Claris Spring 1925-2020

EULOGY

Claris Florence Hiette was the first-born child to Robert Clarence (Tommy) Hiette and Laura Lillian Young (née Turner) on 22nd June 1925. Her mother had been widowed at an early age and Claris began life with an older brother and 2 older sisters, technically half siblings from her mother's side. We may not know a great deal from her early childhood but there is a persistent story that her mother was visited at her shop (she ran a bakery at that time) by a Mr Spring and his 9 year old son, Clarence who (so it is told) said Hello to Claris only to be rebuffed though we can only guess if the rebuff arose from shyness or a disdain for men to whom she had not been properly introduced. We can be pretty sure of the timeline because Mr Spring Snr died in 1927 when Claris was still only 2.

By the time Claris was due to begin school the Great Depression was beginning to bite. Her brother Jack decided it was inappropriate for his little sister to have to go to school in bare feet so he found a job at which he made enough money to buy Claris a pair of shoes. It was about this time that Claris welcomed a younger brother, Ray. Then a couple of years later, along came another brother, Cyril. When Claris was 10 her little sister, Rita, was born of whom she became very fond. Sadly, Rita had a fall and sustained brain damage from which she did not recover, dying at only 8 years old.

School was not a happy time for Claris, in part because she was perhaps less academically inclined than some but also because she was called upon to look after her younger siblings while her mother was unwell which apparently happened a lot during Claris's school years. As soon as she reached the minimum legal age at which she could leave school, Claris did so. At home one day she answered the phone and it was the Post Master wanting to talk to her father, Tommy. Tommy was a mail contractor, delivering letters and parcels to the various properties (mostly cattle stations) around Clermont. Apart from whatever other business the Post Master had with Tommy, he asked him if Claris was looking for a job because in the opinion of the Post Master she had the right voice to be a telephonist. And so, Claris undertook paid work rather than just looking after the family.

Somewhere along the line between the time she was 2 and about 14 Claris got past her initial shyness towards Clarrie and when he went off to the war in Europe and Africa they wrote back and forth to each other. Quite possibly it had something to do with the friendship Clarrie had struck up with Jack, Claris's elder brother, who was just 10 days older than Clarrie. We do not know the content of these letters only that they both kept then until somewhere after their 60th anniversary. When they were downsizing to leave Park Ridge, they decided nobody else needed to see these letters and they then destroyed them. Though Clarrie did see some harrowing action in the war he was home on leave on Armistice Day of 1943. In what some might well have seen as an unusual proposal, Clarrie said "I haven't asked you to marry me yet, have I?". To which Claris replied "No, but I have been waiting for it". They were married the following year on 18^th May. They celebrated an amazing 70 anniversaries!

In the early days of their marriage Claris and Clarrie lived at Clarrie's ancestral home at Bathampton where Clarrie worked the family garden, growing fruit & veg which went to supply the needs of the local towns Blair Athol & Clermont.

Their first-born son was Walter who arrived just before Claris turned 20. Robbie was born a couple of years later and it was soon after this that Clarrie & Claris left the Clermont area to pursue a life elsewhere. They moved to Yeppoon where Clarrie explored various ways of putting the bread on the table. One opportunity that came up was to go and pick peanuts in Kingaroy, some hundreds of miles distant. Clarrie set off in his truck but Walter was not keen on being left behind and set off after him. When Claris discovered he was missing she began searching. A lady called out to her "Are you looking for a little boy?" This was apparently after the lady had asked Walter "Is that your mother?" and been told "No".

After a year or so in Yeppoon, the family set off for Mossman in the far North where Clarrie would cut cane. Sadly, after only a month at Mossman Claris' younger son Robbie was drowned. As part of their grieving process Claris & Clarrie left Mossman and moved up onto the Atherton Tableland where Clarrie worked in various capacities and Claris engaged in some extreme homemaking including the use of a shovel to remove cow dung from the hut that came with Clarrie's work as a stock inspector. With Clarrie's next job, in a nearby sawmill, the family moved to a somewhat improved house on a dairy farm. It was here at Malanda only weeks before Bobby was born that Claris called into the local police station. The sergeant asked her "What can I do for you?" to which she replied "I have come for a driver's licence".

"Do you mean you want to renew your licence?" "No, I don't have one yet." "Well, I've seen you driving around long enough so I'd better give you one".

