Born Kiama, New South Wales on 16 December 1890.

Married Alfred William Cheeseman at Narrandera, NSW 18 May 1910.

Children:

• AliceWinifred ('Winnie') Stafford (1911-2000)
• Christina Mary ('Teen') Bainbridge (1913-2011)
• Laurence Alfred Cheeseman (1915-82)
• Leslie William Cheeseman (1917-90)
• Reginald George Cheeseman (1922-99)
• Lance Edward Cheeseman (1928-99)
• Alfred John ('Freddie') Cheeseman

Died 1967 in Preston, Victoria

Click here for more photos of Alice Laurence and her family.

Growing up in NSW

Alice Maud Laurence - pictured sitting on her mother's knee in the photo on the left - was the fourth child of William Joseph and Mary Jane Laurence. She was born at Kiama in New South Wales on 16 December 1889 and was baptised, with her older sister Emily, at the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Kiama on 1 September 1890. In around 1894 Alice moved with her family from Kiama to their newly acquired bush block at South Yalgolgrin near Barellan. The older girls had to look after the chickens and cows, herding the latter through the surrounding bush in search of fresh grass, or feeding them the fresh tips from the Kurrajong trees. A few years later, William arranged for Alice to go to the farm of one of his friends to help the man's wife look after her children. She was poorly treated and, on one occasion, became lost in the bush after she was sent out to bring in the family's cows. Alice could well have perished except she remembered her mother's advice and followed a fence that she came across and which led her back to the homestead (well after the cows had returned of their own volition). Instead of being concerned, the woman was angry with Alice, hit her with a small whip she used to herd the cows and then sent her home. Mary Jane was horrified at what had happened and refused to allow Alice to go back.

When she turned 14, Alice went to work as a domestic servant at the Narrandera Hotel. While there she was offered a position at the Bynya homestead by its then manager Leslie Thompson, 'a young and energetic man' according to Gow and Gow, who 'had gained his first station experience at Murril Creek, beyond Ardlethan, and later, at Manfred Downs in the Queensland Gulf country'. Bynya (meaning 'big hill' or 'mountain') was one of the northern sheep runs that had been established in the area in the 1870s. At the time it was owned by A. S. Austin, a son of the owner of the Wanganella run. It comprised some 100,000 acres with 40,000 of these freehold and the balance crown land. Austin sold the property in April 1912 to a syndicate which sub-divided it into smaller farms.

Alice was employed to help the station's Irish and, at times drunken housekeeper, a Mrs Flood and her husband. The only other people who lived there were the manager Thompson, the station overseer called Botterall, and a seventeen year old rouseabout. Quite often the owner of the station would visit as would Thompson's sister Winifred after whom Alice named her eldest daughter. It was while she was working at Bynya that Alice met her future husband Alfred Cheeseman. After returning home from South Africa, Alfred had found it hard to get steady work around his home town of Carngham in Victoria and so he and his brother Herbert travelled north into the Riverina district where they were contracted to sink wells for bore water. Alfred and Alice became friends and continued to write to each other after Alfred returned to his small farm at Beaufort. Twelve months later Alfred proposed and, much to the disappointment of her employers at Bynya, Alice accepted. At her farewell party at Bynya Alice received a number of gifts including an inscribed silver tea and coffee service, a silver and oak biscuit barrel, a silver butter dish and a framed photo of the famous Melbourne Cup winner Carbine (the last two from Botteral). Her place at the homestead was taken by her sister Emily (shown in the photo below).

Alice and Alfred were married at St Thomas's Church in Narrandera on 18 May 1910. Those members of their respective families who were unable to make the trip to Narrandera for the occasion were able to read the following account of the wedding in the Ripon Shire Advocate:

Mr A. W. Cheeseman, third son of Mr A. J. Cheeseman of Beaufort, and Miss A. M. Laurence, fourth daughter of Mr W. Laurence of Narrandera, NSW, were married at St. Thomas' Church Narrandera, on 18 May. The bride was dressed in a beautiful white silk gown, with valencienne lace trimmings. She wore a wreath and veil, and carried a bouquet of white daffodils. The bridesmaids (Misses E. and K. Laurence) were both attired in pretty dresses of white silk; they wore white picture hats, and carried bouquets of white flowers. Mr A. Beecher [May's husband] was the best man. The wedding breakfast and reception were held at 'Glen Idol' Narrandera, the residence of the bride's parents. The travelling dress was of navy blue voile, trimmed with white silk; picture hat to match. The bridegroom's gift to the bride was a set of furs and he presented the bridesmaids with watches; the bride's gift to the groom was a gold ring. The honeymoon was spent at Melbourne [where the couple went to see Nellie Melba sing] and Warburton.

Married life in Victoria

After they were married, Alfred William and Alice lived on Alfred's small property in Beaufort. Life here was not easy and Alfred was forced to do extra work in order to support his family. This meant he was away from home for much of the time and Alice had to maintain the home block as well as look after her two young children, Alice Winifred or 'Winnie' (born in 1911) and Christina Mary or 'Teen' (1913). During this time, Alfred's father, Alfred John, and his youngest brother Ralph would often visit the property to see that Alice and her children were all right, and, sometimes, take them into town to shop or see the sights. The family would also occasionally spend the weekend at Alfred's brother William Cheeseman's place in the town of Beaufort. While there they would go to whatever entertainment that was on. According to Winnie, Alice 'loved these weekends, there was always so much fun at Bill and Jinny's, they had three children, just a small house, but Auntie Jinny could make a comfortable bed on the floor and she was a wonderful cook'.

Around the time of Teen's birth, Alfred was approached by Robert Balcombe ("Balky") Beggs to work on the latter's property at 'the plains' some 17 miles from Beaufort. Balky Beggs was the son of Robert Gottlieb Beggs and his first wife Maria Balcombe of the Briars at Mornington (Maria died giving birth to Balky). Robert Gottlieb and his brothers Theodore and Hugh Beggs were part of the powerful Beggs dynasty which owned a number of properties in Victoria and New South Wales including 9,000 acres of open plains at Hopkin's Hill. Encouraged by the prospect of earning a good income from farming, Alfred accepted Begg's offer and started work soon after. Because it was too far to commute, he had to stay at the property during the week. Even though the living conditions at the plains were fairly primitive, Alice decided to join him so each weekend the family would move back and forwards between the two places.

As Winnie recounts in her memoir, 'one day Balky Beggs told Dad he had heard of land being opened up for soldier settlement, it was part of the old Mt Widderin Station near Skipton [pictured below], 250-acre blocks, about twenty-two miles from where we lived. Balky advised Dad to apply and said if he was successful he would help him with seed oats and a couple of horses . . . Dad applied and was accepted . . . My parents were very excited about owning a real farm of their own where they could grow crops and run a few sheep, the little farmlet they now owned was on very poor bushland and was overstocked with the few animals they had. Best of all Dad would be home and no trudging to "The Plains" with enough food for the week'. As the new block had no buildings on it, they arranged for their existing house to be lifted from its foundations and placed on a horse-drawn jinker and transported to their new property. The jinker became bogged in the soft soil and required a traction engine to pull it from the yard onto the road. Six weeks passed before Alfred was informed via the Beaufort Post Office that their house had finally arrived at its new destination. Upon receiving this news

Kitty was harnessed in the buggy and Mum (who was one month off having her fourth child) took us three children and set off the twenty-two miles. We were packed in like sardines with extras from the house. Dad was to follow the next day driving the sheep, now 50, the cows and horses, with the dray loaded up with the extras and chooks, etc with only Hoodlums [the family dog] for company . . . [Alice's journey took much longer than expected but she and the children finally arrived at their long looked-for destination] There sat our little house, on its blocks about two feet off the ground, windows and doors still boarded up, no way of getting into it, nearly dark, no light, no water, no fire, freezing cold and light rain beginning to fall. It just looked as though it had been dumped in the middle of a paddock not a tree or any other kind of shelter visable. Poor Mum was feeling cramped after sitting all day in that buggy, all of us kids cried and Mum cried too.

