May2013_In loving memory of Daphne Deagon Scaife
23.8.23 – 16.3.13
Long term Closeburn resident, Daphne Deagon Scaife (nee Heckenberg) passed away peacefully at Regis Parkland Manor, Ferny Grove recently.
Daph was born as a little sister for Elwyn in a Sandgate nursing home to Lil and Edwin of Mie Gunyah at Closeburn (then Cedar Creek). Daph’s middle name came from her paternal great grandfather William Deagon, Sandgate’s second mayor in 1882, for whom the suburb of Deagon was named. Lil’s father had also been a Sandgate Mayor from 1896.
Happily, Daph was to spend all but the last couple of her 89 years at Mie Gunyah with all her children, Judy Grey and Gary Scaife of Closeburn and Jenny McKenzie of Dayboro, and grandchildren David and Kathryn Grey, Jaclyn and Cameron Scaife, and Steven, Linda, Jodie and Kylie McKenzie, close by.
Daph’s memories tell the history of her district: local farmers like her Dad donating a princely £5 each to help create the Cedar Creek Public Hall in 1925, when bananas were making just a penny a bunch; playing with the spears of the local Indigenous tribe who worked on the farm; helping to load up the dray to take the bananas over the range into the Roma Street markets; jumping onto the flying fox that took the banana bunches high out across the valley; the onset of Bunchy Top disease and the government ordering all the plantations be destroyed; boiling the billy and wrapping sandwiches for swagmen, elephants walking past the property down Old Mount Samson Rd when the circus was in town; the frogmen putting in the (always flooded!) causeway across Cedar Creek; attending Parker State School near the Closeburn Nursery; hitching the draft horses to the plough, milking cows; making butter in the dairy to be loaded on the train near the now main road to Dayboro; the US Army in the neighbouring Samsonvale area during WWII, with a couple of the servicemen walking over Clear Mountain to help with the milking, all done by hand twice a day; the dances at the Cedar Creek Hall decade after decade; waiting at the Hall to greet and feed the 215 people coming out for a picnic in 1947 who didn’t arrive because of the shocking derailment at Camp Mountain and then walking the line to help; learning to drive in the Austin A40 ute; the babies resting in the feed troughs of hay while the milking was done; awful years of drought agonising over which bill could be paid that month; working at the tuckshop at Closeburn school and later when that closed, at Samford State School; working at the former Samford Wholesale Nursery in Richards Rd; playing weekly tennis at McCombe’s Court with girlfriends for many decades; and volunteering at the Samford Museum, the Cedar Creek Public Hall and the CWA.
The young Daph was a tomboy, up early and onto her pony, Chubby. Daphne’s heart was more in the farmyard than the schoolyard. She would ache for school to end and riding her pony Chubby, to begin. This impatience spurred the enterprising Daphne to regularly move forward the school clock’s hands when the teacher wasn’t looking! When little, Daphne and Elwyn would watch for the railmotor each night, waving their lantern to the guard who would wave his lantern back…until the driver caught sight of his guard’s lantern one night and thinking there was an emergency screeched the train to a halt. Daph would delight in telling how one day during the war the cows, would not come down to be milked. Daph saddled up Chubby to get the herd moving, swearing at them in her frustration. To her amazement and extreme embarrassment, a troop of American soldiers with guns rose up from the scrub where they had been conducting manoeuvres in the paddock! Chubby was a character like her owner. She used to stop at Mr Duprey’s shop at Closeburn, when Daphne tried to ride to Samford for supplies and refuse to go any further until Daph bought her an ice-cream. No wonder this pony was called Chubby!
Daph taught herself tennis on the court beside the Hall where a house now stands and went on to win many a district trophy – and her husband, Merv, who came out with the Virginia Tennis team with his mother and his English girlfriend and was seated beside Daph at the post-match cuppa. Daph felt Merv was ignoring her so “accidentally” put a hot teaspoon on Merv’s bare arm. He fell off the chair in surprise and very soon after the English lass was history. Merv had done more than fall off his chair that day. He had also fallen for Daph and they married in March 1951 at All Saints Church, beginning a devoted partnership of nearly 48 years until Merv’s death in 1999.
Daph’s was a true country spirit, and dairy farming was what she loved. Visitors would always be welcomed with a cuppa and some of Daph’s expert home baking. Visitors never went home empty-handed – farm fresh milk, eggs, fruit, a snip from a plant. Of course what kept Daphne busiest throughout her life were her hundreds of animals – from baby quails to budgerigars, from pigs to poultry, from guinea pigs to goats, from fish to fluffy white mice, from canaries to chooks! Daph loved them all and they adored Daphne. Daph had a gift for nursing an abandoned baby animal into life, be it unhatched chicks, a baby crow that fell from the nest, or a sick calf. One lucky goose began life this way when Daph hatched it out of an abandoned egg. Daph – with due imagination – named her Goosey and kept her upstairs for the Winter. Daph taught her to climb the stairs. Goosey was also very protective and many people were nipped if they dared to visit Daph. It is comforting to think that perhaps Daphne and Goosey are reunited now, and that Daph might also be with her favourite cow Susie, who lived well over 30 years, and would come bounding from any point of the property like a youngster if Daph called her. It was dangerous to go to any markets with Daph because you would invariably end up ferrying home an exotic fluffy legged chook or other creature that had to be sneaked in so Merv wouldn’t notice the menagerie had grown – again.
When her fall meant that Daphne had to leave her home permanently, it was fortunate that Regis came with its own brush turkey who quickly adopted Daph’s veranda as a second home, and brought its babies to Daph’s window. The long suffering groundsman was not so pleased! We thank all the caring Regis staff.
When our sweet Daphne peacefully left this earth, awake and aware, it was like she was the young Daph again moving the clock on in school. She was suddenly ready to go, ready to be free. Daphne will be sadly missed by friends and family and when we look at the stars at night trying to understand this enormous loss, we might just feel that Daph has got her lantern out again and is shining a hello to those who really appreciated the light she has been in our lives.
Vale Daphne Deagon Scaife.