A few weeks after Bobby was born Clarrie got a job in the sugar mill at Gordonvale and the family moved again, back down to the coast. They lived in a big old house with lots of mango trees and lots of cats. One day Claris could hear Bobby crying but could not readily find him. Fortunately, the house was not particularly high set because Bobby had managed to climb up to a window and fall out. Thankfully, the ground was kind to him and he sustained no long-term injury.

After a year or 2 at Gordonvale, the family moved back to home territory, Clermont. It was here that Claris met Heather Nixon who would be one of her closest friends until Heather's death some 60 years later. It was while Heather was a neighbour that she gave birth to Lyn who would become the daughter Claris never had. During this time in Clermont Claris & Clarrie managed a second honeymoon, leaving the boys for 2 weeks with Gran, Claris's mother in Rockhampton, while they went off to Port Douglas. If Claris thought her years of chasing toddlers were over, she would have been unduly optimistic - Bobby was just as curious about the world as Walter and apart from her own efforts in finding him he was at times retrieved from way across town at least once by his father and at least once by his uncle Cyril. As an apprentice mechanic Cyril was under a car when he recognized a little pair of legs walking by.

When Clarrie spotted a job opportunity in Scottville in the latter part of 1954 the family moved again, this time for a longer stay than any to date. Scottville was (and still is) a satellite town to Collinsville together constituting mostly a coal mining community. A couple of years after the move to Scottville, Claris gave birth to John. When the doctor announced his gender, Claris exclaimed "Not another boy!" to which the doctor responded "Do you want me to put him back?" The doctor here was Geoff Porter whose path Claris was destined to cross again many years later. It was here more than anywhere else that Claris got to show off and enjoy her singing voice, at the Worker′s Club. Although her father and her brothers learned to play musical instruments, her musical talent came out as a great singing voice. Her 2 youngest sons were musically talented, Bobby playing the violin and John the guitar and piano.

After about 8 years at Scottville, Clarrie's manager called him in to give him advance notice that the mine was soon to cease underground operations and become open-cast only. On the plus side, there was an opening at Mt Isa Mines an associated company for which Clarrie was well qualified. In a more nearly perfect world, the family would have made a neat clean move to Mt Isa but in the world as it then was, Clarrie had to go sooner than the rest of the family could prepare to move. This presented Claris with quite an opportunity for adventure, to drive herself and the 2 younger boys in the family ute (an "Inter", technically an International AR110 light truck) the six or 800 miles across what were then some quite interesting roads. One of their stops along the way was with one of Clarrie's relatives in Hughenden. She was welcomed though with some protest at the lack of notice on account of the time required to cool the hot artesian water. Closer to Mt Isa Claris encountered a steep hill on a detour with a sign warning to change down a gear. Claris changed down from top to second but soon found she really should have been in low. She stalled. The Inter had a notoriously bad handbrake so she had to hold the ute on the footbrake with a steep descent to the left and the same to the right. Claris asked Bobby could he get out and find some rocks to chock the wheels so she could release the footbrake and do a hill start. All went well and they presently made it to Mt Isa.

Initially at Mt Isa, the family lived in a flat owned by Clarrie's employer Mt Isa Mines. Claris had her time cut out looking after her husband and sons Bobby and John both at school with Walter being away at boarding school. Bobby was not exactly keen on school and when his Pass result came back for the exam at the end of his primary school Scholarship year, he was convinced they had made a mistake. He came to terms with his achievement when his father bought him a brand new bike. John's schooling was a constant challenge for Claris. He was clearly gifted in several areas, just not those he was expected to learn at school. After not too long in the company flat, the family bought a 5 acre farm on the outskirts of town and Claris took a significant part in growing crops for sale. Bobby left town to find work elsewhere and eventually went to live and work in Darwin. After more than a year there he decided to head back home to Mt Isa. It was with great sadness that Claris learned the day after Clarrie′s 50th birthday party that Bobby had been found dead beside the road a little way from Tenant Creek. After a long day's drive and well after dark he had apparently not seen the loose gravel washed onto the road by one of the area′s rare storms and lost control as he took a corner. The whole family took it very hard but Claris in particular, losing a second son on almost exactly the 20th anniversary of Robbie's death. It was after this that Claris went to work. Clarrie was uncomfortable with this believing he should be supporting his wife. However, when Claris's mother explained to him that it was more of a social need than an economic one, he came to see it her way. As another part of the grieving process the family left the farm and moved to a regular suburban block.

