Zander family

Australia

New  zealand

The Giersch  Family

1.5   story

 

Please submit Your Family stories to build up this collection

The Giersch Family

Written by Louis Giersch

 

Ottilie and Wilhelm were known as Tillie and Will or Bill Giersch. They lived on a farm situated four miles south of the town of Mt Mary, the seasons were not reliable for cropping, so life on the farm was hard. As a result Bill had to cut mallee wood to supplement his income, a wagon drawn by horses helped greatly in this enterprise.

 

Their children, a daughter Ivy and twin sons Harold and Louis attended the Mt Mary Public School for their education, they helped on the farm milking cows, separating the milk, with the cream being sent to Eudunda by rail.

Eventually the Warren water pipeline was laid passed the property, this proved to be  a real life saver during drought years. This ready supply of water also enabled the family to grow vegetables, maintain several fruit trees, as well as providing a reliable water supply for stock and horses.

 

When the twin boys Harold and Louis left school their help on the farm became more intense, cutting wood, carting it to Mt Mary with the wagon and horses. The wood was sold to the wood buyer who had a saw bench and elevator that helped load it into the rail trucks and then off to Adelaide. In 1944 Bill bought a 2 ton truck that was used to cart the wood, with horses being used for farm work during the good seasons.

 

After Wilhelm’s (Bill) sudden death in 1951 and that of Tillie several years later in 1955, the boys kept cutting and carting wood to the Mt Mary railhead until the line from Morgan to Eudunda was closed in the late sixties. They decided to sell the farm and moved to Tanunda and worked at Orlando Wines. The farm is now owned by Brian Zerner a grandson of Carl Zerner and his wife Emma nee Zander, who was a sister of Tillie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last train to travel through Mt Mary in 1969 .