This oral history interview was conducted with two sisters, Mrs Elva Hill and Mrs Mary Martina. They describe growing up in Beechworth, living a fairly well-off life compared to others around them. Mrs Martina in particular talks about going to school, becoming a teacher, and helping to set up Beechworth Secondary School. She talks briefly about gender roles for girls in the classroom and how teaching has changed over time. Mrs Hill and Mrs Martina describe the Beechworth community as friendly, including towards migrants, and suggest they were not particularly involved in political movements except for protesting after the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. They discuss visiting the Albury Show. The sisters briefly discuss 'them pushing the wheelbarrow to Mt Buffalo'. This refers to a publicised wager between garage proprietor Tom Parkinson and Post Office Hotel licensee Tony Evans in 1935. Evans challenged Parkinson to push him in a wheelbarrow for over 80km (with an elevation of 1000m) from the Beechworth Post Office to Mt Buffalo in just eight days, with the winner awarded twenty pounds. A brochure was published with official rules, and the incident made international news in the New York Times. They briefly discussed that their parents worked at the 'Mental Hospital', the full name of which was the Mayday Hills Mental Hospital, known at other points as the Beechworth Asylum and the Beechworth Hospital for the Insane. This oral history recording was part of a project conducted by Jennifer Williams in the year 2000 to capture the everyday life and struggles in Beechworth during the twentieth century. This project involved recording seventy oral histories on cassette tapes of local Beechworth residents which were then published in a book titled: Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth century Beechworth. These cassette tapes were digitised in July 2021 with funds made available by the Friends of the Burke.The statement captures a personal perspective on the teaching profession and education at rural schools during the mid-twentieth century, with a focus on the experience of young girls and women going to school. It specifically discusses the establishment of Beechworth Secondary School. Mrs Hill and Mrs Martina also provide insights into the social dynamics of the town, as two girls from a well-off family discuss how they believed people from different backgrounds interacted with one another. The interview also puts Beechworth into a wider social context, as the women discuss how they were perceived when they went to College and how they interacted with wider politics. This oral history account is socially and historically significant as it is a part of a broader collection of interviews conducted by Jennifer Williams which were published in the book 'Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth-century Beechworth.' While the township of Beechworth is known for its history as a gold rush town, these accounts provide a unique insight into the day-to-day life of the town's residents during the 20th century, many of which will have now been lost if they had not been preserved.This is a digital copy of a recording that was originally captured on a cassette tape. The cassette tape is black with a horizontal white strip and is currently stored in a clear flat plastic rectangular container. It holds up 40 minutes of recordings on each side.Mrs Elva & Mrs Mary Martina /listen to what they say, beechworth, oral history, burke museum, hill, martina, sisters, boarding school, rural school, primary school, beechworth secondary school, mayday hills mental hospital, gender, gender at school, entertainment, albury show, dress codes, wealth gap, whitlam dismissal

In this interview we hear from Don and Bobbie Hayes who met and were married in Beechworth. Mrs Hayes was born in Beechworth to a blacksmith and a teacher who had moved to the area not long before she was born in 1925. She discusses her family and the struggle her mother had being a city woman relocated to the bush and into a family who didn't accept her for her Methodist religious beliefs as they were a staunch Catholic family. After working in the Tannery when they first moved to Beechworth from Melbourne, Don got a job in the 1950's at the Beechworth Mental hospital known as Mayday Hills (est. 1862) and continued working there for the next thirty six years. Starting as a nurse Don would be one of three or four staff known then as attendants, who would oversee up to forty patients in a ward taking them out to work the land and gardens or chop wood on the grounds. Mrs Hayes also worked in the Hospital and discusses the need at the time to be earning to pay for large medical bills that came from two of their children, one having a congenital heart problem which was not covered by hospital benefits and the other displaced hips that required surgery. By the end of his time working at the hospital, Don was in charge of the patient training centre where those destined for discharge would be trained on how to cope in the world outside of the hospital grounds they were so used to. Both talk openly and with heartfelt candour, recalling their years spent among the patients of the hospital community, their sense of humour and compassion are evident and although the times and the jobs were definitely hard and the wages low, this couple cared deeply about the people they worked with and sit among those people from the local area who established Beechworth as a significant social welfare region. This oral history recording was part of a project conducted by Jennifer Williams in the year 2000 to capture the everyday life and struggles in Beechworth during the twentieth century. This project involved recording seventy oral histories on cassette tapes of local Beechworth residents which were then published in a book titled: Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth century Beechworth. These cassette tapes were digitised in July 2021 with funds made available by the Friends of the Burke.The significance of this oral history lies in the firsthand accounts from two people who were directly involved in the significant nursing work undertaken at Mayday Hills Mental hospital from the 1950's. Hearing the stories from those who were there and had lived experience, adds depth and we gain valuable insight into how and what the asylum was like for those who worked there and colourful details about the kinds of patients they encountered too, it adds human and personal context to what could otherwise become statistic and abstract information about a historic site. This oral history account is socially and historically significant as it is a part of a broader collection of interviews conducted by Jennifer Williams which were published in the book 'Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth-century Beechworth.' While the township of Beechworth is known for its history as a gold rush town, these accounts provide a unique insight into the day-to-day life of the town's residents during the 20th century, many of which will have now been lost if they had not been preserved.This is a digital copy of a recording that was originally captured on a cassette tape. The cassette tape is black with a horizontal white strip and is currently stored in a clear flat plastic rectangular container. It holds up 40 minutes of recordings on each side.listen to what they say, beechworth, oral history, burke museum, mayday hills hospital, may day hills, beechworth mental asylum, mental hospital, asylum, nursing, hospital, patient training centre, patients, social welfare

Mr Max Sutor was born in South Australia. He first began his work as a marine engineer at the Mildura Irrigation Trusts, moving later to the Melbourne Harbour Trusts. After a number of years as an engineer, he moved into farming at Gippsland and joined the prison service several years after during the late 1960s. He was first stationed at Morwell River Prison in South Gippsland, transferring to McLeod Prison in 1972 and finally to Beechworth in 1974 as senior prison and stores officer. He would assist in the organisation, obtaining and distribution of food and medication to prisoners. The prison, at the time, was of medium security and held high security prisoners, with an estimated amount of 108 prisoners to 23 staff. Mr Suter showed a great push in showing humility towards prisoners, wanting to avoid animosity against them by never looking at their records to treat them equally. His choice of kind behaviour towards prisoners had clearly influenced their own, especially during manual labor. The prison had worked cooperatively with a local farm, having their prisoners assist in the farm work. Attitudes inevitably changed positively for several prisoners. Whilst he held no control over their actions at the farm, he still became well trusted and liked amongst the prisoners, as they would continue to go to him for assistance and questions. Mr Suter had also worked as an instigator of finding drugs within each prison he has worked within. This led him to study the variations, and being a member of the Parents and Citizens Association at the high school his children attended, as well as Community Service Director of a Rotary club, he wanted to educate parents in guidance for those unsure on how to conduct actions against such behaviours. From his first seminar, a police surgeon told him that three drug users were found by their parents. This oral history recording was part of a project conducted by Jennifer Williams in the year 2000 to capture the everyday life and struggles in Beechworth during the twentieth century. This project involved recording seventy oral histories on cassette tapes of local Beechworth residents which were then published in a book titled: Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth century Beechworth. These cassette tapes were digitised in July 2021 with funds made available by the Friends of the Burke.Mr Max Suter's account on his time and experience as a senior prison officer at Beechworth Prison is historically and socially significant for the cultural heritage of the region. His recounts of his time working within the prison and out in local parent and community associations held a positive effect on the awareness and behaviours of the Beechworth area, and provides detailed information on the duties and complications working in a 20th century rural prison, as well as the lack of local awareness from adults with young influential children. This oral history account is socially and historically significant as it is a part of a broader collection of interviews conducted by Jennifer Williams which were published in the book 'Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth-century Beechworth.' While the township of Beechworth is known for its history as a gold rush town, these accounts provide a unique insight into the day-to-day life of the town's residents during the 20th century, many of which will have now been lost if they had not been preserved.This is a digital copy of a recording that was originally captured on a cassette tape. The cassette tape is black with a horizontal white strip and is currently stored in a clear flat plastic rectangular container. It holds up 40 minutes of recordings on each side.Max Suterlisten to what they say, beechworth, oral history, burke museum, max suter, beechworth prison, farming, drug awareness