Claris worked in various bars over the next few years, mostly clubs but also one pub the Overlander. It was while she was at the Irish Club that she was one night accosted by a breathless patron who had rushed across town from the Buffalo Club to inform her that her husband had just arrived at the Buffalo Club accompanied by 2 women. She later conceded she had missed an opportunity here because she promptly told her informant "That'll be my mother and my sister". Another remarkable incident was when she fell while carrying a tray of drinks ‐ and spilt not a single drop. Being now more like "empty nesters" Clarrie & Claris were free to go on longer trips, once driving as far as Adelaide.

When Clarrie retired, he and Claris moved to Brisbane and began searching the nearby countryside for a suitable farm. The search went on for many months until they found the place in Park Ridge where they would spend the better part of 25 years. While Clarrie did his gardening in the back-yard Claris looked after the house and the front yard. Claris had from time to time expressed an interest in travelling overseas but possibly because of his experiences during the war Clarrie showed no interest. However, there came a time when they had some surplus cash and Clarrie asked Claris "Would you like to go and visit Wal?" who was then in London. Not wishing to go on her own she replied "No, but if you have that much spare money, I'll have a ride-on mower". It was here at Park Ridge that Clarrie & Claris celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with many friends & family in attendance including Walter & his new bride Yolanda from New York.

Eventually Clarrie & Claris decided the farm at Park Ridge was becoming too much for them to manage and they moved just a couple of miles to Heritage Park still well within range of all their usual shops and other facilities.

Sadly, in 2010, Claris was to lose another son, the youngest John. He had been in ill health for some time but it was still a heavy loss to lose him at only 53 years of age. At John′s funeral his father, Clarrie, at 92 was still able, along with Claris, Walter and the rest of the funeral gathering able to walk from the chapel to the graveside. For the next 4 years, Clarrie led a fairly quiet life at home well cared for by Claris but just before Christmas 2014 he departed this life and left Claris a widow. She expressed great relief that she had been able to care for him right up to the end.

She lived for another 5 years, catching up with friends, having a big birthday party for her 90^th and a not so big but still sizeable one for her 94^th last year. And these last couple of years she became much better acquainted with her daughter-in-law after Yolanda moved from New York. And even the day before she died, she was pleased to exchange kisses with her youngest "Grand-son" Hans, a Chihuahua now 5 months old. She passed away peacefully on Sunday 17^th May, 2020.

