When You Don’t Know If You Can Keep Going: An Interview with Margaret Greaves
Today I’m chatting with Margaret Greaves—a widow, mother and grandmother. Margaret moved to Western Australia at 12 years old when her parents became missionaries at Cundeelee, 160km east of Kalgoorlie, with the Australian Aboriginal Evangelical Mission. Margaret spent most of her life in remote areas in and around Esperance, as a midwife, child health nurse, farmer’s wife, and running a fishing business.
Margaret shares about her ongoing fear throughout her life—borne of physical isolation in remote locations, a non-Christian husband, and mental health struggles of her son—that she could not keep enduring as a Christian. She also describes how God continued to care for her and provide the women to walk with her. Margaret has a quiet ministry of prayer and phone calls to parents whose children struggle with mental health.
In today’s episode, we explore:
Her experiences at Cundeelee as a child of missionaries, boarding in Norseman from 14 years old, training as a midwife in Kalgoorlie, and farming in remote places while living in a caravan with her husband and two young sons.
How she became a Christian at 12 years old and the impact of the children’s ministry at the mission in Norseman had on her life.
Her lifelong love of babies and young children, sparked from her days at Cundeelee and quiet ministry of listening and prayer to parents walking alongside children battling mental health problems.
Margaret shares her fear throughout her life that she could not keep enduring in the Christian faith, and how God has cared for her through the care of women, CWCI Australia and their Know Your Bible (KYB) studies.
If you prefer to read, the transcript is at the bottom of this page 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
Mentioned in today’s episode
No Turning Back: Life story of Bruce and Pearl Smoker, missionaries amongst Aboriginal people in Western Australia by Keren Masters
Interview with Miriam da Silva talking about the job no one gave her, the ministry of phone calls.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7 NIV)
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9 NIV)
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 NIV)
If you enjoyed this episode, sign up for honest stories in your inbox on Wednesdays (March through November) from local Christian women. It’s all free 💛
Transcript
00:00:00.90
Rebecca
Hi, I'm Bec and today I'm here with Margaret Greaves. I've known Margaret long time and I admire her joy and how she spent her retirement years so intentionally. Welcome to the podcast, Margaret!
Margaret
Thank you.
00:00:13.46
Rebecca
So, can you tell us, for those who don't know you what does a typical week look like for you? like What kind of things make up your week?
Margaret
Well, I am retired, so I probably could do a lot more, but I don't.
00:00:26.68
Rebecca
You do a lot.
Margaret
Okay. I come from a very big family. There's six of us and I'm the eldest. So, I do see quite a bit of my siblings during the week, which is really, really lovely because I've spent many years living in the country and not having any contact with them at all.
00:00:49.90
Margaret
So, except for holidays and things like that, visits to the city. But... Now we all actually live in the same city. It's really good. We are quite a close family in lots of ways and with we joke that we go to the opening of an envelope.
00:01:13.80
We, you know, go out for breakfasts and dinners and things like that. Then I also volunteer a bit at the church.
00:01:28.72
Rebecca
I really love small children, probably from 0 to 5 is my favourite age, children, and I feel that I can help by working in the creche.
00:01:46.54
Rebecca
That's so beautiful.
Margaret
Yeah. I'm on the roster for playgroup and I enjoy going to playgroup and seeing all the mums and babies and interacting with them. It's good.
00:02:01.47
Rebecca
Oh, that's great. And are you part of, like, anything else? Are you part of the women's Bible studies or anything like that?
00:02:13.28
Margaret
Yes, yes. I go to Bible study group on a Monday afternoon which is really nice with some of the older women of the church who are in that group and it's really good. We follow the KYB books at that group, which I have been involved with for many years, KYB.
Rebecca
Oh, that's lovely
Margaret
And then I go to a D group here as well.
00:03:01.58
Margaret
I do have quite a full week when think about it. It's a great group. And really enjoy being in groups with younger women.
00:03:30.12
Rebecca
That's so good. It is quite a bit. So, you're helping out in, like, in the creche for the women's Bible study on the Wednesday.
Margaret
Yes. And set up for play group.
00:03:56.02
Rebecca
And then are you on, like, kids' church as well?
Margaret
No, I was. Hmm. But I... Yeah. Yeah. That's lovely. And then the Monday Bible study and then the Tuesday group.
00:04:10.19
Rebecca
Yeah. And then, like, all the stuff with your family.
Margaret
And in the meantime, you know... because I have a sister that lives about five minutes away from me.
00:04:21.42
Margaret
Which is really great. And because I'm the oldest, they all seem to think that, yes, I am getting very old now. And I think they drop in just to make sure I haven't fallen off the perch.
00:04:34.58
Margaret
Because I have a brother too who is also retired and he's a very keen motorbiker. and you know, he'll often come in for a cup of tea when he's been on a ride.
Rebecca
Oh, that's lovely.
