Winsome Clarice Nicolai
(nee Kennett) 1939 –
By Judy Gillett-Ferguson
Winsome (who most people call ‘Win’) was born in Keith, in the South East of South Australia in her parents’ home on 1st July 1939. Win was one of five girls and the second to youngest. She was born at home as her mother didn’t have time to get to the nearest hospital at Bordertown.
Her mother’s name was Tryphena (nee Baohm) and her dad was Alick Kennett who had originally come from Crystal Brook. He was a farmer and the family lived on a mixed farm just out of Keith. Win’s sisters were Phyllis (13 years older), Joyce (10 years older), Daphney (5 years older) and Annette (2 years younger). She was also among the youngest of a lot of cousins many of whom lived locally in Keith or nearby in Victoria. These families would have get-togethers once a year at a race course just across the border.
One of Win’s earliest memories, at about 2 years old, is of seeing a blue balloon burst and wondering where it went. She also recalls her older sisters making her a huge pom- pom ball from bits of wool which she had in her pram. They had to wait for wool coupons and bits from friends to get enough wool to make it as this was during the war.
As a young child she also remembers swallowing a hard boiled sweet whole and it sticking in her throat and each of her parents grabbing her by the legs and holding her upside down and slapping her on the back until the lolly popped out of her mouth!
On another occasion she cut her eyelid very badly when she fell against the sharp metal edge of a wheel barrow handle. There was blood everywhere. Her mother changed her from her bloodied clothes into her Sunday best – including her best shoes- before she was taken in their horse and buggy to the Station Master who had First Aid qualifications. He closed the gash with sticking plaster and his children distracted the tiny Win from the discomfort by admiring her lovely shoes, making her look down and admire them too.
Win remembers a very happy childhood with plenty of freedom to roam on the farm but lots of hard work too. From an early age the girls were expected to do their share of work on the farm – collecting eggs, milking the cows, separating the milk, helping to crutch sheep with hand shears, helping to shear the pet sheep with hand shears, and drive sheep to the shearing sheds to be dipped.
Once a year during the school holidays Win and Nette would visit a school friend, Mary, at her family’s farm. Mary was the oldest child of her family and each year it seemed that there was a new baby sibling for Mary. As Win and Nette were the youngest of their family and also the youngest of all of their cousins, they really enjoyed being able to play with all of the little children.
She remembers too, Sunday school picnics in the sand hills. All the children were picked up on the back of a truck and driven there. They had raspberry cordial and were given a bag of lollies and a penny if they won a race.
Their parents also had a property out of the town which the girls helped to clear by digging up mallee stumps. The only motor vehicle their Dad ever owned was a tractor and this was not until Win was in her early teens. So a lot of farm work was done manually and horse and dray was the mode of transport.
The girls rode their bikes on Saturdays to the outback farm which was a 5 mile ride up and down hills. Their Dad would leave early in the morning with the horse and dray loaded with a packed lunch and after the cows had been milked and whatever else had to be done the girls would hop on their bikes and then come home via horse and dray in time to milk the cows again. Their Mother was a hard worker and as well as running the house also helped out on the farm.
Win remembers this life with great happiness. She says she never heard a cross word either between her parents or between her sisters.
The girls had to walk 2 miles to the primary school in Keith and Win stayed on as one of the first Year 8s when it became Keith Area School. She remembers they ran in the sun and walked in the shade to and from school on hot days. They would go home at lunchtime to bottle feed lambs - all in an hour - if the need arose!!
At school Win’s older sister would be given Welfare Club notes to take home. This was always given to the oldest child in the family and Win thought that this was the note that was taken to the hospital to get a baby and always wished she would be given one.
When Win was still very young her older sister, Joyce who was training to be a teacher in Adelaide, came back to Keith to do some practice teaching and had Win in her class. Win remembers having to call her ‘Miss Kennett’ and not ‘Joyce’ until they were back home!
Teachers she remembers are Miss Roma Gravestock , Miss Marjorie Highton, Miss Pinnock , Miss Alice Shepherd, headmasters Mr Brazil, Mr Everly and Mr Twartz. Many of the female teachers married local men. Before school the children had to assemble outside and make the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen, sing the National Anthem and the Song of Australia and salute the flag before going into school.
She says she was very athletic in those days and would jump fences rather than go through gates. However on one occasion she broke her nose playing rounders when she was hit by a tennis racquet.
Win was also leader of the school band which played for the children marching into school. They practiced at the Institute for a once a year school concert. Win can remember the ‘Jubilee’ Train in 1951 which commemorated 50 years of “Life in the Commonwealth of Australia” coming to Keith and the school children marched from the school to the Railway Station to go through the train.
The family attended the local Congregational Church and Win went to Sunday school and became a Sunday school teacher. She did this from about the age of 14 until she was married at 20.
Win started Guides in Keith at the age of 13 and her older sister Phyllis was a Guide Leader. Mrs Coonan, the policeman’s wife and Mrs Joyce Buddle were also involved in the first Guide group in Keith. Win’s sister Annette (‘Nette’) also joined as did most of the eligible girls in the district. When the Queen visited Mount Gambier Win and Nette were both in the colour party and Win was the flag bearer and dipped the colours to the Queen.
