Elsie Phyllis WHITE [4838]

  General Notes:

1907 SA Births 230/1031 MOYSE William Arthur Ryder WHITE Elsie Phillis, Norwood (known as Phyllis)
1964 SA Deaths 981/7007 MOYSE Elsie Phyllis William Arthur MOYSE [H], Adelaide

Centennial Park Cemetery Location: General AD, Path 13, Grave 938

Helen's Memories of the Moyses (Wm Arthur Moyse & Elsie Phyllis White)
By Helen Dowling nee Duffield, 2008

My grandparents' house was at 195 Wattle Street in Malvern, a suburb of Adelaide in South Australia. I remember Wattle Street as long and wide and peaceful, running left as you stood outside Grandma's house to the frightening busyness of the Unley Road, where there were buses, subway, and not very interesting shops. To the right it seemed to go, absolutely straight, almost to the foot of the Adelaide hills. The houses lining either side were all separate, one storied, mostly solid, fenced and gated, each one smugly private, and trees along the footpath afforded shade for walking. 195 was a house of red-orange brick, with a roofed and gabled from verandah beside the front bedroom, so that its façade seemed always half open and welcoming and there was a drive on the verandah side which ran the whole length of the house, made of tiny loose angular stones which crunched under car tyres or people's feet. I saw it as respectable, long and narrow and dark with hidden mysteries, and I loved to go there. Inside a dark hallway with a flyscreen door led to the main bedroom, a formal lounge, and a long passage which ran past another bedroom on the right and the dining room on the left to a tiny bathroom and an airy kitchen, then yet another bedroom/sleepout across the back of the house. In the lounge, which I remember as rarely used, was a piano, which Grandma and Mum played with gay abandon, and at which I spent hours and hours joyously experimenting. In the rudimentary bathroom we stood in a big white wobbly bath under a shower which lasted as long as the water stayed warm from the chip heater, often sneakily fired by we children with stolen wodges of newspaper to up the production quality. Beyond the kitchen was a back verandah, on one side of which was the toilet and on the other the laundry. Spotlessly clean and tidy, and with high ceilings, the house was always cool, even on the hottest day.

Grandma slept on her own in the bedroom half way down the long passage, with her clothes meticulously arranged in walk-in shelves. Grandpa slept in the back bedroom, I always imagined because he snored and smoked, and during the night Grandma would call down to him time after time: "Stop that coughing Will", to little effect as far as I could see. The back garden, also long and narrow, had a neatly grassed central square, surrounded by flower and vegetable beds, in particular a highly productive strawberry patch, with one side devoted to the garage at the end of the drive. Outside Grandpa's room at the back was a rainwater tank, dank and mossy underneath where the water dripped to wet more crunchy stones and frogs sang in mournful chorus. This was my secret place, the scene of many an imaginary situation or experience and symbolic of a suburban peace which seems to have been superseded by yuppy landscaping and battleaxe blocks. When we stayed with Grandma and Grandpa I used to sleep in a stretcher bed on the front verandah by myself with Mum and Dad in the front bedroom, a big thick wall and a front door away, and I hated it, scared to death that a burglar would come to get or murder me off the street, which after all was virtually at the head of my bed. I heard every footstep on the pavement, I followed every car and bicycle light as it leered past and seemed to pause to take me in, I curled in a ball of fear at every crunch on the drive stones, every gust of wind or flutter of leaf, and I lay still and terrified for what seemed unending hours, then amazingly awake unmolested in the morning. None of the grown ups ever took my terrors seriously - to this day I am nervous of the dark and noises in the night.

Grandma was a small woman, wiry and capable, the mother of seven children, the last born when she was well into her forties. My mother Gwen was the eldest of these, and before I was born her next sister, Gladys, married but childless, died during hysterectomy surgery, a great sadness for the family. Grandma was a strict Methodist Christian, attending Church every Sunday, and thoroughly disapproving of drinking alcohol, smoking, even playing cards. Grandpa, a smoker and drinker and business man, did not join her in her religious activities. Grandma had a very rigid moral ideals, and disciplined any children in her vicinity accordingly. She worked very hard every day, and kept an organized and orderly house, providing for all within it, often frugally, as some of Grandpa's ventures failed and money could be scarce. She baked on Saturday mornings, producing trays and trays of biscuits, cakes and pies and they lasted all week. She washed every Monday morning without fail, and I used to love the ritual of helping, first filling and heating the big copper and dissolving the soap flakes in it, boiling the whites, then lifting them with huge paddles into one cement trough of cold water, wringing them into another, and finally indulging in the delicious pleasure of squeezing the blue bag evenly through the last rinse. Then the endless hanging on the line with wooden pegs, propping the flying sheets and garments up to catch the breeze with a strong forked branch, and filling the copper again with the coloureds, then the woollens and socks. It took all day and it was exhausting. Food on Mondays was leftovers from the Sunday roast, and the basket loads of dry clothes were folded with tired hands in the evening then damped down for the next day's ironing.

