alb •ir STATE Government LIBRARY of South Australia STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 1/9 Full transcript of an interview with FLORENCE M. STEEL 0112 SEPTEMBER and 7 OCTOBER 1985 by Beth Robertson for 'SA SPEAKS': AN ORAL HISTORY OF LIFE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA BEFORE 1930 Recording available on cassette Access for research: Unrestricted Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library ATB/9/129-9i Mrs Florence M. STEEL ii 'S.A. SPEAKS' 8509 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface iii Notes to the Transcript iv Part 1 Family and Childhood 1 Informal fostering at O'Halloran Hill Return to parental home in Adelaide Teenage Years 16 City home The streets of Adelaide Marriage and Maternity 25 Courtship Childbirth The School for Mothers Widowhood 37 H usband's invalidism Work at Holden's Assistance of Bert Edwards, MP Child Maintenance and the Destitute Asylum Part 2 Teenage Years continued 46 Work in a boot factory The people of Adelaide Work in a boardinghouse Marriage and Maternity continued 60 Cases of 'have to' Housing conditions in the City Childbirth, at home and in hospital, continued Rations and the Destitute Asylum, continued Index 88 Collateral Material in File 8509 includes: Photographs (P) 8509A-E Cover Illustration Mrs Steel (then Godden) and her seven children three weeks after her first husband's death, after a long period of invalidism, in August 1928. A few months later The News publicised her plight and a benefit organised on her behalf raised forty pounds. P8509B ATB/9/129-91 Mrs Florence M. STEEL iii 'S.A. SPEAKS' 8509 PREFACE Florence Steel (nee Rankin, formerly Godden) was born in Wright Street, Adelaide, in 1893. From the ages four to twelve Florence was cared for by a great uncle, at O'Halloran Hill, who had also brought up her mother. On her return to the unaccustomed 'mad house' of the city streets and her parental home (she was the fifth of ten children) she finished her schooling and from ages fourteen to nineteen worked in a boot factory, boardinghouse and restaurant. Florence married in 1912 and had had seven children (and as many miscarriages) before her increasingly invalided husband died in 1928. She received rations from the Destitute Asylum for some time before her husband's death but from 1924 had also had to go out to work to keep her family. She was able to stop working when Bert Edwards, MP, arranged for her to receive payments under the new Children's Maintenance Act in 1927. She returned to work part-time at Holden's 'for herself' in about 1929. She remarried in 1935. Mrs Steel was 92 years of age at the time of the interview. Mrs Steel has a remarkable memory and speaks with candour and compassion about her own life and the people of Adelaide. Record levels are good although there is some extraneous noise, especially during the first session of the interview. Mrs Steel now has fairly slurred speech but she is, on the whole, readily intel- ligible. She is very deaf and the Interviewer has to shout to be heard. The interview was recorded in two three hour sessions resulting in six hours of tape recorded information. 'S.A. Speaks: An Oral History of Life in South Australia before 1930' was a Jubilee 150 project conducted under the auspices of the History Trust of South Australia for two years and two months ending December 1986. The Interviewees are broadly representative of the population of South Australia as it was in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Selection of Interviewees was guided by a Sex and Occupation Sample calculated from the 1921 Census and Inter- viewees were suggested, in the main, by people who responded to 'S.A. Speaks' publicity. Each interview was preceded by an unrecorded preliminary interview during which details about the Interviewee's family history and life story were sought to help develop a framework for the Interview. As stated in the Conditions of Use for Tape Recordings and Transcripts adopted for the 'S.A. Speaks' project: 'The copyright in the item(s) [viz, the tapes and transcripts of Interview 8509] and all the rights which normally accompany copyright including the right to grant or withhold access to them, conditionally or unconditionally, to publish, reproduce or broadcast them, belongs in the first instance to the History Trust of South Australia for the purposes of the 'S.A. Speaks' project and after the cessation of that project to the Libraries Board of South Australia for the purposes of the Mortlock Library of South Australiana.' ATB/9/129-9i