Lillian Muriel Davis Lillian Muriel Davis was born on 12’h April 1926 at Tannalo, near Mackay. Her parents were Bill and Jessie Davis, who came from Bauple. Bill was working at Tannalo loading sugar cane from the horse drawn wagons into railway wagons at the derrick, to be taken to the sugar mill. After her sister Doreen was born at Mackay, the family moved back to Bauple. Bill, whose proper name was Cyril Churchill Bevan Davis was born at Bauple on 26” January 1899. His wife Jessie was Violet Jessie Bertram prior to her marriage. Jessie was born at Gympie on the 7“ March 1906
.Lillian's first childhood memories were when they lived in tents at Owanyilla, where her father was working on building the road south of Marlborough.In 1932 at the age of 6 Lillian attended the Raby State School at Bopple. The name of the school was changed to the Bauple State School in 1935 after the closure of the Mt Bopple School north of the township in 1933.She attended the Maryborough Girls High School in 1940/41 after passing the Scholarship Examination in 1939. She passed her Junior exam in 1941 and in the following year she gained employment with the Tiaro Shire Council as Junior Clerk.
The Second World War began in 1939 and in 1945 Lillian joined the Women's Royal Australian Naval Services WRANS and served in ‘HMAS Moreton’. After being demobilized from the Navy she worked at the Bauple Post Office (manual telephone exchange in those days) until her marriage to Fredrick George Brooks in1947. Fred was a returned serviceman who was serving at Rabaul in New Guinea when the Japanese bombed Rabaul, then landed there. He spent 3 months in the Jungle in New Britain before he escaped to Cairns on the ‘MV Lakatoi’.
They had four children, John born on 25” March 1949, Gary 12'" February 1951, Kerrie 13’h November 1956 and Neville 23’° July 1958. Fred died on 8” January 1976. Sadly Kerrie was killed in a car accident in 1974 and John died in 1981 as a result of an accident he suffered when he was 9 years old. Lillian married Joseph Coyne in 1980.
Lillian was the eldest of 6 children, she was born in 1926, Doreen in 1927, John (Jack) 1930, Nola 1932, Terence 1935 and Graeme 1946. Bill, Jessie and their children always spent their holidays at Tinnanbar. For many years they camped in tents and later built a shack on an allotment purchased by their son in law. Everyone had such carefree holidays there and always shared their catches, be it fish, crabs and oysters with the whole camp. In 1974 Lillian returned to work in the Tiaro Shire Council Office where she worked until her retirement in 1991. Because of her Naval Service Lillian attended WRANS reunions held in all Australian Capital Cities. The WRANS were invited to a reunion at Hastings in New Zealand which she attended. An invitation was extended to the WRANS to participate in a reunion in San Diego organized by the American women, the WAVES. This was extended to a 6 week tour of America and Canada.
Other overseas trips included The British Isles, Austria, Switzerland and Singapore.
Horses were always her true love. She also loved going to dances on a Saturday night.
In recent years she wrote a book about the early history of Bauple district-’Bauple looking back to Pioneering Times’ and also-‘Tinnanbar as I have known it’. Lillian's main interests were in The Mt Bauple and District Historical Society Inc. and was a volunteer at the Bauple museum. In 2003 Lillian received the Citizen Award for 2003 from the Tiaro Shire Council. |