Mrs. Vanessa McDonald was born in Beechworth in 1917. Christened, Agnes Bertha Collins, Vanessa changed her name in 1960. Mrs. McDonald's family's connection with gold mining in the district reach back to the first of Beechworth's gold rushes, when her great grandfather, a Dutchman who adopted the name Charles Collins, arrived in 1851-1852. Mrs. McDonald spent her childhood in the isolated hamlet of Stanley, in the area known as 'Little Scotland', where she recalls helping her mother to raise younger siblings, picking apples and walnuts on the family farm, and roaming the hills for wildflowers. As a young woman Mrs. McDonald attended religious and social gatherings in the local community. In 1940 she went to Melbourne to work as a mothercraft nurse during the Second World War. She met her husband at a Beechworth football match and was married at the Stanley Methodist Church in 1941. The gold diggings known as the 'Nine Mile' became the hamlet of Stanley, after the British Prime Minister, Lord Stanley, in 1858. By the late 1850s, Stanley boasted schools, an athenaeum, a church, a weekly newspaper and several hotels and other civic infrastructure to cater for a growing population. The area attracted large numbers of Chinese miners, whose presence was frequently resisted. Like other early Victorian mining settlements, Stanley was a hotbed of political and racial tensions during the gold rush. One side of the Nine Mile Creek was known as 'Little Scotland’, the other, 'Little Ireland'. A number of Christian denominations built congregations and churches in Stanley, including the Church of England, Methodist Church, the Catholic Church, and Presbyterian Church. Stanley became part of the United Shire of Beechworth in 1871. By 1880 timber was being cut and two sawmills were established by 1887. River-dredged gold mining consumed vast amounts of timber from the forests in the area, and in 1931 the first of several softwood plantations began. This oral history recording was part of a project conducted by Jennifer Williams in the year 2000 to capture the everyday life and struggles in Beechworth during the twentieth century. This project involved recording seventy oral histories on cassette tapes of local Beechworth residents which were then published in a book titled: 'Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth century Beechworth'. These cassette tapes were digitised in July 2021 with funds made available by the Friends of the Burke.Following the decline in the mining and associated industries during the early-mid-twentieth century, the Beechworth district experienced a period of general economic decline. On the east side of the Dingle Range, Mrs. McDonald's father, William Henry Collins, felled timber and the family were pioneer apple orchardists. The establishment of apple orchards in Stanley reflects changes to how land was used and contributes to our understanding of the historical development of rural communities following the gold rush. Mrs. McDonald's recollections are significant for understanding family and social life in a small rural town in years leading up to the Great Depression and prior to the Second World War. This oral history recording may be compared with other oral histories and items in the Burke Museum's collection. This oral history account is socially and historically significant as it is a part of a broader collection of interviews conducted by Jennifer Williams which were published in the book 'Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth-century Beechworth.' While the township of Beechworth is known for its history as a gold rush town, these accounts provide a unique insight into the day-to-day life of the town's residents during the 20th century, many of which will have now been lost if they had not been preserved.This is a digital copy of a recording that was originally captured on a cassette tape. The cassette tape is black with a horizontal white strip and is currently stored in a clear flat plastic rectangular container. It holds up 40 minutes of recordings on each side.Mrs Vanessa McDonald /listen to what they say, beechworth, oral history, burke museum, emigration, gold rush immigration, victorian gold rush, mining families, apple orchard, forestry, forest plantation, little scotland, stanley, twentieth century history, regional australia, rural australia, farming, harvest festival, great depression, dingle range, the nine mile, australian wildflowers, high country wildflowers, mothercraft nurse, rural and regional women, social history, collins, mrs. vanessa mcdonald, building community life, shaping cultural and creative life, fruit growers, family history, changes to land use in regional victoria

Graeme Gallus was born on the Mornington Peninsular in a town called Sommerville, in 1938. His family was born in Germany and came to Australia in 1851. He arrived in Beechworth in 1981 after purchasing a taxi service. He talks about local businesses, government employment, community celebrations and clubs. Miss Amy Elizabeth Porrit's account of her life in Beechworth and the local area during the 20th century is historically and socially significant to the cultural heritage of the region. She details important historical events and hardships in the region's history that had a lasting local, regional and national impact, including Australia during war time, economic struggles, and women's societal roles in a rural area. This oral history account is socially and historically significant as it is a part of a broader collection of interviews conducted by Jennifer Williams which were published in the book 'Listen to what they say: voices of twentieth-century Beechworth.' While the township of Beechworth is known for its history as a gold rush town, these accounts provide a unique insight into the day-to-day life of the town's residents during the 20th century, many of which will have now been lost if they had not been preserved.This is a digital copy of a recording that was originally captured on a cassette tape. The cassette tape is black with a horizontal white strip and is currently stored in a clear flat plastic rectangular container. It holds up 40 minutes of recordings on each side.Mr Graeme Gallussommerville, gallus, graeme gallus, taxi, beechworth, real estate, christmas, lions club