Dot Harris – Born: 8^th December 1932
Bill Harris – Born: 5^th July 1929

Bill and Dot’s experiences of living in Wembley and their connection with the Catherine McAuley Centre

Dot - We were married in June 1956. At that stage I had left the bank and Bill had a milk round in Claremont. We lived in Claremont for seven years and built a house there. Whilst down there one Christmas we decided to foster a little boy from what was known as St Joseph’s orphanage in Wembley. The children were sometimes billeted out for Christmas holidays. We had never had anything to do with the centre prior to that. We looked after this little boy, Peter, for six weeks. This was the first time we had ever been to the place and known much about it. After seven and a half years we left Claremont and brought a milk round in Wembley and moved here in 1963 with our two adopted girls We went on to adopt another two children as we were unable to have children ourselves and in those days they were looking for homes for children. It is just our nature, we became involved, people are not meant to paddle along doing their own thing. It is important to help the community, help where it is needed.

Bill can now explain how we first became involved in the Catherine McAuley centre.

We were organising a weekend retreat for the men of St Joseph’s Parish. Really, it was just an excuse to get away from the wives for the weekend. We were going around and scouting up people to go and I met this man called Norm Power. I asked Norm if he would like to go on the retreat. He said he couldn’t come because he had to look after the boilers at the orphanage. They had a laundry and Norm used to attend to the boilers every morning and afternoon. I then offered to give Norm a hand with the boilers and learn a bit about them. So, that is how we became involved with the orphanage. Hence, from that time on Norm used to attend the boilers in the morning and I would do the same in the afternoon. We became very good friends. The system involved letting the steam off, it is called blowing down the boiler. You let the steam off gradually, test the water, place solution in the water to stop it from going rusty and grease the boiler. We then became involved in the fete, and collecting things for the fete. We used to collect reject potatoes from the potato board, Mills and Wares donated biscuits, Charlie Carters used to give us groceries and the markets donated vegetables.

I performed this task after I had done the milk round. It was only one day a week on a Tuesday. I would come up in the afternoon at about five o’clock to do the boiler after the nuns had finished for the day. The boiler needed constant attention. If you had a boiler a certain size you should have had a permanent boiler attendant whom you had to pay. We solved this problem by having two half size boilers (25 horse power) instead of one 50 horsepower. We used to run these boilers in tandem. One of the boilers was donated by a charity. It was very handy because sometimes you only needed one boiler and you saved power this way. That is how Norm and I looked after the boilers. This freed our time up so that I could collect goods in the afternoon and bring them back to the orphanage where they were used for the children.

The number of children in the orphanage varied over the years. Just after the war there would have been a couple of hundred children housed in huge dormitories. The buildings were quite different then. They were like an old army style building, big dining rooms. Where the day care centre is now there was another storey above that. The unmarried mothers used to live there. They stayed for about six months and then their children were adopted out. The neighbour’s house was a hospital. There was a matron, priest (the priest used to live in the community services building on the hill) They called a doctor in when necessary.

Dot -The centre was orginally called St Joseph’s Orphanage and St Vincent’s Foundling home. Bill started work here in 1981. He had to burn down the olive trees near the cottage homes - there were fires burning day and night. You would never get away with it now. The whole area was cleared. The children who were in the foundling centre went into care in the cottages and were looked after by cottage parents. All the big buildings up here were demolished and the smaller administration building and the hall were built. Aged care, of course, was built down below. That was a huge change. Salvado Villa and Christos Nursing Home were built. They were actually separate because they were Catholic Homes for the Aged. Catherine McAuley Centre is linked with the Mercy order. Then they sort of took over and it came under one umbrella – the Catherine McAuley Centre.

All those years they had their annual fete, which I was involved in. About twenty years ago I started sewing with Sister Augustine. The nuns had different stalls and other people ran stalls. Sister Augustine ran a fancy goods staff, so I started sewing with her. Sister Philhomena and Sister Matilde also had stalls. I sewed with Sister Augustine for years until she became too frail. I then helped sew with Sister Philhomena and then ran the stall with Nel Perry and Win Sullivan. We used to take the stall out to shopping centres and into the city when they had charity days. I also used to be involved in raffles with Sister Augustine selling tickets at various churches around the metropolitan area. We also had the Xmas stocking raffle here for a number of years. Tom Chapple was the gentleman who used to organise all the gifts for the stocking. Tom and Bill then used to go out and sell tickets. We have been involved with the fundraising side of things for a long time. The actual sewing stall and room was in the old laundry, where Outreach is now, that was the laundry. We have used the chapel, a couple of other different rooms and then we finished up in the hall for a long time. We just went from place to place. So now it is in the Op Shop.

Bill - I had been on the milk round for about 25 years and then we decided to sell out. Norm Power then called and asked if I would work with him on the maintenance. I ended up by working here as an employee as well. I stayed here right through until I retired at 65. They have now built a new workshop - a big building overlooking aged care.

Dot - From when we first started to what it is now the changes are incredible. I went to a meeting for the Day Care Board and typed the minutes for a woman who was absent for three months - and eight years later I was still there.

Bill - I still drive the bus. We collect the daycare children from their schools. We go to West Leederville and Aranmore schools. Sometimes during the year they have outings. We have done a couple of trips for the daycare centre at Heathridge. During the school holidays we take the children on outings – they go to pools, the Zoo, Whiteman’s Park, Caversham Wildlife Park. Dot works down in aged care. Dot also comes on the bus with me and helps on the school run. Sometimes we take the old people down from below on outings. Dot comes along as a carer.

Dot - I am available when they need me for anything – for an outing or to help with something. I don’t do as much as I did before because I am going on the bus every day. I go on the school run and tick the children off on the list when they are picked up. We also take people from the hostel out – we go to King’s Park, have a look at the Xmas lights and to see the tulips. We also go down to Fremantle and have fish and chips at Kailis’s. Sometimes we take the nuns to special functions such as a mass.

Bill - Last year (1998) we were nominated for the "Volunteering Makes a Difference" awards. We have a connection with the centre of 33 years. We are also involved at St Joseph’s Church; we were also nominated for the Citizenship award. I have been doing the football parking for the St Vincent De Paul Society. I organise the parking and collect money for other charities as well. I am on three different committees down there at St Joseph’s and I do some of the maintenance. The centre and St Joseph’s are very important parts of our lives. We have met so many terrific people along the way. It has been good, when we used to take the stall to shopping centres, it was hard work, however you meet other people who are working so hard for some little group and it makes it all worthwhile. It is like a little community.

Every Tuesday night we go square dancing. We started square dancing at St Joseph’s, it started as a parish activity in 1981. So having been milkmen for 25 years we virtually had no social life, we mainly attended school functions, library and tuckshop etc. We started dancing at St Joseph’s and then our club moved out to Hamersley. We do bring dancers up here to aged care – anyone from aged care who is capable of strutting a few steps does so. We also go to other nursing homes and aged care places giving demonstrations. We have been around Australia and to country areas.

We have always done a bit of dancing and then a friend asked us to square dancing at St Joseph’s. It is a happy kind of dancing, because you dance in a set of eight and you get to dance with a lot of different people. It takes about a year to learn and it quite difficult to learn. It is a very social activity. We visit other clubs and nursing homes and entertain for an hour or so. We have the centre, we have our square dancing and we have our lifelong friends down at St Joseph’s. They are all interwoven though. We also have our children and grandchildren as well. Both our mothers are alive and staying down in aged care.