geologists, wildlife scientists, pastoralists, wood turners, anthropologists, linguists, zoologists, botanists and respected Aboriginal elders. One of our trips home from Perth was spent collecting appropriate black and white clothing from every op shop we saw, for an important funeral in Warburton. Ian transported the mass of clothing by vehicle when he attended the funeral. It was a mark of how he was trusted that he had been charged with this responsibility. It became a frequent experience for people coming into town from the Central Lands (the remote aboriginal communities) to drop in and join us for a cuppa or barbecue at our home.
Our inland family has shared many unique experiences and challenges, but at the same time we developed resilience, fortitude and tight bonds. Eleanor and Philip acquired unusual skills and an independent spirit, and both have found careers to suit them.
And even though those soft green Tasmanian hills beckoned from time to time over the years, looking back now I wouldn’t swap them for my inland forestry life and my inland forestry family.
Moya Sharp
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