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- _Phoebe Atkinson_
Managing a cattle property of 560 square miles in remote northwest Queensland would be a challenge for the best bushman. For a young, widowed mother in the 1950s, most people considered it unthinkable.
They hadn't met Phoebe Atkinson.
Phoebe was born in 1917, the daughter of north Queensland drover, Arthur D'Arcy Wilson. As a child, she had a serious illness and was sent to live with her grandmother for several years, but when her grandmother died, Phoebe returned to the family property, "Conjuboy", near Einasleigh.
Two years of boarding school followed, and Phoebe recalls the arduous five-day journey to Charters Towers at the beginning of each term.
"It took hours and hours," she remembers. "The first part of the trip was by buck-board, then on to Einasleigh with the mailman. I'd arrive in Charters Towers about five o'clock in the morning, tired and covered in dust, and would have to go straight to school."
When Phoebe was fifteen, she left school and went home to cook for 'the mob', the endless stream of cattle drovers and stationhands who worked on Conjuboy. Keeping the men fed was no easy task. There was no electricity and water had to be carted to the homestead.
It was during this busy time that Phoebe met Reay Atkinson, a local lad whose father had owned Greenvale Station. Reay managed a large block off the property, known as Camel Creek.
In 1936, aged just 19, Phoebe married Reay and moved out to the block.
It was rough, dry country and not ideal for grazing cattle. But through careful management, the addition of several dams and plenty of hard work, the couple increased their herd significantly.
So it's hardly surprising that towards the end of World War II, when northern property owners were told to shoot their cattle and poison their dams, lest the Japanese should invade, Phoebe and Reay did not comply.
"We couldn't get bullets for love nor money," Phoebe says, "so I don't know what we were supposed to shoot our cattle with. And we were certainly not going to poison our dams because we depended on them."
The war ended and for several years, life continued as normal on Camel Creek. The young couple now had some added responsibilities in the form of five small children, so it was a terrible blow when Reay was diagnosed with cancer. In 1949, after a long battle with the disease, he died.
"For four or five months before he died, I stayed with him every single day. He was only thirty-nine," Phoebe recalls.
She was thirty-two. Her eldest child was eleven and her youngest, seventeen months. Few thought she would stay on the property, let alone take over the management, but Phoebe had no second thoughts. Though she had to fight her two brothers-in-law to keep Camel Creek, she was soon in charge of the vast property.
"I was full of confidence because Reay had been sick for several years and I'd practically been running the place anyway."
Despite this confidence, as a young woman in a predominantly male occupation, the transition was not easy. Things were made even more difficult when Phoebe was told she owed more than $30,000 in death taxes, a staggering amount at the time.
Debts aside, the first major crisis came when the head stockman sacked the whole stock camp and walked out, leaving every gate on the property open.
"The local mischief maker had convinced him that he was to be replaced. It wasn't true and as the men were very loyal to me, I got them back and they sorted out the livestock."
With this disaster averted, things seemed to be looking up. Until in 1951, when drought struck.
Water had always been a precious commodity on Camel Creek, a matter of life and death for the cattle and for the business. Now the dams were drying up rapidly and Phoebe faced another battle. But this time, she was not alone.
Old hands, who had worked on the property years before, heard of her situation and drifted back to offer assistance. They worked for months without a break, helping to save as much of the herd as they could. Phoebe's voice falters when she tells the story of these men lining up on payday and refusing overtime.
"They told me that my children and I needed it more than they did. Every man said the same thing and by the third or fourth one, I could hardly write the cheque because tears were streaming down my face."
Despite the efforts made during the drought, thousands of cattle had been lost and to lighten the load on the land and give the remaining stock a fighting chance, Phoebe decided to sell off another thousand head. The meatworks was the only option when it came to selling such large numbers of stock and the buyers were not used to dealing with women. It took Phoebe three weeks and plenty of "strong words" to get what she considered to be a fair price.
As her confidence and experience as a manager grew, Phoebe began to look around her. She could see that many improvements were needed to ensure a successful future for the north Queensland cattle industry. Producers were crying out for a suitable stock feed that could withstand both the long, dry conditions and the extremely cold winters of the northwest. Phoebe also believed the government should fund a beef research station for the area, to look at ways of improving the herds.
When Jack Kelly came to visit, Phoebe had a chance to voice her ideas.
Jack was from the Bureau of Agricultural Economics in Canberra and was doing a major survey of the cattle industry in northern Australia. He arrived at Camel Creek in the early morning.
Phoebe was busy clearing up from the men's breakfast and preparing dessert for the evening. As there was plenty more to be done during the day, Phoebe continued her work as she answered his questions. It made an impression on Jack, who told his colleagues that Phoebe was the only station manager he'd met who could answer all his questions without looking up a book, "and what's more, could make apple pie at the same time!"
After Jack's visit, Phoebe received an invitation to Canberra to 'look around' and to stop off in Sydney to meet the Governor of the Commonwealth Bank, Dr Herbert "Nugget" Coombs. Dr Coombs was very interested in the development of Australian agriculture and he wanted to meet Phoebe and hear her ideas on the subject. A fifteen-minute appointment soon became much longer, as the Governor of the Commonwealth Bank and a young woman from 'out west' discussed the future of the northern cattle Industry.
It was not long after this meeting that a beef research station was set up at "Toorak", south of Julia Creek, and an improved stockfeed was developed for the north. While Phoebe doesn't claim to be responsible for these developments, she knows that in her own way, she did make a difference.
Phoebe left Camel Creek in 1960 and moved to Townsville. After many years as a mother, teacher, cook, gardener and station manager, she says she was "utterly exhausted."
Over the years, her property has been downsized, part of a government policy to break up some of the larger Australian stations. Phoebe's eldest son, Toby, now runs the one hundred square miles that remains.
Today Phoebe lives in the lush tropical city of Cairns, surrounded by photos and objects, testament to an unforgettable life. A stockwhip hangs by a painting of an anonymous drover, his packhorses by his side. Her children feature regularly in the photos on the walls. They were, she says, the main reason why she fought so hard against adversity.
She smiles as she recalls those who didn't believe she could do it.
"What they didn't realise was that I am Dad's daughter. And God! he was a stayer."
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Story by Leonie Lyons, an ABC Rural Reporter in North Queensland.
Broadcast 22 November 2002 on Radio Nationals "Rural Legends"
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/legends/stories/16_2.htm [1]
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