May Mundt a Biography

ESMA (MAY) MUNDT

An EXTRAORDINARY Life.

“The Road Less Travelled”

Life is

for the

Living

And you can't make people happy / With storm clouds in your head

You can't help when you are dead

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First published in 2023 Published by Dr. Michael Brohier Copyright © @2023 Michael Brohier

All rights reserved. No part of this biography may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Printed on the Gold Coast, Australia. Disclaimer: This book is a voluntary service provided by the author in order to document the life of Esma Mundt. There was no payment involved. The information provided came from Esma and was validated some of her children. The opinions and perspectives are that of Esma and are not subject to any form of amendment. Opinions and perspective on events can and will differ depending on the person. One event can have different perspectives. These are Esma’s perspectives, passed on to the author.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Mundt Clan - Parents, Children, Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren………………………………………………………………………………………… Page 4/5 Prologue – A First Meeting………………………………………………………………………Page 6 Chapter One - Romance and a Woman’s Lot…………………………………………. Page 8 Chapter Two - Farming, Cows and Mathematics……………………………………. Page 13 Chapter Three – Breaking Free………………………………………………………………Page 16 Chapter Four – Perspectives………………………………. ………………………………. Page 20 Chapter Five – The Winter Years……………………………………………………………. Page 21 Chapter Six – Wisdom in Hindsight – What we learn from life……………… Page 23

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The Mundt Clan

• Violet Florence and John “Pinky’ Francis – Parents of May Mundt (nee Riordan) • Esma Riordan Married James Mundt (1944) • Offspring: Joan (78) (M) Victor; Rodney (77) (M) Jan; Robert (76) (M) Sandra; Betty (74) (M) Michael; Jeffrey (72) (M) Robyn • Grandchildren: 13 in all: • Bradley + Gregory + Brian* + Catherine belong to Joan and Victor • Grant + Tanya belong to Rodney and Jan

• Tammy + Lauren + Bradley belong to Robert and Sandra • Simon + Matthew + Jody belong to Betty and Michael • Wanita belongs to Jeffrey and Robyn Great Grandchildren: In no particular order:

• Alby; Cleo; Luca; Frankie; Jackson; Vann, Hart; Knox; Jake; Noah; Chelsea; Eamon; Alana; Kieran; Kobi; Kayden; Ethan; Danae; Brent; Sidney; Jayden.

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*Brian: Dearly loved son of Joan and Victor: Taken all too soon at the age of 4 on the 30 th of November 1972. He will live forever in the hearts of all those who knew and loved him.

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ESMA (MAY) MUNDT – AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE

(Four generations…of a family)

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall – Confucius.

Prologue – A First Meeting

“We spoke of many things / Fools and kings”

Today, on the 22 nd of March 2023, at precisely 10.20 am, I met a force of nature. I met Esma (May) Mundt. All 98 years of her! Speaking to May, left me with a feeling of positivity and joy. If this was what 98 was like, give me old age. May was clear and precise and unfailing in her memory and yet she was also not needlessly positive. She spoke about the ups and downs of her life, and “while we spoke of many things / Fools and Kings”, she said this to me, “the greatest thing you’ll ever learn / Is to just love and be loved in return”; to borrow from that greatest of all crooners, Nat King Cole. May was fully aware of what life had been like for her. Was it the word “Alcatraz” that she mischievously coined in one of her many poems, to describe her stay at OZ Care? But only in jest! She told me that she appreciates the people who care for her, the cleaners, the nurses, the administrators, the cooks, everyone. She

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writes poems to show her appreciation; poems tinged with humour and reflective of the care and compassion at the centre. I spent an hour with May on this first visit and these 60 minutes flashed before my eyes. We spoke freely, with May speaking and myself asking questions and seeking more details at times. We could have gone on indefinitely but after the hour we decided to call it a day. I made another appointment to meet May on Wednesday the 5 th of April at the same time, where we agreed we could take up where we left off. We spoke about a myriad thing but in the main – in this fascinating 60 minutes - we discussed, her schooling, life on the farm, her marriage and what led to its disintegration and her 5 – much loved - children. So, let’s begin then looking back on the life of an extraordinary women, Esma (May) Mundt.

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Chapter One All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them – Walt Disney.