The town of Skipton in Victoria, around the time Alice and Alfred moved on to their farm there.

Alice and Winnie managed to lever away some of the wooden planks covering the front door and scramble inside where Alice prepared some food and then got everyone into bed. The next day Winnie rode Kitty back to meet her father on the Beaufort Road and help him bring the sheep and other animals through Skipton and then along the bush tracks to their new property. In addition to ensuring the farm animals were properly fenced in, Alfred began working on readying and then extending the house, digging an earthern dam and putting in place a metal water tank which 'did not take long to fill . . . [as] it always seemed to be raining at Skipton'. Using the seed oats supplied by Balky Beggs, he even managed to put 'a bit of crop in'. Over the next few years, the small cottage was expanded into a four bedroom home which incorporated both a front and rear verandah. A Cyprus hedge was grown around the home block and its approaching driveway was lined with trees. Alfred also built stables, a dairy and a number of sheds to house their farm equipment. The initial crop acreages and yields were extended and diversified and, at the end of the harvesting seasons, haystacks constructed. In addition to looking after their growing family and seeing the older children off to school, Alice spent much of her time tending her growing garden and helping Alfred in the fields. An idea of their busy lifestyle can be obtained from a letter she wrote to her youngest brother in 1925 in which she told her beloved Tommy:

I have been helping [Alfred] to bag a truck of oats today and my word they were in a mess with the rats and mice. We got a good price for them so Fred thought it best to let them go. He is to start cutting hay on Saturday, the crop is not too bad. I will be glad when it is finished. I don't like harvest time I get so tired on my feet. We will have only one man on, the same fellow we had last year. We have 125 acres to cut. Fred thinks about 1 ton to the acre ... well my dear brother I am awfully tired ... [and] this all I really can write tonight. So with fondest love and many kisses from us all to you. I remain your loving sister Alice Cheeseman.

That same year Alfred acquired a neighbouring property - Loader's Farm - whose owner had resettled at Rochester in Victoria's northern Wimmera district and from where, Winnie tells us, 'he wrote to Dad and said, "Sell up and come up here Fred there's great money to be made in cattle". But Dad hated cows', she continued, and was also now 'rather enjoying himself'. In addition to making many friends in the area and taking part in numerous communal activities, Alfred was also serving as the President of the local Progress Association and Vice President of the Skipton and District Bush Nursing Service as well as being on both the local school and hospital committees. By this time, too, he had begun suffering from fits thought to be caused by scarring of the brain incurred in his accident in South Africa. He was advised to move to warmer and drier climes and so, no sooner was the farm at Skipton established, it was sold in 1927 and the money invested in another property Alfred had seen advertised in the Weekly Times and had acquired after a brief visit of inspection the previous year. The new property was located near Walpeup in the north western Mallee region and on the edge of the little desert which lies across the border between Victoria and South Australia. Its previous owner had planted a 750-acre crop of wheat which at the time of Alfred's visit was 'looking green and luscious' and had next to it 'a dam full of water'. Both the crop and the farm's horses and plant were included in the asking price of six pounds per acre. Alfred was much impressed and decided to buy the place. Both Winnie and her mother were less certain when informed of his decision and disappointed about having to leave Skipton but thought the warmer climate would be better for Alfred's health.

On the evening of 24 January 1927 many residents of Skipton and its surrounds attended a farewell social held for Alfred and Alice in the local Mechanics Hall. A subsequent report of the event in the Skipton Standard and Streatham Gazette, tells us the 'building was comfortably filled' and the proceedings began with a number of speeches farewelling the guests of honour. The President of Skipton School's Committee told his listeners 'he had found Mr and Mrs Cheeseman good citizens. Mr Cheeseman took a keen interest in school matters, particularly the welfare of the children, and he had always given his support by donating prizes'. The school's principal stated he had found 'Mr Cheeseman a valuable member of the committee' and regretted the family's departure, 'especially their children . . . who were good scholars'. Alfred and Alice were then presented with a silver tea pot and tray bearing the inscription "Presented to Mr and Mrs A. W. Cheeseman, by their friends of Skipton and district, as a mark of esteem. 24/1/27" [as well as] a wallet of bank notes for Mrs Cheeseman'. The report continued that:

