Descendants of a couple of Balingup’s earliest white settlers recently got together to celebrate the centenary of the family’s arrival.
DESCENDANTS of William and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Jenkins recently met in Balingup for the 100th anniversary of the couple’s wedding in 1910 – and it was no small crowd that turned up.
William and Elizabeth settled in Balingup in 1912 and within a few years, had seven children.
Daughter Elizabeth Happ, who now lives in Nannup, described those early years in vivid detail.
“My father was Welsh and my mother was German-English,” she said.
“There were a lot of migrants from places like Germany in the 1850s, due to trouble in Europe.”
William, then aged 20, and his three brothers arrived in Nannup in 1905.
“The gold had run out in Ballarat and I think the big boom had gone,” Elizabeth said.
“The Jenkins brothers all decided to come to WA because they’d had the Gold Rush in Kalgoorlie, plus the timber industry was getting underway.”
At first, the brothers all worked at the timber mills.
“He and one of his brothers used to fell trees and drag logs in,” Elizabeth said.
“They worked at Claymore, Greenbushes and around Balingup.”
As often as he could, William would buy land — and in 1907 he bought his first big holding in Balingup.
“That was the property where we grew up,” Elizabeth said.
“It was half of the Ferndale property, originally part of the Padbury holding.”
Within five years William had earned a lot of money.
“He wrote home to my mother, who was 15 when he left,” Elizabeth said. “There was some sort of agreement between them.
“He wrote for a photo because the fellows used to try and get him to go to dances to meet a nice girl. He wanted the picture to show them that he already had one.”
William returned to Ballarat to marry Lizzie in 1910.
They returned to WA and lived in a tent at Worsley, where William had a contract to work.
On the birth of their first daughter, William bought Lizzie a sewing machine. On the birth of their first son, he bought her a piano after which, Elizabeth says, they moved into their Balingup property, possibly because the piano wouldn’t fit in the tent.
“William was a member and chairman of the road board in Balingup at a very young age,” Elizabeth said.
“He was always hoping to make things better in town, and Balingup was always a lovely town.
“I remember my father and all the other men of Balingup working on the sporting and recreation grounds.”
The Jenkins had four children in their first four years of marriage, and in that time William cleared a lot of his land to run cattle and crops and plant an orchard.
“War broke out in 1914,” Eliz-abeth said.
“Because he was a farmer he was supposed to stay home and produce food but his three brothers went to Gallipoli.”
During his time in Balingup William helped to build the bowling green, the croquet lawn and the agricultural hall. He was a keen sportsman and rifle shooter.
“In the 1930s he built a timber mill on the farm; when my brothers grew up and were old enough to help him work it — it helped with the money,” Elizabeth said.
The Balingup property was eventually sold, with half of it going to one of Elizabeth’s brothers, and the family moved to Nannup.
“Here he did much the same thing, he had the ability to call a meeting and get things done,” she said.
More than 100 people attended the family reunion in Balingup.
William and Lizzie had seven children and 28 grandchildren.
From there, Elizabeth said, things have got a bit out of hand.
“Twenty grandchildren have married and had families of their own and of those there are quite a few toddlers,” she said.
“There were 30 people missing — so there’s quite a big mob of us now.”
At the reunion photos were taken of each family group.
In the tradition of the very musical William and Lizzie, who used to put on concerts for the locals, their descendants — including locals Betty and Danny Mauger playing dance music — got out their instruments, tuned up their singing voices and kept each other entertained.
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