Romance and a Woman’s Lot

Wednesday 22 nd March 2023 10 am This story is not one that will follow a linear path. It may get there in the end, wherever that place is but it will move forwards then take sharp U turns and go back then jump ahead but in all this there will always be a degree of bittersweet emotion to the narrative. After all, life is just that. A nuanced combination of the trying and the soaring and beautiful moments, and of course growth through adversity. May was born in 1925, at the Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital in Maleny, in the Hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. That makes her 98 years young today. She had 3 sisters and a brother and has outlived all of her siblings. 1925 in Australia was post World War 1, or the War to End All Wars as it was called, where a generation of young Australians, cajoled by the propaganda of the war machine, sadly perished on the Western Front, in France, in faraway places like the Somme, the Marne and Gallipoli. Hard on the heels of the War, a pandemic to dwarf the Covid pandemic took place. This was the Spanish Flu and 50 million people died in this wave of infection. This was 50 million out of a – then - world population of a one billion! 1925 was just a few years shy of the Great Depression, that aftermath of the collapse of post-World War One Germany and the economies of the Western World; reaching all the way to Brisbane and even the tiny hamlet of Maleny,

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May’s place of birth and a repository of so much nostalgia and beautiful memories for her. May was 3 years of age when the Great Depression destroyed the livelihoods of countless Australians. Her adolescent years were spent in the beautiful hinterland town of Maleny, where she lived with her parents and siblings on a farm, in a place called Witta.

(on the farm) May tolerated school and was an exceptional student, but (and there always was a but when it came to women in those days), she did not (perhaps could not) complete her schooling, leaving at the age of 14. May told me that her two favourite subjects were English and Mathematics. She loved numbers. And she loved words, as evidenced by her funny warm and descriptive poetry that she writes to this day. In another time, in another era, May might have gone on to complete her Queensland Matriculation exams and study Mathematics at Queensland University. Where would this have led to? A mathematics lecturer, Actuarial Studies, a scientist, discovery of some breakthrough vaccine perhaps? The opportunities would have been endless if she had been a man. But despite the promise and the intent, there were no opportunities for women and May left school at 14 and worked on her parents’ farm.

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A Bride at 19

At 18 years of age May met her future husband, James Mundt and a year later, at the age of 19, in 1944, a year before the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the surrender of Hitler’s Germany, May had wed. May Riordan was now May Mundt. The transition had started from girl to woman. May tells me “Romance does not last and the idea of love changes as life does”. We agree that sometimes romantic love deepens and blossoms and grows in substance to a love that is mutual and full of respect and care. Where lovers grow to become friends! But this wasn’t for May. The first year, on their share farm Diary Farm at Conondale where May worked from dawn to dusk, was “fair” and whilst there weren’t outward displays of affection from her husband, he “treated {her} well”. She says, “he wasn’t the loving husband I had expected but he wasn’t abusive either at first”. In May’s words, “it was a great life” and she says; “I had 5 babies in 6 years, and I never missed a milking. I went to hospital for 10 days for each child and was back working full days in the farm”. May’s first child, her first daughter, Joan, was born at the end of their first year of marriage in 1945. Joan is now 78 years of age.

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(Mother and Daughter Circa 1945 - Laughter & May and grown up Joan – holding hands – Together - A Family)

But this temporary hiatus was not ever going to last. The next 6 years saw another 4 children, Rodney, Robert, Betty and Jeffrey, siblings to Joan, saw the diminishing of the ‘love’ of her husband toward May, and an increase in physical, emotional and psychological abuse towards her. There was the jealousy and the emotional control, where he was convinced that May was seeing other men behind his back. In her words, “he was convinced he could see the imprint on the pillow of another man’s head”. On one particular occasion, Jim got her down on the ground and put a foot on each of her arms and pinning her down then proceeded to beat her and kick her. He bruised her face badly. May describes it as being “belted about the head”. What did May do? What a lot of women did in those days; she simply took the beating, cleaned herself up and wore sunglasses to hide the bruises from her children and friends. She had to do this. She could not leave. She had 5 children and nowhere to go or no means of support without her husband. She did go to the Police, to Sergeant Joe Spooner to be more specific, and was told to “harden up and go back and make a go of it”. That she did. Of this traumatic time May says, ‘When you are young, you don’t know what love is like. You don’t know what a person is like until you get married” And of

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course, once one was married in those times, divorce was simply impossible, unacceptable and so women often lived with the fears and the beatings and the control. That was their life. That was May’s life. All May wanted to do was to create a home, have children, be loved and have a happy life. James’ hobby was woodchopping. They had few common interests. May did “harden up” for 15 years but when her last son, Jeffrey, was born and was “old enough”, in 1960, 16 years after her wedding, she summoned up the courage to take her second youngest child, Betty, (eventually) and walk out on her abusive husband. That was 63 years ago. There was so much more life to be lived, and with ‘the only educational background of milking cows and the weight of public opinion against her, May walked away from the abuse to a new life