In her secondary years at school Win did Maths 1 and 2, English, Latin, Physiology, History and Geography. She left school at 16 but didn’t want to as she wanted to be a teacher and cried all the way home.
She had been an A1 student but her father had asked her to leave and she thinks that it might have been because he either didn’t want her to go to Adelaide or they could not afford it.
She was offered places in nursing at the Keith Hospital and as a clerk in various shops but she became a bank officer with the CBA (Commercial Bank of Australia) where she worked for 6 years only leaving when she was expecting her first child. During this time Win had become a Guide leader.
When she was 18 she met John Nicolai who was the younger brother of the husband of her older sister Daphney. John had come down from Auburn to visit them and met Win and fell in love with her. John had been the relieving Post Master in Auburn but gave the job up to come and live in Keith to be near Win.
He took a job working for the Highways Department. They became engaged on Australia Day 1959 and were married on October 10th 1959 at the Keith Congregational Church where the local Guides formed a guard of honour. The reception was held at the Keith Institute.
They lived in a Highways Department house in Keith and their first child, Jacqueline was born on August 8th 1960.
Win left the bank and went to work part time as a telephonist at the Keith Telephone Exchange. Then, in August 1961 when she was expecting her second child and hadn’t been feeling too well she went with baby Jacqueline up to Whyalla for a holiday visit to a friend.
One morning while there, she realized she couldn’t move her arms or legs or stand up and was having difficulty breathing. She was first diagnosed as having ‘flu but then as the paralysis set in they realised she had caught polio and she was flown to Adelaide to the Northfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. Her sister Phyllis flew to Whyalla and collected the baby and brought her back to Keith to look after her.
John came to Adelaide and the Highways Department was able to get him a job at Gawler so that he could visit Win every day while the family at Keith looked after baby Jacqueline. Win had become completely paralysed and was only able to move her fingers.
She was placed in an iron lung for 3 months and then the staff gradually weaned her off it by getting her to breathe independently, first for one hour a day, then two, then three until she could breathe without it.
This enabled her to be moved to the Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital in time for the birth of her second child, Peter. Peter was born naturally but 3 weeks early on January 12th 1962. He had been breech but in the event, he arrived safely without warning. Win suffered a cardiac arrest as he was being born and had her chest cavity opened so that the doctor could massage her heart manually back to life. She remembers nothing herself of the events of that day and an anaesthetist sat with her all day monitoring the pulse in her wrist.
Win was only 22 years old.
Fortunately for her she had been very fit before getting polio and she attributes her recovery to this. She had been very athletic and was never beaten in the competitions she entered and had even dreamed of being in the Olympics.
After the baby’s birth she went back to Northfield Hospital to learn to walk again and her younger sister Annette took baby Peter home to care for him for 3 months.
When she left hospital, the couple were allocated a Housing Trust home in Gawler and moved into it with their two children. They were a family again. On the 21st July 1963 Win had her third child, Steven at the Hutchinson Hospital in Gawler so that she now had three children under the age of three!
Amazingly Win managed house and family with the support of her husband John, despite being physically disabled by the effects of the polio and she says her children grew up being very independent as a result. She knitted and sewed all their clothes and was on school committees and sports committees. In 1974 Katrina arrived and made the Nicolai family complete.
The family moved to Hamley Bridge in 1979 but had not been there very long when Steven, became ill. They moved back to Gawler in July 1982.
Sadly, in October 1982 their youngest son, Steven died aged 19 of Hodgkinson’s Disease. He suffered with it for four years and they were heavily involved in his treatment.
After he died Win felt lost and a friend suggested she join St John’s Ambulance which she did for five years as a First Aider which involved her walking around trotting tracks, sports grounds and ovals and working in casualty rooms!
She now has a marked stoop and limp that is the legacy of years of struggling to walk. She has had many falls and has to crawl to something to grip onto to lift herself up.
Her daughter, Jacqueline had become a Guide Leader in Gawler and Win used to go along and help. Then she met Val McClure who was the District Commissioner of Girl Guides in Gawler and Val asked Win if she would take over from her .Val became Midland Region Commissioner at that time. Win has been a District Leader ever since. Five years ago Win became Region Leader for the area covering the Mid North down to Gawler including the Barossa Valley. She is also a Guiding trainer and attends local, district, regional and state meetings. She now does a lot of paperwork since she is no longer physically able to get around as she once could.
For the past nine years Win and John have cared for their granddaughter, Tryphena, named after her great grandmother. Tryphena is intellectually handicapped and Win and John took over her care so as to give her the individual attention she needed. Tryphena has won gold and silver medals for swimming and is an active and successful Girl Guide.
Win is treasurer of the Evanston Gardens Progress Association, Minute Secretary of the Gawler Amateur Swimming Club, a member of the Gawler Volunteering Advisory Committee, the Gawler International Women’s Day Committee, on the Gawler Girl Guide Support Group Committee and a member of The Barossa and Light Trefoil Guild.
John and Win celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary in October 2009 by taking some of their grandchildren and great grandchildren out for a treat at McDonalds.
Win is called “Nana Owl” by all the Guides. The couple has 12 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.
Win has written a lot of poetry and stories including a poem for the Kennett family’s reunion book. They hold reunions every 18 months; the first four of which were held in Gawler and organized by Win.
What a courageous and amazing woman!
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