Oral History Collection

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Brenda Holland

Interview with Brenda Holland | by Yvonne Choules

This interview with Miss Brenda Holland was conducted at her Albany home in August 1991 for the Albany Oral History Project.

In this interview she recalls experiences from her childhood including memories of visits to her father’s brewery in the pre World War I years in Albany. She relates memories of school days and events from the war years. Miss Holland describes her family's lifestyle and their various homes in the town. She also discusses her art school years later in Melbourne and Sydney and her later years of private art teaching.

Synopsis: Interview of Brenda Holland

Part 1: Interview with Brenda Holland

Part 2: Interview with Brenda Holland

Part 3: Interview with Brenda Holland

Part 4: Interview with Brenda Holland

Part 5: Interview with Brenda Holland

Part 6: Interview with Brenda Holland

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Part 1: Interview with Brenda Holland by Yvonne Choules

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Part 2: Interview with Brenda Holland by Yvonne Choules

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Part 3: Interview with Brenda Holland by Yvonne Choules

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Part 4: Interview with Brenda Holland by Yvonne Choules

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Part 5: Interview with Brenda Holland by Yvonne Choules

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Part 6: Interview with Brenda Holland by Yvonne Choules

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Source: State Library of Western Australia

Enid Home

Interview with Enid Home | by AHS

In this interview Mrs Enid Home recalls her early days training as a nurse, at Wooroloo Hospital, working in Melbourne and Sydney, some particular cases which challenged her and the doctors in Albany in the 1940s and 1950s.

"Another time Dr. Hanrahan rushed into the Hospital and said to me "Could I go quickly with the ambulance to a case off the Denmark Road"? He'd been bulldozing the timber down and he'd run into a swarm of bees, and he was in desperate need. He was not able to breathe, so I rushed down in my white uniform, white shoes and a veil of all things, and when we got to the road, we had to park the ambulance and walk. I had to walk probably - would have been over a 'K' anyway- over a 'K' through black dirty timber. You can imagine what I looked like, but I managed to administer the adrenalin to this gentleman and revived him, and then we put him on the tractor and brought him back up to the waiting ambulance." And later... "There was a case when Dr Home, who was the medical officer in Albany, had to amputate a leg - I think it was a leg and he had to send for Dr. Vivian to come to give the anaesthetic and to take the instruments out. Whether they amputated or whether they did some surgery I am not sure, but that was one case he had."

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Eileen Croxford

Interview with Enid Home | by Yvonne Choules

In this interview Mrs Eileen Croxford recalls her early days after the war moving to Albany with her young family and in 1956 built a house on an acre of land in David Street. Here she established a Garden Floristry business, the same year she married widower Clifford Croxford.

Mrs Croxford was instrumental in setting up the Wildflower Society in Albany which soon built up a large collection of pressed wildflowers. In 1975 this important collection was loaned to the Government Department CALM, and became the Albany Regional Herbarium.

In the interview Eileen discuses the history of the Wildflower Society and the Herbarium in Albany. She gives detail on the varied tasks undertaken for the Herbarium by its volunteers. Though well past her 90th year, she continues in her very active role with these organisations, and takes much pride in the collection of 17,000 specimens of native plants of the Great Southern Region of the State now contained in the Herbarium.

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