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Chapter Two

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts . Winston Churchill. Farming, Cows, Mathematics and Words Wednesday 5 th April 2023. 10 am This morning May woke up feeling restless and sad. She felt weighed down by life, the world, her existence. She reached for her phoned and texted her long term friend from Wynnum. Her words, “Tell me something good. All my friends are dying”, were prompted by one of her friends from the Aged Care Centre being taken to hospital yesterday, possibly never to return. Life is like that when you get to a certain age. But we sat down black tea with two sugars for May, and white tea with no sugar for me and went back to Witta, that suburb in Maleny, in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. After May left school at the age of 14, she worked 24/7 on the farm. There were no holidays, few breaks. She was her dad’s right hand man”, except she was a woman. A woman who had brains but could not pursue loftier ambitions at school and yet could do a ‘man’s work’ on the farm. Her dad, John Francis, was also known as “Pinky’ due to his tendency to burn at the slightest hint of sun. May’s typical day on the farm began at 5 am with manual milking of the cows. After that, she had to separate the cream from the milk with the use of a Churn. Then it was cleaning up, washing up and inside for breakfast. May’s mother, Violet Florence, was strict and whilst there was no actual education into coping with the emotional aspects of life, she did teach May to cook, wash, clean, iron

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sew, crochet and so many other life skills. These tasks were what was expected of women. An endless cycle of attending to the daily rounds. Later in the day, there were errands to carry out and yard clean up. Washing clothes was an extreme physical activity with the use of the Copper and the use of boiling water. But in all this, this simple ritualised life, there was warmth and love and fun. May was best friends with her sister Melvie, who sadly passed at age 60 from pancreatic cancer. They played together, they learned together, they fought and made up. Theirs was a sisterly love. May, the active one and Melvie, the “bookworm”. May’s first boyfriend was 17-year-old Marley Carberry. Jacob Marley was a character from “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, and of course you have Bob Marley, Reggae legend. But this was Marley Carberry, May’s first beau. Marley’s claim to fame was his big, trusty and thrumming motor bike. May, at 17, would sit on the pillion and they would speed into Maleny to watch the movies like “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, “Bambi”, and of course that Rom-Com to top all Rom-Coms, “Casablanca”, with heartthrob, Bogey (Humphrey Bogart) and Ingrid Bergman. This was a relationship that lasted a year and the one vivid detail that May remembers about Marley’s family is that his father was fatally gored by a bull. It was a brief and liberating liaison. It was the lull, before marriage for May. One interesting aspect that May spoke about was the wages in 1942! Her father, Pinky, worked for the Council after the farm. He was paid 37 Shillings and 6 Pence per week. I think, approximately, that converts to $13.75 per week, according to May. That would buy you two perhaps three cups of coffee at a

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café today! May herself, did some work every Monday, being a nanny for a family friend, and earned the princely sum of 25 Shillings for that work! Memories from those times are vivid for May, especially the very sad ones and the very happy ones. One happy memory that stands out in her mind is that of her father returning from Maleny on his horse, with Ice Cream packed in ice in a Billy Cart. She and her sister would wait with bated breath. It was “heaven”, according to May. There were other captive moments in that teenage part of her life, that brief, almost transient spell between schoolgirl at 14 and wife at 19. It was the precious idyllic lull in May’s life, between carefree childhood and careworn – too early – adulthood at 19, where childbearing was the one yearly constant in a woman’s life. Women had precious little time to move from child to adolescence to womanhood. It was from a little girl to a teenager to a woman with all the myriad responsibilities (minus the accolades), in the brief space of ten years for most women in the 1940’s as it was for May. In that time the family moved from Witta to The Highlands and back to Witta, all farming dairy land, all hard work. That was 1943, where May was 18 years of age and then it was 1944, the year before the end of the Second World War and marriage to James Mundt. May was 19, James 21! Farming, cows, milking, hard work, took over in the years from 14 onward until her marriage at 19. These manual skills took over from Mathematics, Reading and any other intellectual pursuits. There just wasn’t time nor money nor energy for that.

