Page 23 - OurStories-2022_Preview

OUR STORY: MAY | 23

▲ FAMILY: Paul and Helen May (centre front) with
their four children Mardi, Ashley, Rebecca and
Kerryn.

▲ NEXT GENERATION: Back - Hamish, Ashley, Anna and Jacob May. Front - Willow and Montana May with Jacob’s ▲ FOUR LINES: Generations of the May family
partner Nellie SURNAME. captured together - Ashley, Ernest, Jacob and Paul.

BY ALISHA FOGDEN

May family
HE May family has been farming on the
Eyre Peninsula since the late 1800s, when LOCATION: Koongawa, Eyre Peninsula
TAdelaide bootmaker Charles May moved to
FARMING SINCE: 1928 at Koongawa
work for the council.
Today, the name is scattered across the west OPERATION: Cropping, sheep
coast, with descendants also within the Haines
and O’Brien families.
Fourth generation Ashley and Anna May farm
at Koongawa in the region’s central north, and Ernie was the first to move to northern EP, In the 1930s, builders Roly Hurrell and Ern
will keep the family farming tradition alive, with buying a farm at Kyancutta, before James and Heron came up from Lock to help build the family
son Jacob also working on-farm, while other son wife Francis followed suit, buying a 1011-hectare a new homestead, using crushed rock from the
Hamish has plans to return. farm at Koongawa in 1928. farm for cement and second-hand iron “because
Ash’s father Paul ‘Gus’ May retired to Wudinna James had been sharefarming with the Simpson it was during the war and you couldn’t get good
with wife Helen six years ago, but also still helps family at Wudinna, while also working as a carrier, timber”.
out on the farm where he grew up. carting wool from the stations to the port using a The original homestead comprised three
wagon with six horses. bedrooms with a kitchen and lounge.
The Koongawa property was previously “The sons camped in a garage off the side of
Where it all began
owned by a bachelor, who was still living in a the house, while the girls were inside,” Paul said.
From 1897, Charles and Martha May first lived
shed provided by the government, and hadn’t The May men then got to work clearing the
on Yandra Station near Streaky Bay, before
developed much of the property. Mallee-type country.
making their home at ‘Myrtle Farm’, on the
“There were only two natural plains, totaling James and his sons axed another 40ha of scrub
outskirts of Elliston.
about 150 acres (60ha), where they sowed oats and put in an oat crop that first year for sheep
Charles planted and tended the original Norfolk
and fed the horses,” Paul said. feed. The clearing continued until the last of
Pines out the front of the hospital and lit the
“The government provided a shed and rainwater 1011ha was cleared by tractor in 1966 “as some
kerosene street lights every night, but died while
tank in those early days as part of a 99-year lease, of the timber was so large they couldn’t pull it with
doing so in 1919.
but often the property owners would turn them horses”, Paul said.
Martha was a midwife and even delivered
into housing.” Paul said his grandfather was known to be
some of her own seven children, which included
“demanding” and one by one, Ernest’s brothers
Paul’s grandfather James (1884) and his brothers
Mays move in all went to live elsewhere in the district.
Josiah, John, Ernie, Percival and Peter. “My dad managed to stick it out with him and
Back then, James and his brothers first worked The May family moved to Koongawa on New it’s how he ended up here,” he said.
on other farms around Elliston, including a stint on Year’s Day in 1929. “His youngest brother Len - his grandson Trevor
nearby Flinders Island and at Mount Wedge. James and Francis went on to have 12 kids May still farms on his father’s original property, and
Percival and Ernie served in World War I, with - four boys, eight girls - which included Paul’s also acquired his older brother Jim’s property as
Percival not returning home after being shot at father Ernest, who was 13 when they arrived at well.
Lone Pine. Koongawa.