Mabel

MABEL - fifth child of August Hein and Annie Graf

Mabel was born near Glenburnie in the third year of the twentieth century, in the same small house where her parents had settled in 1900 - off the Casterton Road near a place known as ‘The Ridge’, due to a natural limestone ridge preventing vegetation, creating a natural white gash in the verdant landscape. Fifth child and fifth daughter of August and Annie Hein.

When Mabel was born Grace was 21 months old, Martha was almost 3, Ida was 5 and Gertrude turned 7 a few weeks later. August worked as a farm labourer. A wood fire at best – no electricity; the thought of preparing meals and doing laundry for a family of seven, straight after giving birth, is hard to comprehend given the facilities at hand more than one hundred years later.

They relocated to a larger house in OB Flat in about 1904 and Mabel’s brothers Albert and Andrew were born there in 1905 and 1911. It is about 11 kilometres between Glenburnie and OB Flat and today they have the same postcode. August’s sister Martha (not to be confused with his daughter Martha) married in June 1900 and her husband, William Manser, bought land on Hill Road in OB Flat.

Perhaps influenced by his sister’s location in OB Flat, August purchased 3 acres of land, Part Sec 91 at OB Flat, from Samuel Hill and sometime after Mabel was born (1903), and before Albert was born (1905), he built a home there for his growing family.

When her parents went to Waikerie in 1922, Mabel was about 18. It is believed she stayed in Mt Gambier. Her sisters Ida and Martha were both married with children. In 1922 Ida had her fourth and last child, another son. Mabel may have stayed with Ida, to help with her four boys, or with her sister Martha, who had one child, Colin aged 3.

Her mother and father, her sister Grace (with young daughter Betty), and her two brothers Albert and Andrew moved to the Kerr Orchard in Waikerie and stayed for about ten years.

Mabel’s sister Ida moved to Toorak Gardens, a suburb of Adelaide, in 1924 and Mabel may have gone with her. Her family believe she worked as a ‘domestic’ in Adelaide prior to commencing her nursing career.

In 1927 Mabel applied to be a probationary nurse and in May she was accepted to work at Wallaroo Hospital. Her salary as a probationer nurse was £40 per annum plus uniform and board.

After eighteen months at Wallaroo she commenced the training program at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. From January 1929 to January 1931 she worked the wards of the Royal Adelaide Hospital and was examined on all the prescribed courses of general nursing – General Nursing, Surgical Nursing, Medical Nursing, Anatomy and Physiology and Invalid Cookery.

Mabel was the only one of August and Annie’s children take higher education. Her four sisters married; Grace, once widowed, worked at menial domestic work. Her two brothers were happy being farmers.

Mabel Alice Hein passed her examinations and was qualified to register as a nurse from the 8th December 1930. She had a successful nursing career taking her to many places outside of her home town, yet she met and married a local Yahl farmer, Clarence “Jim” Hill, quite late for the era, at age 32. She was the last of August and Annie’s seven children to marry.

Only three years younger than her sister Martha, they married 15 years apart, in the same church. By the time Mabel married, in 1936, her four older sisters had finished having children – Gert had 3, Ida 4, Martha 3 and Grace 3. Mabel’s oldest nephew, Ida’s son Merle, turned 20 a few weeks after her wedding on the 21st March 1936.

Mabel had two boys, John born in 1938, and Geoff in 1941; both are still living in Mt Gambier in 2020. John married late in life and Geoff never married. Mabel and Jim never had any grandchildren.

Mabel was known as both “Mabs” and “Bunny”; she was a kind, hardworking and generous women, never one to complain. She was much loved by all who knew her and she lived a long and happy life. Mabel was diminutive and did not stand more than 5ft tall.

After seventeen years of widowhood, Mabel died in 1998 aged 94 and is buried in the Carinya Gardens Cemetery in Mt Gambier with her beloved Jim.

Mabel ‘Mabs’ or ‘Bunny’ Alice HEIN, b. 1903, near Glenburnie, SA., m. 1936 Clarence ‘Jim’ HILL (1902-1979 (77), lived at Yahl, SA), St Andrews Manse, Mount Gambier, d. 1998 (94), Mt Gambier.

• • John HILL, b. 1938, m. 2013, no children, living Mt Gambier SA.

  • Geoffrey HILL, b. 1941, living Mt Gambier SA, never married, no children.

Mabel and Jim on their wedding day.