01 Molly

Molly Clarke nee O'Donnell

 

“I was born in Mount Barker, South Australia and lived at Littlehampton until I was six and a half years of age, when my Dad passed his Overseers certificate and secured a position with the Council of Elliston, a small town on the west coast of South Australia.  Here I lived until I was eighteen years of age and went nursing at Wakefield Street Private Hospital in Adelaide.

However, I was not meant to be a nurse, as twenty-six of us went down with ‘Fluid on the lung’ as TB was commonly called.

We were not allowed to nurse again for two years, so yours truly headed for home, which was now a sheep station on the Broken Hill line.

From here, after nine months, I went as a governess to Mungarannie Station.

Finally I met the man whose wife I became when we married in 1946.

The rest is history”

This is Molly’s life in her own words.  She is naturally reticent about her achievements but we have managed to piece together some of that history which she left out.  This is her story.

Molly the Battler

Molly arrived at the 3410 square kilometre station at Andado, around 330 km SE of Alice Springs with her husband Mac and 3 small sons in 1955.  Previously they had been working on grazing properties between Broken Hill,  Birdsville and Tennant Creek but it had always been her dream to own their own property.  They lived in the original 1920’s homestead for a few years, building a new one a few kilometres west.  The old homestead was left to fall down but in 1969 Molly decided to resurrect it and turn it into a homestay operation as an alternative income during drought years.  The project took almost 20 years to fulfil during which time she physically worked on getting the building and surrounding area habitable.  The 1970’s witnessed a catalogue of personal crises.  In 1975 her son Megs had a life-threatening accident.  Three years later she lost her husband who suffered a fatal heart attack after crash landing his light aircraft.  The following year, eldest son Graham was killed by a freight train whilst driving his prime mover across a railway line at night.  By the end of the decade Molly had also lost her livelihood, when the NT government were forced to destroy all her cattle following a brucellosis scare.  Just two years short of her owning her property outright she had to sell up, retaining just 45 square kilometres.

Tourism Pioneer

Undeterred, she continued to fight for compensation for lost income as well as working on her tourist venture – one of the first of its kind – at Old Andado,  now her home.  It was finally listed on the Heritage register in 1993 and her achievement in tourism was recognised by the NT Tourist Commission who presented her with a special Brolga Award in 1995.  Until recently, she welcomed paying guests looking for a ‘real’ outback experience at her corrugated iron and timber home dating from 1922, set amongst alternate landscapes of flat gibber and giant sand dunes.

Guests generally stayed in the adjoining bunkhouse or camped nearby but were all welcome for a cuppa and a yarn in her kitchen with its traditional range and Coolgardie safe.  The homestead has no air-conditioning and summer temperatures can rise well into the 40’s.   ‘Going shopping’ for Molly was taking her familiar battered red Toyota Land Cruiser back to Alice Springs via what has become known as ‘Molly’s Track’, a 4 hour drive through scrub and bulldust.  It is a route that Molly personally pioneered and tourists can likewise take this 4WD adventure to Old Andado  although there is also a longer road via Kulgera, which is sealed half the way.

Molly’s Dream

In the late 1980’s Molly had a new dream prompted by the founding of the now famous Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, Queensland.  Disappointed by its profoundly male domination, she called a public meeting in February 1993 to gauge interest in establishing a Hall of Fame dedicated to the pioneering women of Australia.  Within a few months an interim committee was formed and the national Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame was officially launched on 8 May 2003 at Old Andado.  Not only that, but she managed to persuade the likes of national identities Ian McNamara (who broadcast his ABC Radio program ‘Australia All Over’ from Old Andado for the event, Ted Egan and bush band Bloodwood to do the honours, along with 200 devotees.  ‘Molly’s Bash’, as it was known, became an annual event, held on Mothers’ Day weekend, until its 10^th anniversary on 2002 in the Year of the Outback.

Within a year the NPWHF had a temporary home at the Old Courthouse, leased to the organisation by the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory.  A committee of locals now took over the running of the Hall of Fame.

