FatherJohn George Haddock b. 15 Nov 1894
MotherEileen Edna Reid b. 24 Apr 1899, d. 13 Feb 1973
Pedigree

Birth, Death, Marriage

Maurice George Haddock was born on 20 August 1926.1 
He died on 3 December 1965 in Western Australia at age 39.2 
ChartsMilovitch, Thomas, descendant chart

Story

Maurice was born on 20 August 1926. He was the fifth child of Eileen and John.1
 
In his younger days in Shepparton, Maurie was also known by the nickname 'Pud'.3,4
 
Education
Maurice started at St Brendan's primary school Shepparton in 1931.5
 
Football
Maurie loved his football. He played for Shepparton East, where he met lifelong friends such as Frank Corboy. He was part of the 1945 premiership team.6,7
Maurice Haddock, back row, 8th from left,
Image: Shepparton Advertiser
Move to Melbourne 
The family moved to Melbourne and lived in Collingwood for a short time during the War years. They returned to Shepparton when there was fear of a Japanese invasion of Melbourne.8
 
The family left Shepparton for the second time in late 1945. They moved to South Yarra where they ran a fruit shop.9
 
Maurie worked there for a time before starting at a service station in Northcote.2,10
 
Soft Drink Poisoning
In December 1948, Evelyn, Maurice and their nephew John Bryant became violently ill after drinking some soft drink and were taken to Mooroopna hospital with suspected poisoning. The police investigated.

In July the following year, the three claimed damages totalling £747 (£249 each) against Cohn Brothers of Bendigo. They claimed that the lemonade they consumed was contaminated with arsenic. Trial was set for 4 October, but the outcome of the case is not known.11,10
 
Missionary Work and Fatal Accident
Maurice George Haddock died in Western Australia on 3 December 1965 aged 39.

His brother Ken had many of Maurice’s letters he had written to family and wanted to share with family and others his voluntary work with the Pallottine Mission and his contribution to working with our indigenous young people.12
 
This article written by Ken Haddock was published in the Pallottine Family Newsletter over three instalments, December 2006, March 2007 and June 2007.2
 
MY BROTHER MAURIE
 
- The story of Maurice Haddock’s voluntary work with the Pallottine Mission in
Western Australia in 1965.

 
My brother Maurie was a volunteer lay helper at the Pallottine Mission Centre at Rossmoyne from May to December 1965. His life ended very tragically on the 3rd December of that same year, in a terrible collision between two trucks on a clear stretch of highway between Geraldton and Mullewa in Western Australia, a distance of 100 kilometres from the Tardun Pallottine Mission.

Maurie didn’t go through the Lay Missionary Training Programme at Millgrove but he was recruited directly by Fathers Silvester and Brian Murray who were frequent callers at the Service Station atop Ruckers Hill in Northcote where he had worked. He was thirty-nine years of age, single and the fifth oldest member in a family of twelve children. Father Silvester thought Maurie might join the Pallottine Order as a lay brother after experiencing working at one of the Missions.

The Rossmoyne Mission Centre, in outer suburban Perth, formerly known as Riverton was established in 1956 to accommodate young aborigines from Tardun and the Kimberley. The purpose of the Centre was to provide an opportunity for young people to further their education and receive training in apprenticeships and for other employment.

During his time at the Mission Centre Maurie wrote letters home. These described his work at the Mission Centre and also gave some understanding of the role of the lay volunteers who worked on the Missions. I am sure other volunteers who have worked in the West would be able to relate to some of these experiences.

In June just one month after his arrival at the Mission Centre Maurie wrote: “My duties consist of driving three boys to work at 6.45 am, then the boys to school at 8.00 am and sometimes the girls also. I have to pick them up again at night at 3.30 and again at 4.30 pm except on football training nights then it was at 5.00 pm. During the day I have been helping the two brothers to fence in the new property and plant the vegetable garden about half an acre with onions and maize”

In this same letter he related an amusing incident with Father Luemmen when the two of them together with three boys tried to round up a cow from a forty acre paddock. At one stage Father Luemann had hold of the cow’s tail and was nearly flung into a dam and another time they both had a hold of the cow’s tail and were almost taken with the cow through a fence. There were three boys watching on and couldn’t contain themselves with laughter and stood by helpless. After an hour they abandoned the task till another time.
 
Some days later the cow was caught and taken by truck to Wandering Mission – a distance of eighty miles. It was a wet trip: “It rained all the way there and bucketed down on the way back.” In this same letter he put in a request for his car tools to be railed across from home as he noted – “there is a bit of work here but no tools.” He also mentioned that Bishop Jobst called in on his way up north and offered him work in the Kimberley which however he graciously declined.

In July Maurie gave more details of his work. He had additional transport duties to take students to night school and music lessons two nights a week at 7.00 pm and pick them up at 9.00 pm. During the day he helped Brother Valentine with the farm work which involved one acre of vegetable garden and the milking of three cows. They planted ten acres of oats. There were also large flower beds to attend. The property extended to twenty five acres. He described Brother Valentine as “quite a character” and marvelled at how hard he worked for a man in his advancing years.

Maurie took charge of the maintenance and the servicing of two VW’s, two Commer Vans, one motor scooter and two lawn mowers. He also helped three of the older working boys with the work on their early model Holden cars. It was more than a fulltime job and his only complaint was that he found it difficult to find time to write home.

Brother Basil who had worked in the Kimberley for thirty years was residing at the Centre and died during this time. Maurie noted: “Brother Basil died last week, he was a real character, I only knew him for a week, deaf as a door post but really popular with the all the kids. A large crowd of them went to the funeral, and they all threw a handful of dirt into the grave. It was impressive to see how they understand what death means and how moved they were.”

On Saturday 3rd July two of the apprentice boys celebrated their 21st Birthday in the hall and two hundred guests attended. Both boys had just completed their apprenticeships, one as a cabinet maker, Harold Little and the other Philip Albert as a boiler maker. Maurie wrote: “they got terrific praise from their employers which was a real tonic for the Mission and all the others that are here. They mix really well with the white community and are accepted by the greater percentage of the people.”

In his earlier years Maurie was a keen footballer with considerable talent. He played first with the CYMS, then with Shepparton East in the Goulburn Valley League and later with Alphington “A” grade amateurs. Some of his team mates in Shepparton East were local aborigine lads. It was no surprise that he enthusiastically took the opportunity to go along to watch the football at Perth each Saturday together with Father Luemmen and others to cheer on one of the boys, Harold Little, who played for Perth on the wing. The Mission Centre was allowed free entry to the ground by an arrangement with the WA Football League.

In a letter to his mother he was concerned that she was making slow recovery in hospital and he uncharacteristically offered her some spiritual counsel: “Tell everyone I said they will have to pray harder than ever so that every thing will be alright. God knows what is best for us and what seems irksome to us, to Him it is all for the best.”.
 
In his letters he frequently asked after other family members and his former work mates and friends. He expressed his satisfaction with how well he was getting along with his young charges: “They reckon I’m better than Father as I don’t growl at them when they get a bit noisy in the bus, but they are very well behaved, have good manners and are well dressed all the time. The girls play basketball now and they are in five different places - there are some pretty good players amongst them too.”

In November he wrote: “Still busy as both boys and girls have had their school sports which involved a lot of training most nights after school which meant a lot of extra trips and after all that they didn’t do much good. But they did alright in the basketball, they picked the best players for the school grades and the remainder formed a team representing the Mission and they finished up winning the premiership. The rest of the teams weren’t too happy about it.”

Father Luemmen and Brother Valentine went to Tardun for the opening of a new building and Brother Valentine stayed on for a longer break. Maurie wrote: “I have to get up earlier and milk the stupid cows. If they don’t improve I reckon we’ll be having some nice steaks for breakfast.”

The Centre was used as a stop-over for members of the Pallottine community who were in transit to other Missions. Maurie mentioned the expected arrival of Fathers Mike McMahon and Allan Mithen on the 10th November and another priest and a school teacher. He commented: “It looks like being another busy week. There are also four others here from La Grange Mission. I think we’ll have to pack them in like sardines, end to end.”

The cow shed was damaged by a strong wind which took off the roof and placed it on top of the chook house 20 yards away. Maurie wrote: “We now have to do the milking in the open–roofed shed which is a bit cold and windy. It blew off last year too so Father is determined to make a good job of it this time – or else!”

At the finish of the school year there was a picnic to a place called Rocky Pools. Maurie wrote: “It drizzled in the morning but turned out a beautiful day. We all finished up swimming with our clothes on. I held one girl over the edge and someone pushed us in so I threw a couple of others in – the rest jumped in which saved me the trouble of catching them. They reckon it was the best picnic they had been on. No one took bathers as it didn’t look promising enough but the water was beautiful and warm.”

The Saturday following this picnic day there was a bar-b-que and on Sunday 28th November a Christmas dinner was given for the students before they left the Centre to return to their families in the Kimberley or Tardun for the school holidays.

Maurie also left the Centre in company with Father Eddie Whermacher and went to help out at the Tardun Mission near Geraldton. He planned to visit his uncle and aunt in Geraldton and then return to Melbourne with Bob Doyle who was a lay missionary based at Tardun. Their plan was to drive home via Queensland but Bob first wanted to complete the electrical wiring for a new dormitory. Maurie volunteered to relieve Bob of truck driving which would then leave Bob free to finish off the electrical work uninterrupted.
 
The need for the Mission to get supplies for the farm and school presented an opportunity for Maurie to drive into Geraldton where he also hoped to visit his relatives. The late Brother John Scammell was in charge of the building team at Tardun at the time and as no other driver was available he decided to accompany Maurie on the journey.