Mr Cheeseman responded on behalf of his wife and himself. He considered he had only done his duty as a citizen, and was sorry to leave so many friends behind him, but he assured them that he would re-vlsit Skipton on some future occasion. It was gratifying to him to know that the residents had appreciated what he had done, and he thanked them for the gifts and their kind expressions for his future welfare. A dainty supper was handed round, and a programme of dances was carried out during the evening . . . The proceedings terminated with the singing of Auld Lang Syne (29 January 1927).

The family left Skipton a few weeks later in a brand new Chevrolet car Alfred had bought from the proceeds of the sale of the farm and the bulk of its equipment. They spent the first night of their journey with Alfred's brother, William Cheeseman, and his family at Beaufort. On the second night they camped on the roadside near Hopetoun before driving to Patchewollock the next morning. In his memoir, Winnie's brother Laurie tells us they were then in 'real Mallee country' and 'each sandhill we passed - and there were hundreds of them - must surely have put a grey hair in my mother's head'. Later that day 'we arrived at our new farm. The house was a one-roomed tin shack, no lining except bag and lean-to over the back door, a tin chimney and an earth floor. Little or no shelter around the place, just an open slather for the dust'. Their new dwelling was a vast disappointment to Alice in particular who, Winnie tells us, after seeing the 'old tin hut on the sand hills . . . cried for about a week blaming Dad for coming to such a place'.

This initial disappointment increased rather than subsided over the next few years. As Laurie describes, they planted their first crop of wheat where the previous owner 'had scratched out over four hundred acres of fallow to help sell the place', It was a heart-breaking job as 'we found the whole paddock was a mass of stumps which knocked the machinery about and then grew the greatest crop of mustard weed you ever did see'. The following year saw the onset of severe drought conditions. As Laurie recalled, they planted their crops dry and waited for rain but the rain didn't come. On most days 'the wind sprang up and the drift sand blew . . . against the fences and the sheds' and into and under the house. Their cows and sheep kept walking over the silted fences and had to be tracked down and retrieved. Violent dust storms further spooked the animals and their owners. As the drought worsened the property's dams and water tanks ran dry and they had to get their water from a Government dam located some five miles away. The water was pumped by hand into open tanks carried on flat-bed wagons and then carted home with a good deal of the precious cargo lost from leakage and splashing. Following the cessation of the drought and the return of sizeable crop yields, they were confronted by a number of mouse plagues. As Laurie recounted, the mice:

. . . came from nowhere in their millions. They ruined everything they could get at. We drowned them, we poisoned them, we used every device imaginable, still for every one we killed, a thousand seemed to take its place. They got into the house, the cupboards, the beds at night and everything smelt mousey. At night around the sheds they were a moving black mass and ruined everything in their tracks. The mystery is that they disappeared as quickly as they came, but left behind them plenty of evidence.

With hard work and belated govennment assistance they managed to hang on until the return of better times. As well as clearing the ubquitous Mallee roots from their fields, Alfred made the house both more liveable and comfortable, built a garage for their car, stables for their horses, and sheds for their farm equipment. He dug an underground cellar in which perishables and other food could be stored in summer and, in 1931, extended the existing dam. By then their older children had finished their schooling at Kattyoong Primary and were helping their parents on the farm or, after the drought years, were earning incomes by working for other farmers or the merchants of Walpeup. Alfred and Alice were able to enjoy watching Winnie and the boys participate in local sports and other activities. And, as they did at Skipton, they made friends with their neighbours and other members of the local community. Alfred again became involved in various local organisations. These included being: 1) Vice President of the Walpeup District Football Association which was formed in 1928 and had as its inaugural teams: Torrita, Yellumjip, Kattyoong and Wynlet (Ouyen Mail, 9 May 1928}; 2) a committee member of the Walpeup Farmers Defence League whose inugural meeting in 1931 resolved to urge the Victorian Government 'to pass a bill "to protect farmers from pressing creditors" . . . [and] agreed to take steps to prevent forced sales - resorting to force if necessary' (Sunraysia Daily, 31 March 1931); 3) President of the Walpeup District Cricket Association which, according to an article in the Ouyen Mail on 9 October 1934, comprised teams from Hungry Hut, Walpeup, Kattyoong, and Torrita; and 4) Chair of the commitee that organised and ran the annual Walpeup and District Combined Schools Sports meetings (Ouyen Mail, 21 September 1931 and 8 September 1933). In a poem entitled '50 Years of Walpeup' written well after he had left the district, their son Reg provides us with a sense of what life was like for Alfred and Alice and their family during this latter period:

We play our scratchy gramophone, we read the Weekly Times,
We kept abreast of local news by tapping party lines.
Around the old piano with the neighbours Sunday nights,
Skylarking on the veranda, by a kero lantern light.
Yes and that I still remember as I sometimes sit and dream,
The day they got together there to form a football team.
'Twas Kattyoong, in red and white, with ring-ins never fear
And they won the North-West pennants, was it thirty-one the year?
And when they won, there never was a thing we couldn't have,
We could even bite the old boy for a Zac to buy a sav!
What joy the day they made it, brother did we kick the tins
For the Lattas and the Woodalls and our stars, the brothers Binns.
Then afterwards at Rudy's barn, they danced the night with glee,
To Siddy on the banjo, the boss himself, M.C.,
The little ones on wheat bags slept, you'd never hear a peep
As 'Click go the Shears' lulled them gently off to sleep.

By the 1940s, Afred and Alice's three eldest children had moved away. Winnie and Teen went to work in Melbourne where Winnie married Fred Stafford in 1940 and Teen Fred Bainbridge two years later. Laurie worked for a time in south-west NSW on his uncle Edmund (Ted) Pearson's saw mill at Yenda in the Binya State Forest before, in 1937, moving back to Ouyen where he was employed as a fireman in the Victorian Railways. He married Elsie Hickmott there in 1945. As Winnie descibes in her memoir, during this time they would all go back to the farm for Xmas and New Year in order to see their beloved parents and to spend time with their younger siblings. As Winnie recalled, the annual New Year's eve dance held in the Walpeup Hall was a particular highlight: 'Everyone in the district was there, some of them were just home for Xmas like me, it was a great night for meeting old friends and hearing their last year's experiences. I used to teach the boys a few new dance steps in preparation for this event and we always had a most enjoyable time'. Laurie and Les both served in the Australian Army during the Second World War, Laurie in Syria and later in New Guinea with the 2/2nd Field Ambulance and Les in Australia with the 21st Battalion of the VDC. Their younger brother, Reg, joined the Victorian Railways around the same time as Laurie, and also worked at Ouyen before, from the mid-1940s, living and working in Victoria's Gippsland region where he married Mary Ellen (Marie) Lawless in 1947. This left Les, who had been born at Skipton in 1917, Lance (Skipton, 1928) and Alfred jnr (Freddie, born at Walpeup in 1932), to help Alfred with the farm work. In 1947 Les married Patricia (Pat) Pickering at St Mark's Anglican Church at Red Cliffs near Mildura and worked as a farm labourer at nearby Sunnycliffs before also moving to Melbourne.

By then the farm was fairly well established, much of the day-to-day chores could be handled by Alfred's sons and he and Alice had time aplenty to take part in local activities as well as visit family and relatives in other parts of the State. Just as he was at Skipton, Alfred was by all accounts well content with his lot and was again beginning to enjoy life. Alice, too, was happy although she never fully got over the disappointment and anguish generated by their first few years as Mallee farmers. As Winnie recalls, these concerns were heightened by the fact that Alfred continued, albeit less often, to suffer from the fits that had spurred them to leave Skipton and the belief that the new farm was not the success she had hoped for. The former concern was shared by Winnie in particular who

. . . had been hearing in letters from my Mother that my Father's health was not good, then one morning at 4 am we received a telephone call saying Dad had died in one of his turns. They had been at a euchre party and dance and arrived home at 1 am. Dad was laughing and telling my Mother some of the funny incidents as they were going to bed . . . at 2 am he had one of his turns and did not come out of it. When I arrived home and saw my Father lying there I knew that farm would never have any appeal to me. My Father was buried at Walpeup, the little cemetery there in a ovely peaceful bush setting.

