Millewa Modras
In 1927, Alf and Tilly decided to try and give their mostly teenage family of 8 children a chance at farming after working on 100 acres of sand near the original Matthias Modra settlement near Gawler in South Australia.
With little more than axes, they hand cut much (the home area is still forest) of the original 523-acre selection of low forest, and grubbed out its enormous stumps. By the late 1930's, they had cleared fenced and gated most of the 2253 acres that was surprisingly and unexpectedly taken from them in 1949.
During the 20 years they were there, they boarded the local schoolteacher (who gave them their piano), started two shops, won the Hanslow cup in 1939 ( Victoria wide land conservation prize) and won many tennis trophies ( 1937-39) The family also sent grain and 3 of the 5 boys off to the war (1941-1945), The family became very good friends with Pastor Mattiske as they helped set up a church at Meringur ; where it, and a great museum still stands to remind us of the wonderful community of mothers, farmers, innovators and sportsmen who once lived in that area. Over 19 families from the local Werrimul area sent telegram wedding greetings to my dad and mum when they were married in Warracknabeal in 1949.
This action was the government's decision. The only compensation they ever got they had to go to Parliament to get. It was meagre and didn't have anything to with land value , See dads list of the cost of grubbing stumps. They paid water rates for a block of timbered land in the centre of the farm which they could not use . ( water reserve - little grazing value as you can see from these original photos ) The grass is growing well infront of the harvester because the metal sheds water .
The 5 boys (Their dad died of appendicitis in 1944) once got paid well for a crop of wheat and used the money to buy vehicles and equipment. ( A new black dodge truck and car were imported from the USA ) In 8 yrs out of 10, there is no grain to harvest and even sheep have to be shipped around and hand fed , like their horses, to survive.
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Designing with nature
The locality is real desert .An early ecologist named Goyder drew a line in the map to show the northern limits of sound agriculture in southern Australia: Their farm at Yarrara South was above that line .
The deep red lime rich sands are perfect for growing wheat and would produce a yield when the heavier soils of this country would not.( as they did in one war year ) In that area though, the rainfall is very unreliable and very low ( average of less than 250mm per year ) My dad was featured running dances in the Weekly Times while the sand blowing all around in the drought year of September 1944
Paradoxically, just to the south, where the rainfall is a bit more reliable, there are large areas of the most sustainable (rainfed) wheat growing areas in the world.
So precious was the water that came into the 2 dams ( shown on the homestead picture ) that one of the boys threw his coat onto the top of a bank to stop the water eroding the bank (and then took a photo of the event ).
Best of all the Modras partied on watermelons like their families did , and did way back in Gawler ( known as water melon town because of Matthias selling pieces after work at the local foundry) . It was also just like their antecedents did growing cucumbers and vegetables in the Spree river valley for hundreds of years earlier .Growing fruit , chickens and tomatoes in the 1950's in Nunawading, Melbourne became the new celebration point,
Strangely they were considered so wealthy as settlers , when they arrived from the Barossa, they weren't offered financial help with a house as was normal . So they bought a new shed and lived in it .Condensation from the unlined tin roof in the morning used to drip on the boys while they were in bed .Alf brought 20000 pounds into the project and his children and wife left with only 2 old vehicles and 2 tractors to start somewhere else beginning in 1949.
Earlier dispossessions
The Modras were part of a very independent but cohesive landless group called Wends .
Most of the Wends , like Matthais came out in mid 1850's when they as the last serfs of Europe , lost their homes and livelihoods in the lush River Spree valley flats SE of Berlin. Other Australians thought they were Prussians, because they spoke German, but they were very proud of their unique and quite independent Sorbish heritage faith and language .
My family were dispossessed a few times , but what is new ? Their livelihoods and homes were taken from them in a so called act of emancipation so they ended up owing the English a fare to far Australia in 1853.
Then in the 1940's they were told , after clearing ,fencing and sowing over a thousand acres to get off ; They owed nobody anything, the government just decided to reduce the numbers of holdings. Visit the Meringer museum , because there were others too .
I have dads rough hand written notes on how he and several others tried to get compensation by listing the costs of stump grubbing. I don't know if he ever did the same with the 18 kilometres of fencing and gates they put up.
Brother Vic , who left using a trailer with only paper instead of tubes, got more for a box of tomatoes he grew in Melbourne, than 1 acre was worth up there.
It was hard and they had very little ( most of them) but we knew them all as a family who loved sharing time together and also then with us little brats.
Notice how much timber was left around the house ( middle of the picture )and stables .A Victorian class champion won some of his first victories on a tennis court just north west of the dams
4 of the grandchildren visited the farm in 2022 and tested the excellent Malleegates made with metal pipe offcuts from Mobilco in their uncles new home town in Nunawading
posted by journeymanj @ 11:12 PM
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