BAKER and CLAYTON Families (of Carmel)

Written and Authorised for publication by:
Dorothy HARRISON and Families

FAMILY IN THE HILLS

As immigrants from England, Herbert and Esther Baker had come to Australia with their eldest daughter Connie to settle in Chewton, Victoria. They added seven more children and came over to Menzies WA where the last two boys were born in 1909 and 1916.
Pre WW1, the family and their 9 living children rented Stirk Cottage for a time.
It was (and is still) a tiny two rooms so the boys pitched a tent across the road on a neighbour’s lawn and slept there. The four girls stayed in the Cottage with their parents.
My Uncle Bert spoke of the fun the boys had in that tent. The older boys Bert and Bob
enlisted as original Anzacs and served overseas. Bert took part in the Gallipoli Landing as a stretcher bearer.
Their daughter Grace married Percy Collins and their daughter Jessie Collins was born at Carmel in 1915.

Herbert and Esther Baker with sons (L – R) Bob, Bert and Jim. c. 1914

Bob returned from the War with a lung condition which became tuberculosis.
He married my mother, Dorothy (Doll) Flanders in 1923.
With their seven children arriving between 1924 and 1933, they lived in Carmel and Pickering Brook.

Bob was appointed postmaster at Carmel on September 15, 1927. My mother tookover in 1932 when he became too ill. There are mentions of Bob Baker snr in the school records on the website, as he was unable to work because of his illness.
However, he was a wonderful father who spent a lot of time at the Carmel schoolrunning sporting events and special events. My sister Roma had a bout of rheumatic
fever when she was four or five which left her with a permanent heart problem.
Bob died in 1938 leaving my mother with 6 children aged 14 to 4.
This was a great tragedy for the Baker and Flanders families.

Bob and Doll Baker with eldest daughter June and baby Bob
Veranda of the Carmel Post office. c. 1927

Robert Charles (Bob) BAKER
Carmel Post Office
1927-1932

Doll BAKER – Postmistress
1932-1940

June & Doll BAKER

Uncle Bert BAKER remembered at the time the youngest child Bill or Beau as he was often called, putting his finger in a hole in the fence and saying “My Daddy made that hole.” Bert couldn’t tell us that story without tears rolling down his face.
My sister Lesley became a nurse and before her marriage worked at Wooroloo Sanitorium because of her father’s illness.

My Mother’s brother’s wife, Molly Flanders and her three children stayed with my mother while her husband was working away in the depression times. They probably attended Carmel School as well. Molly never failed to tell the story of how my brother was circumcised on the kitchen table by the local doctor, and she assisted him.

My elder sister June helped my mother with the postal duties and the telephone exchange, and they remained close friends to the end. All fourteen phone lines were on the party-line so they always knew everything that was going on.

They lived in the little house on Carmel Road (pictured on the website).

In 1940, they moved to East Victoria Park and Doll and June worked at the GPO in Perth.

One of the neighbours in Carmel was Les Clayton, whose family orchard “Kelvingrove” on Union Road was developing. His parents Captain Charles and May Clayton lived in one house and Les lived in the other house, at times with his brother Victor’s family.

Victor, a Flying Officer with the RAAF, died in 1945 in a plane crash in Victoria.

From the Carmel school photos, his children were listed at Katie, Pixie and Tuppy Clayton.

(Actually Kate, Valma and Charlie- only Val survives, as I write this).

My brothers attended the Seventh Day Adventist College for their higher-grade schooling and worked on the orchard as well. My father also ran a handyman business as he was trained as a radio technician during the war. He could fix anything from carpentry to electrical, mechanical – whatever job needed doing.

Les and Doll were married in 1942. Dad was a Flying Officer in the RAAF and stationed in New Guinea at the time.

My grandmother May was less than impressed with her precious boy marrying an older widow with 6 children, but soon came to love her and the children and vice versa.

Pictured below is the one horsepower fruit sled used when picking fruit for market. On board are brothers Bill and Jim and me (Dorothy) and the dog. (Obviously no child labour laws then.)

….. Bill & Jim and me (Dorothy) and our dog

Bob was away in the Army and married a Queensland girl Jan Nicolls. He brought his new bride home to the orchard and their son Robert was born there. Jan was remembered for once boiling a chicken in the copper. She was meant to be removing the feathers, but after some hours the chicken meat eventually fell off the bones, with the feathers still attached. They returned to Queensland shortly after.

My sister and I were born to the second marriage, but we were all one family, still with all the Bakers being regular visitors, and all the Flanders family and the Claytons as well.

At the same time as my sister and I were born, our elder sister June was married to George Turner and producing her own family. George was the brother of Victor’s wife Flora Clayton, and it was while visiting her at Carmel that he met June. He often spoke of the difficulties of courting June when she lived in the hills, and he was in Victoria Park. Their wedding in 1944 was hampered by a petrol shortage and the bride attended St Leonard’s Church in Victoria Park by tram.

Sister Lesley had a similar problem with her future husband George Moorhouse, who lived in Fremantle, but he had a car.
What usually happened was crowded weekends with everyone visiting: staying over, picking fruit, running barefoot through the trees, cutting wood to take home for their fires.

Fruit was taken to market on the old ute (pictured below) and often driven by my mother. One day she stopped at Victoria Park Police Station to get her driver’s license as she had never had one. The policeman asked her how she got there, and she said she drove, so he promptly filled out the form and handed over her license.

The old ute that was used to take fruit to market

Baby Helen and Dorothy in the Back of the old ute (no seat belts in those days)

Some other names that were always a part of our lives: George and Joyce Spriggs, Cyril and Mrytle Lording (my godparents) and their
children, Mrs Marchetti, Gwen Mason (life- long friend of Doll- she used to babysit the older kids), Beard’s, Annett’s and many others.

When I was a toddler and my sister Helen was a baby, my father had a few drinks and drove the car over the edge of the hill on Crystal Brook Road. We were saved by hitting a tree. The bend is now protected by a substantial railing, but forever known to our family as Dolly’s Drop.

We left the orchard in 1949 to go to Broome where my father was to run Sun Pictures. My youngest brother Bill (Beau) was to follow the next day as he had a Saturday morning job at Hearnsteads in Victoria Park. Sadly, his plane crashed right after take-off, and all aboard were killed. He was just fifteen years old. In 1998 we planted a tree at Carmel School in his memory.

We also planted trees at Carmel School for my brother Bob (1995) and my sister Lesley (1997) when they passed away and we held a family picnic in the grounds each time. Since then, all my siblings have gone, but their children remain close, and we still have family picnics each year. So many happy memories there, still recalled, still valued.

Baby Helen with a pet joey on the front porch (1948)

BAKER - Family:

BAKER. Herbert and Esther

Children: Connie, Bert, Grace, Maud, Bob, Em, Jim, Sid and Dud.

BAKER. Robert Charles and Dorothy Maud (Bob and Doll)

Children: June, Bob, Lesley, Roma, Jim and Bill (Beau)

CLAYTON. Charles and May

Children: Victor and Les

CLAYTON. Doll and Les

Children: Dorothy and Helen

CLAYTON. Victor and Flora

Children: Kate, Valma and Charlioe

FLANDERS - Family:

FLANDERS. George and Doll

FLANDERS. Harold and Molly

Children: Mervyn, Marie and Adrian

FLANDERS. Doll

Married: Bob and Les

Website prepared by:

Stephanie O’MEAGHER

(Last Updated 2th August, 2022)