news
Living treasure to celebrate 95th WHEN Joyce Cunningham turns 95 next month, she will celebrate this milestone with her family at the Cooroy RSL. This Cooroy “living treasure” has a special affiliation with the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) because she is one. In 1943, with three brothers in the Army, Joyce responded to advertisements by the Australian Women’s Land Army (AWLA) to work on farms, to help plant and harvest crops in order to provide food for the population and the armed services. Joyce told the Cooroy Rag there weren’t many men around to work the land because they were away fighting the war “to keep our country free”, so at the tender age of 17, a year under the required age, she joined the AWLA. “I was called up in December and had to travel to Brisbane on the old steam train and report to the AWLA head office. From there, having been told what area the farmers needed workers, I had to catch another train to Glen Aplin to the Land Army Camp there.” At the Land Army Camp, Joyce joined other girls who slept in tents in freezing cold conditions, only to be sent to work on a farm in Stanthorpe. “As there wasn’t a Land Army
Joyce at the 2019 Anzac Day parade in Cooroy. Photo: Jim Picton
camp at Dalcouth, we had to live with the farmer and his family.” Joyce and another girl billeted with this family, while they helped on the farm with the growing of beans, peas, potatoes and tomatoes. “I can remember all of these tomato plants. There were about 7000 of them, so we were kept busy picking, planting and chipping on the farm.”
During her deployment, Joyce helped on more farms in Chatsworth and Aratula, before being sent to work on a dairy farm in Eumundi, which wasn’t far removed from how and where she grew up. But working on a farm in the coldest town in Queensland and later Aratula, also wasn’t a far cry from Joyce’s upbringing. After her birth in an old farmhouse at Elanda Point (where
the caravan park is) on the banks of Lake Cootharaba, her family moved to another dairy farm in Gympie. “I grew up at Canina (a rural locality northeast of Gympie).” Joyce attended Cootharaba Road State School, which was in operation from 1894 to 1965 and later had to ride her bike seven miles (11.2 km) to attend high school in Gympie. After almost two years in the AWLA working on farms throughout SEQ, Joyce was discharged to marry the man she met before she joined. When Joyce was 16 she met Clyde, a cane farmer from Bopple (Bauple). “Clyde cut cane all day, then he’d go to the Bopple Sugar Mill and load sugar at night.” Clyde and Joyce married in Gympie in 1945 and moved to a dairy farm outside of Tiaro. Over the next 20 years, the Cunninghams welcomed their three children and worked on a dairy farm in Chatsworth and a pineapple farm in Amamoor, before ending up in Kenilworth and working at the Cheese Factory. “I worked at the Cheese Factory for 13 years. Clyde worked there as well. One of our sons, now 73, is a cheesemaker and often supervises cheese making at the
factory. “Big tankers used to bring in the milk and we’d fill 10 vats full, put in rennet and cut the cheese. My husband used to separate the curds and whey. We’d wrap 40-pound blocks of cheese wrapped in paper and send them to Brisbane. “We lived in a house next to the Cheese Factory. It’s still there. We loved Kenilworth.” But as Joyce’s sister lived in Cooroy, when it came to retiring, they decided to buy a house on Emerald Street, where the IGA now is and immersed themselves in the Cooroy community, joining committees and fundraising for Kabara. In 1999, Joyce and Clyde moved into a home on Wattle Street, where Joyce still lives after Clyde sadly passed away in 2013. Reflecting on her time in the AWLA, Joyce said she enjoyed it but it was very hard work for a young woman. “Also it was hard being away from one’s family and friends and my fiancée Clyde. The saying is ‘hard work never hurts you’. So, I don’t suppose it really does.” If you see Joyce at the Cooroy RSL to celebrate her 95th, make sure you wish her a very happy birthday.
Cooroy Rag, 15 September 2021 - Page
7
