Richman Valley farmer : work, life and other things from the diaries of Fred Britza (1889-1959) / John Glasson
- Bib ID:
- 8044420
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Glasson, John H, author
- Description:
-
- [Beaumont, South Australia] : John Glasson, [2019]
- ©2019
- vii, 206 pages : illustrations, portraits, facsimiles ; 21 cm.
- ISBN:
- 9780646998077 (paperback)
- Summary:
-
From 1913 to 1959, Fred Britza recorded his life, work, loves and an assortment of tragedies in his diaries. His entries show how he survived droughts, cleared debts without cash and how a small community fought for the survival of one of its most valuable assets, its one-teacher school. Richman Valley Farmer contains stories about farming without tractors on the wrong side of Goyder's Line, marital breakdown in the days before easy divorce, birth out-of-wedlock in the late 19th century, pre-antibiotic and pre-immunisation era infectious diseases and rural suicide. Although a hard worker, church-goer and school committee member, Fred did not lead an unblemished life. Our diarist was involved in a tiny bit of tax evasion in the early 1950s and helped to consume some stolen liquid following the Great Beer Heist from the railways in 1945. To give colour and perspective to Fred's sometimes sparse diary entries, extracts from the original Quorn Mercury newspaper (1895 - 1956) have been woven into the text. From these articles we learn that radium was thought to be a cause of Global Drying during the Federation and 1914-15 droughts and of the horrid treatment of indigenous Australians involved in the making of the movie Bitter Springs in 1949. Richman Valley Farmer makes a modest contribution to recording the district's rich and colourful past. It also reminds us that resilience, flexibility, innovation, hard-work and hope were how Fred's generation built the foundations of the life we have today.
- Notes:
-
- Includes bibliographical references.
- NLApp84296
- Subject:
-
- Britza, Fred, 1889-1959 -- Diaries
- Britza, Fred, 1889-1959 -- Family
- Farmers -- South Australia -- Quorn Region -- Biography
- Farm life -- South Australia -- Quorn Region -- History
- Biography: general
- Local history
- Quorn Region (S.A.) -- History
- Quorn Region (S.A.) -- Social life and customs
- Quorn Region (S.A.) -- Biography
- Australian
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 2019
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
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