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Chapter Three Life is too short and delicate to live in shame. Mitta Xinindlu Breaking Free

Monday 17 th April 2023 10 am A .303 rifle was just one of the many incentives to leave her life, her husband and four of her five precious children. James Mundt husband carried the rifle with him constantly, as if he needed it to protect what one does not know. But a loaded rifle has far- reaching, and possibly devastating consequences. Even though her neighbours helped as much as they could by keeping watch on James and his erratic behaviours, inevitably, May would be on her own facing up to a jealous husband with a gun and a penchant for violence against women. In addition, in 1945, May’s family “shot through” to Brisbane and left the 20 year ‘old’ newly married girl – woman at the mercy of James Mundt. And yet she persevered for 14 years. In 1960, at the age of 34, sometime after the birth of her fifth and last child, May walked out on James. Walking out on your husband was simply not something that happened in 1960 in regional Australia. May would be left to face the far-reaching consequences of that decision even up to just a few years ago. May took just one child (collected a bit later from her home) with her, the youngest girl Betty, who now lives on the Gold Coast. Betty is now 74 years of age. Why just one child one is tempted to ask? The way May tells it is this; “A woman with no means, in a society that felt that women should stay with their husbands even if the situation was intolerable, was always going to be judged harshly”. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it was either walk out and be subject to the prejudices of 1960’s Queensland or stay and risk further

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violence. There was no acceptable solution for a woman in a situation like this. In the eyes of the world this was not a good look but then the world did not have to live the life that May did. Even though May walked out, she never “ran down” her husband, never stated the real reasons behind her decision and thus wore the brunt of public opinion. Understandably her four children who were left behind, were angry, upset, and felt deserted. According to May, she has “paid for that decision over and over again” but if she had that decision to make again, she would probably walk again. There are no winners in a relationship like this. The husband suffers, the wife suffers, the children carry the scars, and this is passed down to the grandchildren. But finally, at 98, May feels at peace. The family is back together and one hopes that there is a greater sense of understanding about what happened and why it happened. May walked out to her parents in 1960. She had Betty with her. That move was temporary. She had no money, no future prospects, and so she had to leave Betty at Kyogle in New South Wales with friends Lloyd and Edna Andrews. Betty liked it there and of course it would have been very difficult for a young girl to be wrenched from her siblings and find herself on her own. But Betty was safe, and school was good, and life got back to some sort of normality. In the meantime May had to “find her way” in what was a patriarchal Brisbane society. Through the introduction of one Ivan Petavar, May found herself literally embraced in the clutches of the Children of God sect. The embracer being their Pastor, Eric King. King was known as a persuasive and charismatic man who felt that God spoke to him “directly”. Often these messages were about who should show him favours, messages of a sexual nature. Things haven’t changed much it seems even now!

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It seems that everyone does something for a reason, often an ulterior motive. Ivan’s kindness to May came with strings attached. He introduced May to the Pastor, and at a branch meeting, after dinner, King divined that “God had told him that May should sleep with him”. May turned on her heels and walked out of that church and out of the Children of God forever. Once again, she was on her own with nowhere to go. And yet again, a kindness from a Courier Mail delivery man ensured that May was able to get to her sister’s house in Mittagong. Safe for the moment! May finds the period following that to be vague and is apologetic about her memory regarding those years in Brisbane. I remind her that that was 63 years ago! There is no reason to be apologetic. The mind is a curious thing. Difficult times are often consigned to the scrapheap of memory. We don’t want to remember the times when we felt afraid, sad, confused and often at the mercy of the world. But May survived. Betty prospered in Kyogle, did well in school and finished her studies and got out into the world of secretarial work. May got herself cleaning work and baby-sitting work for professional families in Brisbane and moved into a unit with the help of her Deserted Wife’s Pension and welcome rent payment from Betty who was now working for a transport company. May was however, very lonely. She did not have any contact with her other four children, she had little money, but at last she was now stable and finally after 35 years of life, May was in charge of her own destiny, for the first time. On occasions through the ensuing years, May met up with her children, Rodney in Brisbane when he was there for work, for instance. May did not however, get invited to Joan’s wedding. Nor was she invited to Rodney’s or Robert’s wedding! So many fences to mend after all those years. And they are being mended slowly. May did however get to be with her daughter Betty on her wedding day.