Alfred and Alice at Teen's wedding in 1942 and Alfred's grave at Walpeup.

Alice continued to live on the farm following Alfred's death on 20 March 1949 but later sold it to her son Lance and, with Freddie, went to live in Ouyen (Lance, who married Betty Aikman in 1951, sold the farm in the 1960s and moved to Belmont near Geelong). Sometime after this Alice moved to Melbourne where she initially lived by herself near Winnie in Preston. After suffering a stroke she moved in with Winnie and Fred. She died in 1967 at the age of 78 years and is buried next to Alfred in the Walpeup cemetery. Alice's death notice, published in the Melbourne Sun on 1 May 1967, tells us she was the 'dearly loved wife of the late Alfred William, loving mother of Winnie (Mrs Stafford), Christina (Mrs Bainbridge), Laurie, Les, Reg, Lance and Fred. fond mother-in-law of Fred Stafford and Fred Bainbrifge, Elsie, Pat, Marie, Betty and Valmae. Loved grandma of Merrill, Gregory, Ann, Hugh, Keith, Bronwyn, Graeme, Jillian, Daryl, Noel, Wayne, Robert, Dianne, Fay, Jenny and Pam'. In her memoirs, Winnie lovingly recorded the last years of her mother's life as follows:

My mother had come to Melbourne to live, to be near me in her declining years. She had bought a small house a few streets away from me, she brought furniture and personal things she wanted from the Mallee, and now had a washing machine for the first time, and instead of the wood fire she had always had to clean she had a gas fire and a television set. I went to see her nearly every day, but it always worried me that she would be lonely at night, after her hard life I didn't think she deserved to be. We took her everywhere we went, she kept her little house lovely and seemed quite happy...Everything went smoothly for a few years, then she rang me at 7am one morning and said she felt ill and could not move her right arm. The doctor put her in hospital and said she had had a stroke, she had lost the power on one side of her body...would be confined to a wheel chair and would never use her right arm again. Her speech and face were not affected. She then came to live with me, she only lived eight months, she had no will to live as a cripple, she was 76 and just wanted to die and be buried near dad at Walpeup. When she died we took her back home but I will never cease to miss her.

The year before he died in Melbourne on 24 April 1990, Alfred and Alices's second son, Les Cheeseman, visited the old farmhouse near Walpeup and wrote about what he saw in the following poem:

The old farmhouse is completely deserted
It looks very much alone and forlorn
But it's the place we all grew up in
And the place where the youngest was born.
The front veranda is now non-existent
And it has lost all the ceilings and floors
The windows are nearly all missing
And there are only one or two doors.
There are no water tanks on the tank stands
But the roof remains quite true and straight
But there is nothing more to support it.
So for a big storm it just lies in wait.
The garage is still where Dad put it
There would still be room for two old cars
The cow yard and stable are not visible
And the 'Smithy' won't have any more iron bars.
It all seems a dream that never came true
Our parents battled with drought, dust and flies
But if God ever gives them leave to return there
The old place would bring tears to their eyes.

The left photo was taken at Skipton in around 1921 and shows (L/R): Laurence Alfred, Alice Winifred, Leslie William and Christina Mary Cheeseman.
The one on the right shows the family at Walpeup in around 1938. Standing (L/R): Reg, Teen, Les, Winnie and Laurie. Sitting/kneeling (L/R):
Alfred William, Freddy, Alice Maud and Lance.

Click here to read about Alfred and Alices's children and descendants.

Click here to read extracts from Winnie's memoirs and here to read extracts from her brother, Laurie Cheeseman's memoirs.

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