This is how Brother John Scammel described that final journey with Maurie when I spoke with him some days after the terrible event:
“We left in the morning and on arriving at Geraldton we loaded the truck and went together to visit Tom and Doreen. As it happened Tom was in the hospital in Perth so we only spoke with Doreen. We spent about 2 hours there.
Our truck was carrying six and a half ton of supplies. It was six o’clock when we started the return journey to the Tardun Mission. Somewhere between the 45 and 46 mile post out from Geraldton I could see the approaching truck swaying across the road and Maurie tried to get over as far as possible on our side of the road to give it a wide berth. Just as it was about to pass, it suddenly turned and came across into us on the drivers side. I don’t know whether I jumped from the cabin or whether I was thrown clear.
Maurie did all he could to avoid the accident. Other than driving off into the bush there was nothing else he could have done. He moved as far over as he could to the left and he even took out one of the guide posts – that’s how far over he had got. The amazing thing is that it was my turn to drive and we had decided we would change over when we got to Mullewa which was another fifteen miles further on”.

The Police Report stated that Maurie was killed instantly. It also stated that there was a lot of damning evidence against the other driver including the fact that he had a very high blood alcohol level. The other truck was loaded with concrete pipes and moulds standing above cabin height and it had a crash bar. The passengers in both vehicles survived uninjured. One of the two passengers with the other driver also happened to be a father of one of the boys at the Tardun Mission School.

The news of Maurie’s death when we received it the next morning had a devastating effect on my family. Instead of a joyous home-coming at Christmas that we had all been looking forward to we now had to prepare ourselves for a different home coming and a funeral. A Solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated at St Gabriel’s Church, Reservoir on the 9th December. As well as family and relatives there were many friends including those from Shepparton where he grew up.

News of Maurie’s death was received with a sense of sadness and shock by those with whom he had worked at the Mission Centre. Father John Luemmen wrote:
“Maurie was a just, honest man loved by all. He had won the hearts of our children, particularly of our boys. I have never seen our children more shocked than at this sad news. They were very fond of him, and he was very fond of them also.”.
 
Father Eddie Wehmacker who was in charge at Tardun at the time paid tribute to Maurie when he wrote in a condolence letter to my mother; “I have met Maurie on many occasions during the year and have learnt to appreciate him for his outstanding generosity in his work with our Native boys in Riverton.”

Father Luemmen who was the priest in charge of the Mission Centre told of how when the students returned to the Mission Centre from their holidays the older boys approached him and requested that the Hostel be named ‘Maurice Lodge’ as a tribute to Maurice “with whom they had become such good friends”.

I believe that Maurie’s experience at the Mission Centre added a new dimension to his life. He connected with the indigenous Australians under his care and worked tirelessly to give them the chance of a better life in Australian society. In return he gained personally by finding a new meaning to life that comes from helping fellow human beings. He enriched his faith through his close connection with the Pallottine religious community at Rossmoyne. His life in the West was in stark contrast to his former work as a mechanic at Rucker’s Hill Service Station in Northcote.

His death robbed him of his life’s potential at an early age and like all other road deaths attributable to the reckless and irresponsible actions of fellow human beings was a tragedy. It may be significant or some might think it ironic that the day on which he died was also the day that the Church celebrated the feast day of St Francis Xavier, the patron saint of the Missions.

Ken Haddock.
 

Citations

  1. [S483] Haddock Family, family tree, unpublished, 2001.
  2. [S528] My Brother Maurie, document, 2006.
  3. [S80] Ken Haddock, personal communication, 10 May 2019.
  4. [S82] Jeanette Henderson, personal communication, 2 June 2012.
  5. [S165] History of St Brendan's Primary School 1891-1991, St Brendan's Centenary History Committee, 1991, p. 70.
  6. [S201] 'Shepparton East - 1945 GVFA premiers', Shepparton Advertiser, 1914-1953, newspaper, Thomas Pettit and William Callender, 25 September 1945, p. 5, viewed 7 February 2019, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/170428893
  7. [S80] Ken Haddock, personal communication, 13 February 2019.
  8. [S80] Ken Haddock, personal communication, 12 February 2019.
  9. [S80] Ken Haddock, personal communication, 6 May 2019.
  10. [S201] 'Arsenic in lemonade is £474 damages claim', Shepparton Advertiser, 1914-1953, newspaper, Thomas Pettit and William Callender, 8 July 1949, p. 1, viewed 8 February 2019, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/188082748
  11. [S201] 'Soft drinks poisoning suspected', Shepparton Advertiser, 1914-1953, newspaper, Thomas Pettit and William Callender, 4 January 1949, p. 1, viewed 8 February 2019, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/188078338
  12. [S80] Ken Haddock, personal communication, 27 May 2019.