Grandma sewed and knitted with expertise and she was an excellent cook. She had endless patience when teaching me to hem with a thread which was not too long, to mend, to knit, to embroider. She had a huge jar of buttons which I never tired of sorting and looking at when sick in bed. Meals in the dining room were wondrous. I remember the tables as seeming big enough to seat the whole world, needing three or four passes to move the salt and pepper from one end to the other, places would be set with great care, and manners watched carefully, the food plain and good and plentiful. When all the family were there at Christmas there was lots of laughter and teasing, and when one of us spilt a drink, the teatowel would come out from the kitchen to be lumpily pushed under the offending stain so as not to ruin the table. It was a triumph to survive a meal with your place lumpless. The conversation was always interesting, always included we children, and we would never have dreamed of leaving the table before everyone had finished. One of the things that kept me sitting still was the huge glass fronted bookcase which lined the wall opposite my seat, full of glorious books with wonderful bindings and all sorts of stories, whose magic adventures I lusted after, some known classics but many beautiful moral tales I have never come across again. After lunch, everyone had a rest, and I used to lie on the hair sofa under the window in the dining room, devouring gluttonously from the bookshelves, breathing in the smell of paper and leather and dust and knowledge and adventure. I recognised Grandma's exacting standards, and I suffered from time to time for not meeting them, but I loved and admired her very much and remember affectionately the time we spend together. I have absolutely no doubt that she loved all of us too. I feel her influence still when guiltily driven to workaholic obsessiveness. We moved to Western Australia when I was six, and she came to visit several times, and we used to go back to Adelaide every three years and stay with her and Grandpa, but once I went to England to live, and my Mum died, we lost touch. I regret that in the selfishness of adolescence and travelling the world and falling in love I let go of Grandma's last years. Apparently her strict religious beliefs and moral sense became more exaggerated as she grew older, and it is this her children and grandchildren have held with some bitterness, seeing her as inflexible and intolerant. My mother used to go around the block to have a cigarette when we were staying with Grandma. I guess we were all a little scared of her, but I remember most that I loved being with her and learning from her wisdom. Probably my perspective has the advantage of distance.

Grandpa was a rotund and jolly man, always in braces, and with a large hat. He used to collect us from the ship when we sailed around the Bight for our triennial holidays, and we children would always travel in the "dicky seat" at the back of his car. He laughed a lot and cracked jokes all the time, teased us, loved us, was fun to be around and never seemed at all affected by Grandma's stern disapproval and frequent admonitions. That they raised seven children has to be some testament to the success of their union. I perceive Grandpa as a clever and attractive man who knew a lot about who he was and was at peace with that. The tragedy of Glad dying loomed large as we grew up along the aunts and uncles and cousins. Reg was dark and handsome and quiet, married to pretty Audrey (Ros's parents). Lawrence became somewhat of a hero for me, the most educated, and a beautiful man who went overseas and became important in international fields associated with the YMCA and UN. He married an Italian girl, Lucia, and their union was stormy, ending in separation but reconciliation in old age. Geoff was a madcap and eccentric - I met his wife Margaret (an artist) in Adelaide recently and she said they were never approved of by Grandma, who considered them "bohemian" - I remember them both as often laughing, and running a shop (another no-no for Grandma). Rhonda was downright wicked, very glamorous, a free spirit, great fun - she married happily and had sons. Beth, the last, came along when my Mum was a teenager, and they always had a special bond. I adored Beth, she was like a big sister, and she was training to be a teacher when I was young, impressing me indelibly with her most amazingly neat printing. I remember her husband Alan courting her when I was staying with Grandma as a teenager and trying to get to sleep on the dreaded front verandah where they were kissing - they had five children (Mary-Anne's parents) and lived in the country. Beth died in a car accident when far too young - my cousins tell me that she "became" Grandma in her later years. All Grandma and Grandpa's children are dead now (2008), Uncle Lawrence the last to go in 2006, at 92.

Phyllis married William Arthur Ryder MOYSE [1483] [MRIN: 1225], son of David William MOYSE [933] and Isabella Bond RYDER [929], on 2 Aug 1907 in Methodist Church, Maylands, Adelaide. (William Arthur Ryder MOYSE [1483] was born on 31 Mar 1883 in Wild Horse Plains, nr Windsor, South Australia, died on 29 Aug 1967 in St Peters, Adelaide, South Australia and was buried on 31 Aug 1967 in Centennial Park Cemetery, Adelaide, South Australia.)

  Marriage Notes:

1907 SA Marriages 230/1031 MOYSE William Arthur Ryder WHITE Elsie Phillis, Norwood

Chronicle Saturday 30 March 1907
MOYSE- WHITE.- On the 2nd March, at Maylands Methodist Church, by Rev. Vivian Roberts, William Arthur Ryder, eldest son of David William Moyse, of Maylands, to Elsie Phillis, fourth surviving daughter of William White, Maylands. Present address, Gawler.