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EULOGY Claris Florence Hiette was the first-born child to Robert Clarence (Tommy) Hiette and Laura Lillian Young (née Turner) on 22nd June 1925. Her mother had been widowed at an early age and Claris began life with an older brother and 2 older sisters, technically half siblings from her mother's side. We may not know a great deal from her early childhood but there is a persistent story that her mother was visited at her shop (she ran a bakery at that time) by a Mr Spring and his 9 year old son, Clarence who (so it is told) said Hello to Claris only to be rebuffed though we can only guess if the rebuff arose from shyness or a disdain for men to whom she had not been properly introduced. We can be pretty sure of the timeline because Mr Spring Snr died in 1927 when Claris was still only 2. By the time Claris was due to begin school the Great Depression was beginning to bite. Her brother Jack decided it was inappropriate for his little sister to have to go to school in bare feet so he found a job at which he made enough money to buy Claris a pair of shoes. It was about this time that Claris welcomed a younger brother, Ray. Then a couple of years later, along came another brother, Cyril. When Claris was 10 her little sister, Rita, was born of whom she became very fond. Sadly, Rita had a fall and sustained brain damage from which she did not recover, dying at only 8 years old. School was not a happy time for Claris, in part because she was perhaps less academically inclined than some but also because she was called upon to look after her younger siblings while her mother was unwell which apparently happened a lot during Claris's school years. As soon as she reached the minimum legal age at which she could leave school, Claris did so. At home one day she answered the phone and it was the Post Master wanting to talk to her father, Tommy. Tommy was a mail contractor, delivering letters and parcels to the various properties (mostly cattle stations) around Clermont. Apart from whatever other business the Post Master had with Tommy, he asked him if Claris was looking for a job because in the opinion of the Post Master she had the right voice to be a telephonist. And so, Claris undertook paid work rather than just looking after the family. Somewhere along the line between the time she was 2 and about 14 Claris got past her initial shyness towards Clarrie and when he went off to the war in Europe and Africa they wrote back and forth to each other. Quite possibly it had something to do with the friendship Clarrie had struck up with Jack, Claris's elder brother, who was just 10 days older than Clarrie. We do not know the content of these letters only that they both kept then until somewhere after their 60th anniversary. When they were downsizing to leave Park Ridge, they decided nobody else needed to see these letters and they then destroyed them. Though Clarrie did see some harrowing action in the war he was home on leave on Armistice Day of 1943. In what some might well have seen as an unusual proposal, Clarrie said "I haven't asked you to marry me yet, have I?". To which Claris replied "No, but I have been waiting for it". They were married the following year on 18^th May. They celebrated an amazing 70 anniversaries! In the early days of their marriage Claris and Clarrie lived at Clarrie's ancestral home at Bathampton where Clarrie worked the family garden, growing fruit & veg which went to supply the needs of the local towns Blair Athol & Clermont. Their first-born son was Walter who arrived just before Claris turned 20. Robbie was born a couple of years later and it was soon after this that Clarrie & Claris left the Clermont area to pursue a life elsewhere. They moved to Yeppoon where Clarrie explored various ways of putting the bread on the table. One opportunity that came up was to go and pick peanuts in Kingaroy, some hundreds of miles distant. Clarrie set off in his truck but Walter was not keen on being left behind and set off after him. When Claris discovered he was missing she began searching. A lady called out to her "Are you looking for a little boy?" This was apparently after the lady had asked Walter "Is that your mother?" and been told "No". After a year or so in Yeppoon, the family set off for Mossman in the far North where Clarrie would cut cane. Sadly, after only a month at Mossman Claris' younger son Robbie was drowned. As part of their grieving process Claris & Clarrie left Mossman and moved up onto the Atherton Tableland where Clarrie worked in various capacities and Claris engaged in some extreme homemaking including the use of a shovel to remove cow dung from the hut that came with Clarrie's work as a stock inspector. With Clarrie's next job, in a nearby sawmill, the family moved to a somewhat improved house on a dairy farm. It was here at Malanda only weeks before Bobby was born that Claris called into the local police station. The sergeant asked her "What can I do for you?" to which she replied "I have come for a driver's licence". "Do you mean you want to renew your licence?" "No, I don't have one yet." "Well, I've seen you driving around long enough so I'd better give you one". A few weeks after Bobby was born Clarrie got a job in the sugar mill at Gordonvale and the family moved again, back down to the coast. They lived in a big old house with lots of mango trees and lots of cats. One day Claris could hear Bobby crying but could not readily find him. Fortunately, the house was not particularly high set because Bobby had managed to climb up to a window and fall out. Thankfully, the ground was kind to him and he sustained no long-term injury. After a year or 2 at Gordonvale, the family moved back to home territory, Clermont. It was here that Claris met Heather Nixon who would be one of her closest friends until Heather's death some 60 years later. It was while Heather was a neighbour that she gave birth to Lyn who would become the daughter Claris never had. During this time in Clermont Claris & Clarrie managed a second honeymoon, leaving the boys for 2 weeks with Gran, Claris's mother in Rockhampton, while they went off to Port Douglas. If Claris thought her years of chasing toddlers were over, she would have been unduly optimistic - Bobby was just as curious about the world as Walter and apart from her own efforts in finding him he was at times retrieved from way across town at least once by his father and at least once by his uncle Cyril. As an apprentice mechanic Cyril was under a car when he recognized a little pair of legs walking by. When Clarrie spotted a job opportunity in Scottville in the latter part of 1954 the family moved again, this time for a longer stay than any to date. Scottville was (and still is) a satellite town to Collinsville together constituting mostly a coal mining community. A