By Sally Gourley (nee Douthat) daughter of Bohwen & Sarah Ann (nee Thorp)
“Dad never talked much about his family, so we never knew much about our grandparents. But Granny Thorp, Mum’s mother, used to tell us about the ‘Spanish Lady’ (our Grandmother Douthat) who once lived on the round shaped piece of land over the creek. I suppose that was where the family lived when they first came out from Spain. Granny told us that the ’Spanish Lady’ would come out of her house waving her arms and talking and yelling in her ‘own lingo’. “You didn’t know what she was saying, but you’d know she was going crook”, Granny said.
Part of the old house was still there when we were kids. There was an old yellow rose creeping over one wall but Dad wanted to plant some vegetables on the ‘island’ so he pulled down the remaining wall of the house and ploughed in the rose. Unfortunately, we did not take a cutting of the rose.
There was a bridge’ made of large slabs of timber taken from a huge tree which grew on the banks of the creek. When the tree was felled it formed part of the bridge crossing. The ‘old people’ planted the fruit trees which still grow along the creek today.”