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COOROY RAG
Millicent Poulsen, nee Bechtel 1922-2013 AN era of a pioneering farm family in this district has come to an end with the passing of Millicent Poulsen. She led a remarkable and long life from Brisbane to the bush and then to Tewantin. From the middle of the twentieth century to the millennium, she lived with husband Ken on the Poulsen family farm at “Beechwood” west of Cooroy on the Mary River. Born on April 9, 1922, the eldest of 3 children, brother Len was 14 months younger while her sister, Nancye was born 8 years later. Both Len and Millicent went to Buranda State School where Millicent became a Brownie. After a scare at school during the polio epidemic, was sent to the Church of England Girls School in Warwick to become a boarder. She loved the chance to become a Girl Guide there. It was in Warwick that Millicent got her nose broken playing softball. When she asked to see a doctor, she was told “What’s wrong with a broken nose?” So she learned to live with her bent nose. Returning to Brisbane, she went to Somerville House. Millicent loved to draw. She did adult painting classes in her later years. By the time she finished school, the Second World War started. Millicent joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment and the Country Women’s Association. Her membership of the CWA was to be lifelong. Later she signed up for the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service. Her first task was to tend to troops bivouacked at the Exhibition Centre. She said the “poor fellows” hated their vaccination needles and some fainted. She sometimes thought: “How will they fare when they have to face live shooting?” She nursed at the Greenslopes Military Hospital then went back and forth from Brisbane
to Townsville, tending to the sick and wounded on troop trains. After the war, she did two years nursing, in Mackay, and then served as the boarders’ matron at the Moreton Bay High School. Millicent met her future husband, Ken Poulsen, through his younger sister, Dorothy, who was a classmate of hers at Somerville House. Ken was of Danish and English descent. Millicent and Ken discovered a mutual love of dancing and became dance partners. When Ken got around to asking Millicent to marry him, she said “Perhaps.” In one of her oral histories, Mum said: “Ever since I had been at boarding school, I thought country life would be wonderful.” They married September 22, 1950. They moved to the Poulsen’s family farm on the Mary River. It was on the telegraph line and old Cobb & Co. stagecoach route from the Gympie goldfields to Brisbane. The area near Mt. Tuchekoi was initially known as “Little Denmark” because of all the Danish settler-farmers there. The newly-weds had to stay with Ken’s mother and brother for six months, in the grand old Queenslander homestead at the end of a palm tree-lined drive. Millicent’s life spanned an era from biplanes to supersonic jets, telegraph to mobile phones and computers. She was able to move with the times with some, if not all, of this technology. She “wanted to be remembered as an environmentalist, a conservationist and a recycler.” She was a talented archivist kept all sorts of newspaper clippings over decades. During drought times on the farm, we would conserve water usage in an unusual way. The bathwater was “recycled” by using only one tub for the whole family. Mum as the cleanest would go first, then Neil, myself, and finally
Dad as the dirtiest in from the farm work. Only then it would be bucketed onto the plants in the garden! I’m sure this was a common story among farm families but our mother was certainly an early conservationist, well before the term became fashionable. Millicent had a rebellious streak and specifically asked for the Eureka flag to adorn her coffin. A close friend recalls meeting Millicent when she first took up a block out at Carters Ridge. “Mrs Poulsen seemed a member of the Blue Rinse set but she shocked me and her younger friends by announcing: “Marriage should be like joining the army. You should sign up for a number of years and then review it!” However, she stayed with Ken until he passed away and then kept the farm going for over a year after. And she had her wedding band on to the very last. The farm “Beechwood” was carved out of scrubland from part of Kenilworth station under three generations of the Poulsens. This was from land that local Aborigines had roamed for millennia. Millicent was part of opposing the planned destruction of an Aboriginal midden, a waste pile from corroborees, when the main roads department decided to straighten the old Bruce highway past the farm. In later years, she became a vocal opponent of the state government’s plan to dam the Mary River at Traveston Crossing. She displayed a “No Dam” badge on her hat and encouraged people to read the booklet on the issue. In her twilight years, Millicent’s sight became more and more affected by macular degeneration, making it more difficult to discern peoples’ faces and their expressions. Actually, Millicent could never be accused of having tunnel vision. She kept up a wide
interest in the state of the world. She continued to expand her knowledge of natural history as well. Not surprisingly, she was much in demand as part of her trivial pursuits team at Carramar. After her retirement from the farm, she said she wanted to visit all the capital cities of Australia. One of her first trips was to Hobart. Then she set off to do a few more of the trips she always wanted, especially New Zealand and Norfolk Island. Before her eyesight was too far-gone, she and Lois, another good friend from the farm days, set off on a trip around Australia. Millicent passed away peacefully on October 3, in her room at Carramar. Millicent will be missed by her family and many friends from her school and nursing days in Brisbane to the half century on the farm at Carters Ridge, to her retirement years in Hibiscus and her eight years among the residents, carers and nurses at Carramar Aged Care.
Professional Studio Presents
2013 Annual Concert ‘Right Here, Right Now’ 7pm & 2013 Classical Production 4.30pm 13th December @ Nambour Civic Centre. Tickets on sale from 18th Nov. To purchase Dial & Charge 54757777 or visit www.scvenuesandevents.com.au
2014 Enrolment Day Saturday 25th Jan 10am - 1pm at the studio • fully air conditioned studios with sprung floors • Exams & Concerts held yearly
Special is valid until 31st March 2014
Principal Miss Jemma Pass Registered Teacher BBO Registered Teacher IDTA Blue card holder
13 Kauri street Cooroy PH: 0414686161
See the girls at
jemma@danceform.com.au
There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them - Vicki Baum
Shop 7 Wattle St Complex, 13 Garnet St Cooroy PH: 5447 7088 natalie@nccat.com.au
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Cooroy Rag, November 27, 2013 - Page 17