Mrs Florence M. STEEL iv 'S.A. SPEAKS' 8509 NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word. It was the policy of the Transcriptionist, Chris Gradolf, and the Interviewer, as editor, to produce a transcript that is, so far as possible, a verbatim transcript that preserves the Interviewee's manner of speaking and the informal, conversational style of the interview. Certain conventions of trans- cription have been applied (i.e. the omission of meaningless noises, redundant false starts and a percentage of the Interviewee's crutch words). Also, each Interviewee was given the opportunity to read the transcript of their interview after it had been proofread by the Interviewer. The Interviewee's suggested alterations have been incorporated in the text (see below). On the whole, however, the document can be regarded as a raw transcript. Researchers using the original tape recording of this interview are cautioned to check this transcript for corrections, additions or deletions which have been made by the Interviewer or the Interviewee but which will not occur on the tapes. Minor discrepancies of gram mar and sentence structure made in the interest of readability can be ignored but significant changes such as deletions of information or correction of fact should be, respectively, duplicated or acknowledged when the tape recorded version of this interview is used for broadcast or publication on cassettes. Abbreviations The Interviewee, Florence Steel, is referred to by the initials FS in all editorial insertions in the transcript. Punctuation Square brackets [1 indicate material in the transcript that does not occur on the original tape recording. The Interviewee's initials after a word, phrase or sentence in square brackets, i.e. [word or phrase FS] indicates that the Interviewee made this par- ticular insertion or correction. All uninitialled parentheses were made by the Interviewer. A series of dots, indicates an untranscribable word or phrase. Sentences that were left unfinished in the normal manner of conversation are shown ending in three dashes, - - Spelling Wherever possible the spelling of proper names and unusual ter ms has been verified. Where uncertainty remains the word has been marked with a cross in the right hand margin of the Interview Log and Data Sheet which can be consulted in the Interview File. Typeface The Interviewer's questions are shown in bold print. ATB/9/129-9 Mrs Florence M. STEEL 1. 'S.A. SPEAKS' 8509 Pt 1 'S.A. Speaks: An Oral History of Life in South Australia Before 1930' Beth Robertson interviewing Mrs Florence Steel on 2 September 1985 TAPE 1 SIDE A Can you start by telling me your full name? Florence Margaret Steel now. It was Rankin, and then Godden and Steel. What was the date of your birth? Thirteenth of February eighteen ninety three. Where were you born? 175 Wright Street, Adelaide. Did you grow up there? No. I was there till I was four. My first memory is of a shop full of white men. I mean dressed in white. Black beards and hair. They were Test cricketers. My father was a very sociable man and my mother was too and he closed the shop to attend to those cricketers to prepare them for a Test next day. Well, I was only four and I was the baby girl at that time and one man nursed me and, you know, I have a memory of looking up at a black face and black hair, you know. Well that was my first memories. Then my grandfather [indicates photograph] came and the doctor at the Children's Hospital told me that my heart beat too fast and that I should go and have a quiet life for a couple of years or a year. And they came and took me. Well that lasted eight years. And that was your mother's adoptive father? Right, my mother's adoptive father, yes. And of course they were the forma- tive years of my life. You can understand. Would you like me to tell you how Grandfather (we always called him that)* took my mother? Yes. Well there were three sisters. Charlotte married Appleton - Frank Apple- ton. Charlotte [indicates photograph] had no children. Richard and Elizabeth had no children. Bertha had a lot. And they went to see her when she had a * In the second interview FS confirmed what was a little unclear here; that Grandfather Appleton was her mother's uncle and, therefore, FS's great uncle. ATB/9/129-9 Mrs Florence M. STEEL 2. 'S.A. SPEAKS' 8509 Pt 1 new baby and I was eighteen months old and they said to her - - Oh, my mother was eighteen months old, and they said to her, 'Let us take her home with us and give you a chance to get over the new baby.' She never went back.