What sort of World?

I heard on the radio this morning that 6 million children will die this year of hunger and malnutrition. What sort of world, what kind of people are we who stand by and let this happen?

Hailes Family History 3

It seems that there is a gene in the Hailes family that emanates from way back to have a variety of jobs or careers! It was certainly evident in Grandpa Joe Hailes. So far you are aware that he had a fruit block at Renmark in 1914 but Clarrie Norton's book shows how much of an entrepreneur that my grandfather was.

"In August 1914, at the conclusion of the harvest, I was offered a permanent job with Mr. Hailes as he was becoming involved in a general carrying business. This work included fruit block duties plus general carrying trips from Paringa to Berri with a two horse team....By this time, owing to my employers new interest, Mr. Hailes decided to purchase a portable chaff cutter and this young bloke from the hills was given the job as operator...Mr. Hailes now opened a chaff store at the rear of Bland's boarding house in Berri and my time became fairly evenly divided, though I was still living at Renmark." (p. 11)

Clarrie also writes that one day Joe asked him to drive (horse and cab I presume) to Lyrup ,(another nearby small town) hire a boat, and pick up 500 bricks to be used for the building of the new Renmark Hospital. My mother has actually heard Clarrie tell this story about when he was in the boat on the River Murray and it started to sink because he had too many bricks on board. Mum says, that as Clarrie told her the story, he was bent over laughing and slapping his hand on his thigh as he recounted the story that he couldn't swim and he frantically started throwing bricks overboard to stop the boat from sinking. Well, he made it to Renmark with the bricks and the hospital was built. The same hospital that I and my sister Mary was born in.

In 1915, the town of Berri (13 miles downstream from Renmark) was apparently starting to flourish and Grandpa Joe, ever the entrepreneur, sold his Renmark house and fruit block and moved to Berri. Berri, by the way, is the home of Berri Fruit Juices, which is now a large Australian Company. On moving to Berri ,Joe continued to run his chaff store and became the local representative for the Gem Navigation Company. While he was involved in these businesses my Grandma Jennie ran a boarding house for young female shop assistants.

Hailes Family 2

I mentioned yesterday that Clarrie Norton (Grandma Jennie's cousin) writes about Joe and Jennie Hailes in his autobiographical book "Seventy Years on the River by an Ordinary Bloke".
In January 1914 , at 13 years of age, he arrived at the Paringa (near Renmark) Railway Station after travelling all day by train from his family home at Lenswood in the Adelaide Hills . He travelled with his 14 year old brother and they were looking for work and also escaping possible conscription into the Army. Joe picked them up from Paringa and took them to the Hailes home and fruit block in 27th Street.

"It was really great to be with relatives again. Mr. Hailes was the Salvation Army Bandmaster and the family followed the traditions of that grand old organisation very strictly....Living approximately four miles from town we relied on Mr. Hailes and his horse and buggy to get to any church service on sundays. As he was the driver we naturally attended The Salvation Army services and had no complaints regarding same, as the people were totally devoted to helping somebody and were all true Christians. Their services at the time were held in the old mud hall on the corner of 16th and Para Streets....I never regretted these Sundays with Mr. Hailes and his wife Jennie as I met some of the finest people, impossible to fault." (p.11)

A Visit to Leavenworth

A friend I met during a visit to a beautiful Bavarian town in the Cascade Mountains a few hours from Seattle.

Hailes Family History

Some family members who read this know that I began researching the Hailes Family History about 11 years ago. I gathered a fair bit of information but lost steam a few years ago. Now that I have become a grandfather for the first time I am reminded that I am getting older and would like to use this blog to write a kind of autobiography but will include as much of the Hailes family history that I have gathered. Let this be interactive in that other family members who have information that I have left out may want to comment. You can correct my facts but not my personal opinions!

My parents, Clarrie and Verna moved from Adelaide to Renmark in 1948. The second world war was over by a few years and housing was difficult to obtain. Mum and Dad were offered this house to live in at Renmark, South Australia , and in February of that year they took up the offer. They moved there with my older sister Wendy. She was quite young at the time! Renmark is a fruit growing district situated on the River Murray about 3 hours drive northeast of Adelaide, not far from the Victorian border.

It seems that Dad's father, Joe Hailes, had also lived in Renmark as a boy, having been brought up by the Southall family. Joe was the son of William and Annie Hailes (nee Southall). William must have died while Joe was young and she remarried a Jack Evans. I lose the plot here because Joe was somehow brought up by his mother's family.

Moving right along! Grandpa Joe eventually married my grandmother, Jennie Norton Cotter who came from Underbool in Victoria. I don't know when or where they were married but I have a 1906 photograph of Joe in The Salvation Army Band at the Renmark Corps. I also have a 1913 photograph of Joe in the same Band and by this time he was the Bandmaster. I know that he and grandma Jennie were married by then (Joe was 27 years of age)because I have a copy of a fascinating book by Clarrie Norton (Jennie's cousin)in which he makes numerous references to my grandparents from 1913-1917. The book is entitled 'Seventy Years on the River by an Ordinary Bloke'. I actually remember Clarrie (my father was named after him)from my growing up days in Renmark. On my next few blogs I will quote from his references to my grandparents.

The Big Skies of Montana

I've been to Montana again. Its a great part of the world with beautiful mountains and big lakes. This time it was summer. The snow was gone and it was hot with huge blue skies. Check out Helena, Montana, in your atlas or on the internet and you will see where I have been. On Friday I talked about Australia to some daycare kids at the Corps. They were very interested in Australia and Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter, has certainly put Australia in the minds of U.S. kids.
On Saturday the officers took me on a tourist boat trip on the Missouri River through a magnificent Gorge. Saturday night saw us at an outdoor symphony concert amongst about 2,000 people. It was just great sitting on the deck chair listening to the music as the sun slowly sank into the big Montana Western sky. This is in a town of 35,000 people which would really be an outback town in Australia. It took me an hour's plane journey and then a 5 hour car drive to get there. Back to work Sunday morning to preach a sermon and then the 5 hour drive back to Spokane to catch a plane. A great weekend's ministry! Tonight I marched with the Seattle Temple Band in my very first American Parade! It was rather special because my grandson Daniel was watching me as well.

I'm Back!

I just noticed that it's about a month since I posted a blog on this spot! I've had some holidays and also been busy with getting back to work and entertaining some Aussie visitors.

I'll sign back in with a quote from a yet another theolgian that I enjoy reading. He hasn't written lots. I think he's an Anglican. I like his commentary on Job. I quote from this commentary:

" 'You are such a fast God and always leaving just as we arrive,'said RS Thomas...
In that sense we can share in John Donne's exuberant celebration of traveling on-'Change is the nursery of music, joy, life and eternity' -although it may not always seem like it at the time.
No one in their right mind would choose to go through some of these perspective-changing experiences. Yet (and how often is this the case - just ask around) in retrospect, and sometimes only years later, those events appear as golden times - life changing times we call them because then, desperate and naked, we were thrown upon God.
The knocks, the shocks, the experiences, the changes, the altered perspectives are God's means of unshuttering our minds to let in the revelation of which is already at the door."

Message in the Stars

Another author, theologian, I have been introduced to in recent years is a guy by the name of Frederick Buechner.(pronounced Beekner). I am reading his book called 'The Magnificent Defeat'. He writes about the way in which God speaks and that He doesn't normally write messages in the sky for us all to see. Rather, he says, God's message is "written out for each of us in the humdrum,helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference.
Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it.Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery."