Goodbye, Family Home

We visited my family home in Melbourne’s (Victoria, Australia) eastern suburbs regularly, to spend holidays with my parents. Many memorable Christmases were spent there.

This changed when my mother became ill in late 2019. passing away in February 2020. (I have shared her story in my article “Thank you, Mother”.)

This left my father as the sole occupant, and he then had to endure Melbourne’s extended Covid lockdowns. As he was not tech-savvy (no computer skills), keeping in contact with family and friends via social media was not possible, leaving him very lonely and grieving my mother.

His only visitors were carers from his Church and my sister. She visited him frequently to help him with household tasks and gardening.

Every Sunday, he would make the trek to friends in the next street, to watch to watch the livestream of the Church service, and would then let us know of this experience: “Mark, Church was on TV, you should have seen it!”.

As my family and I live in Adelaide, South Australia (about 630km away), we were not able to visit him as often as we liked. The Covid restrictions also did not help.

He was becoming increasingly deaf, meaning that our conversations became increasingly one-sided. He also had dementia, which became increasingly worse, and would often tell us that on some mornings he could hear my mother in the house, and would sometimes see her, telling him that she was going shopping. Then she would disappear.

The difficult decision to place him into aged care was made early in 2021, and in May that year he said his final farewell to the home that he had occupied since 1964. He celebrated his 90th birthday in the aged care home, the day after he entered.

He passed away on the 6th of February last year. I have shared his amazing life in my article “Grief and Hope”.

The Early Years

My father (Eric) and mother (Elli) moved into the home in 1964.

From what Elli told me, this was to remove her impressionable new husband from the overbearing influence of his mother (Oma — grandmother in German).

Oma Kleimann was a strong-willed but kind Polish-German woman, who loved to spoil her grandchildren with a smorgasbord of sugary treats. Unlike nutritional experts, she had the view that a skinny grandchild was a sickly grandchild, and made it her goal to change this. This was one of many things that Elli (also strong-willed) and Oma did not mesh on.

As a result, Eric found himself shifted, signing a contract on a property 45 minutes away — his and Elli’s new home.

I remember Elli telling me, from an early age, how “shoddy” the construction of our home was, with German comments like “Das ganze Haus ist schief” (the whole house is crooked). She would point to doorways that clearly did not contain right angles, and sliding doors that mysteriously slid open by themselves, as their rails were slightly downhill, as examples of this. She even went as far as using a kitchen knife to scrape between the red bricks of our home, to show us that too much sand had been mixed in with the cement, to make it last longer.

The garage was built by Eric and my grandfather, Opa Kleimann, and apart from Eric’s assortment of vintage tools, was soon the home of their prized first car, a magnificent 1958 green and white Holden FC. This remained the family vehicle until its demise in 1976, when it was replaced by a more up-to-date Toyota Corona (The life of this was shared in my article “The Magical Corona”.)

The Neighbourhood

Eric and Elli met their neighbours on the down-hill side the day they moved into their newly-completed home.

It was a friendly family, which included three girls and a boy. Two of the daughters, like their mother, were red-heads. I’m not sure about the saying that red-heads have fiery tempers, but these girls certainly had. As they grew up, their fights became more intense, with shouts echoing off the house’s solid-brick walls and polished floorboards.

The family also had an amazing collection of pets, which included a poodle, homing pigeons, chickens and bees. I remember waking to the melodic call to attention of at least two roosters, and my father washing sludgy white deposits off the FC’s windscreens.

Once every few years, there would be a dreaded hum in our backyard, and we knew to keep clear for a couple of days. It was a wild African queen bee taking control of the hive, causing the colony to swarm — for some reason, they chose our backyard to do this.

The neighbours on the up-hill side were a quite entertaining bunch. It can be said that every neighbourhood has its “interesting” family — this one sure fitted this description!

It consisted of a Dad who looked like a guy that you would meet at the front bar of the Railway Hotel at Upper Combukta West. He enjoyed a good smoke and wasn’t fussed where his beer came from, as long as it was brewed in Victoria. We didn’t see the f having an everyday car in their driveway, the family chose thmother much — she spent most of her time inside. The children included three boys and a girl.

On the weekends, to unwind, the family went to and participated in stock car racing.