couple of years after the move to Scottville, Claris gave birth to John. When the doctor announced his gender, Claris exclaimed "Not another boy!" to which the doctor responded "Do you want me to put him back?" The doctor here was Geoff Porter whose path Claris was destined to cross again many years later. It was here more than anywhere else that Claris got to show off and enjoy her singing voice, at the Worker′s Club. Although her father and her brothers learned to play musical instruments, her musical talent came out as a great singing voice. Her 2 youngest sons were musically talented, Bobby playing the violin and John the guitar and piano. After about 8 years at Scottville, Clarrie's manager called him in to give him advance notice that the mine was soon to cease underground operations and become open-cast only. On the plus side, there was an opening at Mt Isa Mines an associated company for which Clarrie was well qualified. In a more nearly perfect world, the family would have made a neat clean move to Mt Isa but in the world as it then was, Clarrie had to go sooner than the rest of the family could prepare to move. This presented Claris with quite an opportunity for adventure, to drive herself and the 2 younger boys in the family ute (an "Inter", technically an International AR110 light truck) the six or 800 miles across what were then some quite interesting roads. One of their stops along the way was with one of Clarrie's relatives in Hughenden. She was welcomed though with some protest at the lack of notice on account of the time required to cool the hot artesian water. Closer to Mt Isa Claris encountered a steep hill on a detour with a sign warning to change down a gear. Claris changed down from top to second but soon found she really should have been in low. She stalled. The Inter had a notoriously bad handbrake so she had to hold the ute on the footbrake with a steep descent to the left and the same to the right. Claris asked Bobby could he get out and find some rocks to chock the wheels so she could release the footbrake and do a hill start. All went well and they presently made it to Mt Isa. Initially at Mt Isa, the family lived in a flat owned by Clarrie's employer Mt Isa Mines. Claris had her time cut out looking after her husband and sons Bobby and John both at school with Walter being away at boarding school. Bobby was not exactly keen on school and when his Pass result came back for the exam at the end of his primary school Scholarship year, he was convinced they had made a mistake. He came to terms with his achievement when his father bought him a brand new bike. John's schooling was a constant challenge for Claris. He was clearly gifted in several areas, just not those he was expected to learn at school. After not too long in the company flat, the family bought a 5 acre farm on the outskirts of town and Claris took a significant part in growing crops for sale. Bobby left town to find work elsewhere and eventually went to live and work in Darwin. After more than a year there he decided to head back home to Mt Isa. It was with great sadness that Claris learned the day after Clarrie′s 50th birthday party that Bobby had been found dead beside the road a little way from Tenant Creek. After a long day's drive and well after dark he had apparently not seen the loose gravel washed onto the road by one of the area′s rare storms and lost control as he took a corner. The whole family took it very hard but Claris in particular, losing a second son on almost exactly the 20th anniversary of Robbie's death. It was after this that Claris went to work. Clarrie was uncomfortable with this believing he should be supporting his wife. However, when Claris's mother explained to him that it was more of a social need than an economic one, he came to see it her way. As another part of the grieving process the family left the farm and moved to a regular suburban block. Claris worked in various bars over the next few years, mostly clubs but also one pub the Overlander. It was while she was at the Irish Club that she was one night accosted by a breathless patron who had rushed across town from the Buffalo Club to inform her that her husband had just arrived at the Buffalo Club accompanied by 2 women. She later conceded she had missed an opportunity here because she promptly told her informant "That'll be my mother and my sister". Another remarkable incident was when she fell while carrying a tray of drinks ‐ and spilt not a single drop. Being now more like "empty nesters" Clarrie & Claris were free to go on longer trips, once driving as far as Adelaide. When Clarrie retired, he and Claris moved to Brisbane and began searching the nearby countryside for a suitable farm. The search went on for many months until they found the place in Park Ridge where they would spend the better part of 25 years. While Clarrie did his gardening in the back-yard Claris looked after the house and the front yard. Claris had from time to time expressed an interest in travelling overseas but possibly because of his experiences during the war Clarrie showed no interest. However, there came a time when they had some surplus cash and Clarrie asked Claris "Would you like to go and visit Wal?" who was then in London. Not wishing to go on her own she replied "No, but if you have that much spare money, I'll have a ride-on mower". It was here at Park Ridge that Clarrie & Claris celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with many friends & family in attendance including Walter & his new bride Yolanda from New York. Eventually Clarrie & Claris decided the farm at Park Ridge was becoming too much for them to manage and they moved just a couple of miles to Heritage Park still well within range of all their usual shops and other facilities. Sadly, in 2010, Claris was to lose another son, the youngest John. He had been in ill health for some time but it was still a heavy loss to lose him at only 53 years of age. At John′s funeral his father, Clarrie, at 92 was still able, along with Claris, Walter and the rest of the funeral gathering able to walk from the chapel to the graveside. For the next 4 years, Clarrie led a fairly quiet life at home well cared for by Claris but just before Christmas 2014 he departed this life and left Claris a widow. She expressed great relief that she had been able to care for him right up to the end. She lived for another 5 years, catching up with friends, having a big birthday party for her 90^th and a not so big but still sizeable one for her 94^th last year. And these last couple of years she became much better acquainted with her daughter-in-law after Yolanda moved from New York. And even the day before she died, she was pleased to exchange kisses with her youngest "Grand-son" Hans, a Chihuahua now 5 months old. She passed away peacefully on Sunday 17^th May, 2020.