Molly has travelled throughout Australia promoting her cause; attending fundraisers, talking to the media and government agencies and to anyone willing to listen as well as corresponding with numerous well-wishers.  In recent years she has been further recognised for her accomplishments.  In 1998 she was granted one of the inaugural NT Chief Minister’s Women’s Achievements Awards.  In 1999 – the International Year of the Older Persons- she received a Commonwealth Recognition Award for Senior Australians in the Northern Territory electorate.

The dream was realized on International Women’s Day 8 March 2007, when Molly helped unveil the plaque for the opening of the National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame at the Old Alice Springs Gaol.

R. I. P.  Molly                          

28 December 1922 – 22 September 2012.

 

 

 

 

OLD  ANDADO  STATION  -  FROM  THE  FACT  SHEET

 

Located 330 kms south-east of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and 15 kms into the western fringe of the Simpson Desert is the Old Andado Station with its heritage-listed homestead and buildings.

Parts of the land that was to became Andado Station was first held in 1880 by Willoby and Gordon.  It wasn’t until 1908/09 that Andado land was first occupied by Robert Sharpe and David Mayfield.  Additional pastoral leases were issued to other parties from 1908 – 1914.  George Thomas McDill sand several bores on Andado land over this time and in 1914 he acquired grazing land with his brother, Robert David McDill and Henry Stanley Roper.

It was during the McDill/Roper years that the first building, a mud brick hut, was erected.  It was replaced on the occasion of George McDill’s wedding when his wife came to live on the station in 1922.

                The original homestead, built for George McDill and his wife, consisting of Lounge, Bedroom, and possibly the lean-to ( now a Bedroom), was dismantled in Oodnadatta and transported overland by camels.  Because of the awkward loads, the camels had to walk down the slope of the sandhills backwards.  The present Kitchen and Breezeway was build in 1924.

Sheep were introduced in the early 1920’s following several years of good rains but drought in the late 1920’s financially crippled the McDills but they hung on.  Bu 1933 the station was running 1300 sheep, 420 cattle land 116 horses.

Andado Station was sold by the McDill brothers in 1942 and then changed hands four times, eventually to be owned by H. H. Overton.  In May 1955, Overton formed a partnership with Molly and Malcolm Clark called the ‘Andado Pastoral Company’.  Malcolm, ‘Mac’ Clark had been employed as an overseer on the station since 1949.

A new homestead was built (in the 1960’s)  18 kms west of the old homestead, leaving the ‘old place’ to fall into ruin.  By 1969, the Clark family owned Andado Station outright.

Molly took herself on a world cruise and that’s how she got the idea of opening up the old homestead as a tourist venture. 

In 1972 Molly began the huge job of restoring the old homestead to its former glory eventually operation a tourism business, ‘Tjauritchi Wanda Tours Pty Ltd’, which showed tourists how life was in the earlier days of the outback without modern amenities.

Molly and the family experienced a double tragedy in 1978 when they lost Mac to a heart attack while flying his light aircraft and later their eldest son, Graham, who died when his semi-trailer collided with a freight train.

Andado Station was one of the first cattle stations in the Northern Territory to undergo Brucellosis & Tuberculosis testing.  Because the station bordered with South Australia they had to destock (cull) their cattle and subsequently lost the property, having to sell it for a pittance.  In January 1987, Molly secured a Crown Lease over 45 square kilometres of land around the old homestead, re-naming it ‘Old Andado”.

The property was not permitted to restock for a period of 5 years, therefore there was no income and there were no jobs for her sons.  They moved to Western Australia.

Molly lived here full time, greeting tourists and running an authentic pioneer’s residence and museum until ill health led her to move to Alice Springs in 2006.

            The property was bequeathed to Molly’s 5 Grandchildren.  It operates as Old Andado Charitable Trust, headed by Meegan who overseas maintenance and coordinates volunteer caretakers.