“Interesting” also described the family car. Instead of having an everyday car in their driveway, the family chose this:

I remember black smoke shooting from its exhaust when they started it, and also occasional backfires, which could be heard up to fourteen houses away.

As they grew older, the boys of the family formed a gang, soon recruiting the two boys across the road and also the Polish boy further down.

There was one memorable incident which occurred one brisk spring evening as the Kleimann family sat down to dinner. We were enjoying our German bratwurst when sludgy brown mud was flung onto our kitchen windows, which faced the house’s driveway. We suspected that the gang was the suspects — they did it because they could.

Another memorable incident happened on a balmy Melbourne summer evening. The tranquility of the suburban street was shattered by a window-rattling explosion and brilliant flash of light, emanating from the house’s loungre room, which faced the street. Soon afterwards a faint cloud of grey smoke wafted out of the room’s open glass doors.

Surprisingly, there was no sign of panic.

The following day, the mother of our other neighbours told Elli that the family TV had blown up. Sure enough, the offending device was soon banished to the front verandah, its blackened back facing the street. It remained there until the family moved out six months later.

Oddly, I never approached my family’s ageing black and white Thorn Atlas TV in the same way after that…

The next family that moved into this home was more sedate.

Their choice of car was more mundane, and the children consisted of five girls — the father was the sole male in the household. The girls were also more even-tempered — I do not recall a single fight. Even the father’s occupation was more “everyday” — he was a bank manager.

Their choice of pets was limited to two dogs and an unknown number of cats, who had names which included Ginger and Dickie-lee. Even one of the dogs had a cat’s name — Thomasina.

Although the family was quite friendly, the cats soon became frustrating to Elli, who was a keen gardener. This was because, due to the pet-free status of our home, our territory soon became the cats’ territory. I remember Elli swearing in German as she removed buried gifts from the cats in her extensive vegetable garden.

The family had not lived here long before they added a room to the rear of their home. It had just been completed when they added an occupant to the room: an amazing stereo system. This then started Mark’s musical education.

As my bedroom windows faced this room, across their driveway, I was educated in all things Beatles, Paul McCartney and Wings, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and, later, Split Enz. The house’s weatherboard construction amplified the sound, as when the legendary tunes were cranked up, I was sure that I could see it vibrate, like the ornate German glasses in our kitchen display cabinet did. I would not be surprised if the house needed re-stumping after this exposure.

This exposure also sowed the seeds for my later musical rebelllion against Classical-music-loving Elli (which I described in my article “Did your parents deprive you of Fun?”)

The remaining neighbours were also friendly, with most of them consisting of families who also had a European heritage. Elli and Eric had certainly moved into the right community!

As the Years Went By…

My family and I remained in our home, with my sister and I attending the local State primary school, to which we walked each school day.

When family friends were invited over, Elli always presented a legendary afternoon tea, which included her iconic baked cheese cake, an assortment of stollens, poppy-seed cake (before it became illegal in Victoria) and glazed peach and strawberry flaIt witnessed many memorable Kleimann family moments, including mine and my sister’s Confirmations, and the special Christmas Eve family get-togethers, where, after the Christmas Eve Church service, the presents were then given out (a German tradition).

Occasionally, sherry and schnapps also made an appearance, countered by strong brewed coffee afterwards.

Then our guests, over-filled with these feasts, struggled back to their waiting vehicles.

A particular memorable moment was my 21st and my sister’s 18th combined birthday party, which was held on both a hired marquee in the backyard and the garage, which had been cleaned out for the occasion.

The highlight was our large American friend who, after absorbing an interesting assortment of colourful mixed drinks, choosing a tranquil location between two parked cars for his bed for the night.

In conclusion…

As children do, my sister and I moved out, to start our own lives.

The last time we saw this historic property was in December last, year, when we stopped in front of it. I knew that its new owner had plans for it, and this is what it looked like:

That is progress, I guess.

I am glad that we have our memories.

A special one is Elli and Eric waving goodbye from the front porch, as we reversed our car out of the driveway, then drove down the street towards the T-junction at the end, starting our trip back to Adelaide.

Glancing back as we turned left, we would see Eric outside the front gate, waving as we drove out of sight.

Love you, Mum and Dad, and see you again,

Your son, Mark