Les and Dulcie Gomersall settled in Montville in 1951 and lived their lives on a farm towards the end of the Western Road. They were both hard-working, honest and generous people who were welcomed into the community with their baby son Ronald. They were a quiet, unassuming couple who were good friends and neighbours.
Les was born in Mackay in 1920 where his parents Isaac and Olga nee Graffunder raised their family of four girls and two boys.
Les’s father worked on the Australian Sugar Estates and kept horses, and as a young boy, Les helped his father and was later employed by the company. Cutting cane was one of his jobs along with starting a pump each day to provide water for the estate.
Les left home and found work with the Department of Forestry at Beerwah. He met Dulcie Mavis Walker at a dance in Nambour. At the time her parents owned a citrus and pineapple farm at Flaxton and Dulcie helped her father who was not in good health.
But Dulcie’s story really begins at ‘Kotoro’ Horseshoe Bend, Gympie on 25 November 1919. When she was born prematurely and was so small she fitted into a shoe box according to her brother Arthur. Despite such a precarious entry into the world, Dulcie grew tall and strong and worked hard all her life.
Her parents, Herbert and Albina had a dairy farm at Cooroy when Dulcie was born and she had a sister Dorothy and two brothers Arthur and Bert. The family moved to Canungra in 1924 and worked a dairy and banana farm on the slopes of Darlington Range. Dulcie used to ride a horse to school, but a neighbour caught her galloping home too fast one afternoon and told her father. From then on, Dulcie had to walk the four miles to school – it was 1.5 hours each way.
When she was eighteen, Dulcie moved to Flaxton with her family, where as well as working hard on the farm she enjoyed her young life, and regularly walked to Mapleton dances with her friend Cynthia Ensbey, and ventured on long bike rides to Palmwoods and Forest Glen to visit her brother Bert’s farm.
Dulcie was quite taken with young Les Gomersall when she met him at a Nambour dance and the two kept company as often as Les could make the trip from Beerwah to Flaxton.
The couple married in 1944, but the very next year Les nearly died when his lung ruptured and haemorrhaged. He recovered, but as they were living in a tent at Beerwah, they decided to move north to his family in Mackay. They lived at Walkerston where Les worked in the sugar industry. When Les was dogged by ill-health once more, they moved to Manly, Brisbane, to be near Dulcie’s family as her Dad was ill with leukaemia, and passed away shortly after their move. Les and Dulcie farmed and picked strawberries while Les battled repeated lung infections. Dulcie did most of the farm work when Les was just too sick to help.
As they were still childless, Les and Dulcie adopted a son, Ronald in 1949, and the family moved to a citrus and pineapple farm of 50 acres along Western Road in 1951. Les’s health improved with the clear mountain air, and the couple worked hard to gradually convert the farm to dairy and avocados. Dulcie helped Les in all this work and still found time to be an active member of the CWA and be involved in the school community. Ronald started school in 1955 and enjoyed lessons with his teach Miss Laurie Smith. He was found to have an intellectual development disorder and after a difficult childhood went into care in his adolescence. He was accidentally killed when only twenty-two. Though this was a grief, and their work was hard, the 1970s were some of the best years for the farm. The avocado prices were good and Les and Dulcie loved their cattle. They usually had their dog and cat and some chooks to keep them busy and happy. At one stage Dulcie even had a goat to milk.
Les and Dulcie both enjoyed the visits from nieces and nephews – always planning and preparing for the visit in detail. Dulcie loved having pretty things and using them on special occasions such as family visits. She loved children too – and was always young at heart.
About 1970 Les went to work for the National Parks at Kondalilla and these were the best years. At long last he had a regular pay cheque and he was not afraid of hard work, brushing large stands of groundsel. Dulcie’s brother Bert worked there also and they worked side-by-side.
Les enjoyed the bush and the camaraderie of work mates. Occasionally, on weekends they would fish for cod in the Obi. When Les retired in 1981 they sold off most of the farm, retaining 1.5 acres on which they built a new home. Here Les grew fruit trees, and enjoyed the modest weeding, mowing and maintenance it involved. They always enjoyed visits from neighbours, friends and relatives. Les enjoyed feeding his birds of an evening, and had quite a family of them.
Around 1997, aged seventy-seven, Les lost a lot of his eyesight, but as was his usual fashion, he worked on in spite of it all. In his National Park days, he had slipped a disc in his back and was told to go to hospital to be stretched for a while. He refused and worked his way through it all, enduring a great deal of pain. Despite all his ill-health, Les achieved a long, hardworking and successful life. He died on 6 June 2007.
Dulcie had a Christian upbringing and in her final years drew on this faith. She passed away on 23 January 2010.
Les and Dulcie were long-time hard-working Montville residents; they were good neighbours and friends, deeply respected and are remembered with affection.
(adapted from the eulogies for Les and Dulcie by Dulcie's niece, Lyn Walker, 2024)
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