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(Betty and May at Betty’s wedding)

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Chapter Four

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting (TS Eliot) Perspectives Joan, May’s eldest, left Conondale after year 12 to go out west to Aramac working on a sheep property as a governess. Emotionally, as a 17-year-old child, the circumstances of her life, her mother’s departure and her father’s smouldering anger, meant that Joan was not in a good space. Teenagers are meant to be vibrant and full of optimism but in some, many, cases, this isn’t the norm. Joan had been in late primary school when May had left the farm at Conondale and it was Joan who had to take her place cooking, cleaning, washing, milking cows before and after school and looking after her father, her 3 brothers and her sister, who was eventually ‘claimed’ by May. In a situation like this, everyone suffers, even the perpetrator, in this case James Mundt. Joan’s first two years of high school were at Maleny 1960 and 1961 and that involved travel for an hour morning and afternoon by bus up/down the range. Life, for her, was so very difficult, and May too acknowledges that to me. And to add to that James Mundt, in Joan’s words “was cruel physically and emotionally”. All this time, in Brisbane, May was trying to reconcile to her new life, finding work as a house cleaner and doing the ironing for well-to-do families in Brisbane.

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May did visit Joan on occasions away from the family home in order to avoid James. She saw her daughter mainly during her lunch breaks at Maleny High School. Joan eventually married in 1964 and had her first child in 1965. In 1966 they moved to Longreach where her husband worked as a technician on the radio station at Cramsie, broadcasting the ABC radio program and it wasn’t until 1971 that they returned to Brisbane as one of their children needed open heart surgery and their eldest son was to start school. In those days Joan and May communicated by writing letters and finally the connections were made when May came to Longreach for the birth of two of Joan’s sons.

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Chapter Five

Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been . The Winter Years

When you're just a little child time don't mean much to you the days go by so slow and the years seem so few can't wait until you're grown pack it up and get out on your own

But the winter of your life will come on with no way to slow it you'll wonder where all the time went now the days fly bye before you know it you look in a mirror and see grey hair wrinkles on your face yea, life's unfair but you've lived the seasons with no regrets

yesterday she was just a kid spring and summer flew so fast

while it was happening she was having a blast but summers over winters here now there's just the dreams of all the years.

Copyright 2002 John H. Turner Jr.

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Chapter Six We go through the present blindfolded... Only later, when the blindfold is removed and we examine the past, do we realise what we've been through and understand what it means. Milan Kundera Wisdom in Hindsight – What We Learn from Life As this biography of Esma Mundt comes to a close, it is difficult not to be impressed by the quiet perseverance and optimism of May. It would not be an exaggeration to say that life has not been easy for May. And of course, everyone in the family suffered. But here she is, at 98 years of age, strong, stoic, caring about her friends at the place she calls home now, thankful for her large and diverse family and equipped for the years ahead. It is my fervent wish that May does get to the ton and celebrates it with her family. Over the course of these interviews, I asked May what advice she had to give to others about this thing called life. Most importantly, May has never been negative about the cards life has dealt her. May tells me that she has her “down days”, the days where she is reluctant to wake and begin the day. But invariably she does. She greets the staff, remains interested about the welfare of her friends at the centre and remains the astute and quiet observer of life around her. They say that longevity can be attributed to a variety of factors, one being genetic makeup and then a host of other variables. But one factor does tend to come up over and over again. That is the power of positivity. This is what shines through most when I meet May; that is her curiosity, willingness to be open to possibilities and her innate positivity. Life has been bitter-sweet for May. She grew up in a beautiful part of the Queensland hinterland, she had a loving family but was estranged from her children at an early age and that had far-reaching repercussions. She had a sister

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with whom she was close. May “tolerated” school, had a love of Mathematics but most of all loved the open air and outdoor work. She was a teenager in troubled times in the world and did her growing up between the start of the Phoney War in Europe in 1939, live through the Genocide of the Jews, and celebrated with the rest of the work when war ended in 1945. And yet, with the celebration of war’s end, May endured a bondage of sorts at the hand of her husband. Violence was never far for this 19-year-old and her twenties were spent bearing children working physically hard on the farm and enduring the uncertain temperament of James Mundt. Life was good and life was also fraught with difficult decisions, the most difficult one being leaving her 4 children and walking out. And so we close a remarkable story about an inspirational woman. May has lived and continues to live her life with an element of stoicism and yet she is never negative. To her life is what it is. She does not hold grudges, she acknowledges events, stares them in the eyes and lets them drift. Even as May edges closer to that century, she is bright and interested and caring. She wakes to life each morning and lives her days. There are lessons to be learned from May’s attitude to life.

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We are born, we make what we can out of life, we do the best we can, and all we can do is ask for forgiveness and love and give love in return. Delve into the extraordinary and bitter-sweet life of Esma ‘May’ Mundt; a tale with more twists and turns than a work of fiction.

Esma “May’ Mundt at 90.

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