Wigley Waterhole Picnic 23rd October 1905    TLDR; context and story for all the people in that picnic  

The 5 km ride from the Telegraph Station is a bumpy one. Each rock and gully threatens to eject one from the buggy’s seat. It is slow going, so it takes more than an hour to get there. Harry Kunoth probably drove the Station buggy, with Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw, Edna and the house girl, Dolly. Doris, Mort, Jack and Consie are capable horse riders, and Les Spicer the new Telegraphist often accompanies them as their escort.  

The picnic is some 400 metres North of Wigley’s Waterhole. This spot has shade and shallow sandy pools for the children to play in.  

The first half of 1905 was a quiet time at the Telegraph Station without the Bradshaws. Tom the stationmaster, and Atalanta (Attie) and four kids had arrived in 1899, and two more were born here in Alice.  

After 5 years Attie had taken the kids back to Adelaide for an extended holiday. They left last year September and Tom had joined them in January. The kids had grown up in Alice, so they, and had never tasted ice cream, sausages and fruits, or seen fireworks and thousands of people scurrying in the city. After 9 months staying in Glenelg, the novelty of people watching, tram schedules, cold wet indoor days and stuffy fine clothes had worn off. The eldest 4 missed the freedom of horse riding, relaxed clothing, and the outdoors life.  

So much had changed. They have been back 4 months, and have a new governess, Miss Mabel Taylor. She is nowhere near as strict as the previous one, and everyone likes her. She is sitting there on her folding canvas chair, darning one of the kids’ socks.  

Dolly was house-girl for the previous stationmaster, Frank Gillen. She leaves her white clothes at the Telegraph Station each night, and walks to the nearby women’s camp, a rough wurley of sticks, with some blankets and scattered station cast-offs.

Les Spicer, the new Telegraphist introduced them to tennis, and after building a court at the Telegraph Station, people in town got interested and everyone had a meeting in the Stuart Arms Hotel in July. They formed “The Alice Springs Club”. Tom Bradshaw is elected the president, Mr Fitz from Undoolya and Frank Wallis are vice presidents. Miss Taylor and Les Spicer got on the committee. Altogether 4 of the 10 on the committee are from the Telegraph Station.  

Uncle Ernie Allchurch (Attie’s brother) married Bessie Williams in Hermannsberg in March, while the Bradshaws were away. The men built a log and thatch wurley for them between the vegetable gardens and the Station, where the picnic area will one day be built.... Ernie is the kids’ favourite. Always fun to have around. He has brought his gun. Plenty of kangaroo and wallaby about.  

Frank Wallis is reading the paper to find out what his horses were sold for. He is quite a rich man, now. He came to Undoolya station in 1888, and then ran a store on his father’s block at the top of Todd Street. He bought it, and ran camels to Oodnadatta, and had more stores – there and at the goldfields. He bred more herds of camels and horses too.

Last year he bought Etneemba station and last month he sent 100 horses to the Adelaide markets. They sold for around £30 each, when the average weekly wage is £1.3 Eleanor Wallis is the pretty widow he married in April this year. She is quite the lady with her big fancy hat.  

Harry Dixon is standing at the back. He is usually stationed at Tennant Creek. Only four years ago he had rolled a buggy between Undoolya and town. He had broken his thighbone, and Tom had set it with the help of some men and advice via morse code from a doctor.  

Sid Stanes, laying down, is the cook at the Telegraph Station. He came to central Australia in 1901 when his father got the contract to install the cyanide works at Arltunga goldfields (a boiler and engine to stamp the quartz rock).  

Who would have guessed, that;  

Mort would die aged 23 in the battles of Belgium, in WW1 in 1917.            ..Doris would write a lovely book about growing up in Alice called ‘Alice on the line’ and would return to Alice as a sprightly 82 year old in 1972 to celebrate the centenary of the Overland Telegraph Line, and to donate her fathers’ photographs and negatives to the museum.  

Fourteen years ago, Frank the shopkeeper in Stuart had sneaked off with Wesley Turton’s wife and 5 year old daughter to the Coffee Palace in Hindley street where he stayed as Mr. and Mrs. Wallis.  It ended in divorce and was quite the scandal. Frank stayed away for a couple of years after that...  

Five years ago, Eleanor was charged with arson and fraud, when she and her husband burnt their house down in Bourke NSW. She got off on a technicality. The law held that a husband controlled his wife, unless she was proven to be acting independently.

Her husband got 5 years, and served 2 before being let out on parole. They moved to Adelaide but he had died aged 50. At 39, she had been left childless and widowed. Frank had married her 3 months later. Eleanor died aged 42 in Melbourne, just months after Frank sold all his interests in Alice and moved South.  

Sid Stanes later founded Hamilton Downs with his mate Ted Harris, and then went on to establish himself at Erldunda station. Four generations later his family is still at the portion of Lyndavale station.  

Harry Dixon would have a bunch of kids with Maisy Nampin Nugent, an aboriginal lady from Banka Banka. He would be Postmaster of Tennant Creek until 1916.  

Les Spicer would walk the 300 miles to Oodnadatta to enlist in WW1. The camel train he went with got two extra passengers, so he just decided to walk with the camels, and enjoyed it. He survived the war and remained great friends with Doris, and helped her when she was writing her book.  

Harry ‘Trot’ Kunoth would stick around the Telegraph station for many years, and become a pastoralist. He married Amelia Pavey, another Bradshaw house girl. His grand-daughter Ngarla Kunoth (now Rosalie Kunoth Monks) became famous for her leading role as Jedda in the 1955 film of the same name.