Margaret
Yeah. It's like a really, yeah, there's some really lovely like rhythms and just kind of that sense of community. That's really beautiful.
00:05:02.01
Margaret
Yes. Yeah. the rest of the time I'm a very avid reader. Oh, nice. Yes. I mean, housework is very low on the list
00:05:16.24
Rebecca
So where did you grow up?
Margaret
Where did I grow up? Yeah. I grew up in Brisbane until I was 12 years old.
00:05:31.57
Margaret
And when where I was 12, my father went to a meeting at the church that we belonged to hear a missionary speak, a missionary from Western Australia.
00:05:49.44
Margaret
And we'd never heard of... Well, I certainly hadn't. I was only 12. But this was an Aboriginal mission, Australian Aboriginal Evangelical Mission.
00:06:03.56
Rebecca
And they had a mission out at a place called Cundeelee, which is about... 500 k's west of Kalgoorlie.
00:06:17.98
Rebecca
Oh, my goodness.
Margaret
And literally in the middle of nowhere and about 50 k's north of the train line.
Rebecca
Oh, wow.
Margaret
And my father felt called to go there.
00:06:34.42
Rebecca
Wow
Margaret
So, my parents literally sold up everything to go to this mission and work at the mission.
Rebecca
Oh, my goodness.
00:06:48.48
Margaret
And they had four children then. Since they got to Western Australia, they then had six of these, six children.
Rebecca
Wow. And like what, what kind of jobs did they do at the mission?
00:07:01.48
Margaret
My mother was an amazing secretary. She'd been, they had both been in the army, my mother and my father.
00:07:12.13
Margaret
And she did secretarial work in the army and for a colonel. And my father was just normally private in the army, but he learnt amazing skills while he was there. He was very practical man and he was a very good granite worker.
00:07:35.68
Margaret
He built houses.
Rebecca
Oh, wow. and yes. See, I only just recently read a book called No Turning Back by Keren Masters. She was now – well, she was Keren Smoker.
00:07:50.60
Margaret
Yes, I read that book.
Rebecca
Yeah, and then I interviewed her for season two and I honestly was just genuinely, like, shocked. Like, at the stories where she was like, we had to build our own houses and there was nothing there.
00:08:10.30
Margaret
No, there were there were houses there, but it was very isolated. There was no power. We just depended on tilly lamps at that time because I'm talking about when we arrived at Cundeelee. It was 1959.
00:08:28.74
Margaret
Well, so that's, I mean. Yeah. Light years ago. But there was, it was a children's home. That was the main reason that it was there.
00:08:42.24
Rebecca
How many kids did they have there?
Margaret
Probably about 50. And it wasn't the time of the Stolen Generation. At the parents used to come and beg the missionaries to take their children.
00:09:00.32
Margaret
The parents weren't very far away. They were at a camp, you know, down the road, literally. And... The kids were, there was a boys' dormitory and a girls' dormitory. There was a school there.
00:09:17.27
Margaret
And the big thing about out there was that a lot of the babies, especially, suffered from malnutrition and they died. The mortality rate was very, very high.
00:09:37.84
Margaret
and forever etched in my mind as these women sitting under the trees with very flat breasts, babies whimpering, and then trying to feed their babies. We were the only big family out there so the Aboriginals really appreciated my mother and father because know, they had so many children. And
00:10:11.34
Margaret
people started to come and ask Mum; would she take these quite young babies? So ended it ended up that the front room in the house just became full of cots. And I think at one stage we had five babies living with us, ranging from very young to toddlers, two years old.
00:10:36.88
Rebecca
Wow, so parents were like, this is the way for them to survive. Like their kids are living, so maybe that can take mine.
Margaret
But the mothers used to come and visit them. Yeah, there was no restriction on that sort of thing. They used to come and visit.
00:10:53.32
Margaret
Yeah, very interesting time. Yeah, another thing that was a huge thing for Cundeelee was there was no water.
00:11:09.02
Margaret
Yes, because you were in the desert, on the edge of the desert, yeah, and there was no water. And we had to buy water from the railway. Cart water.
00:11:22.41
Margaret
And it was just the water. We grew up learning that water was very precious and very restricted. There were big tanks there, but it hardly ever rained.
00:11:33.39
Margaret
Yeah. So, and then they put a big dam in, but something happened in the, after the first big rain, all the water leaked out the dam. So, you know, that wasn't terribly effective either.
00:11:46.65
Rebecca
But, wow.
Margaret
And it was very isolated. They had the Flying Doctor radio and they had two schedules a day.
00:12:01.100
Margaret
But not like today, like there's no internet, there's not anybody to get help. No, nothing like that.
Rebecca
Wow.
Margaret
The mail bag came once a week. We were very dependent on the radio from the base, Royal Flying Doctor base in Kalgoorlie.
00:12:21.17
Margaret
Very dependent. But I loved it. I loved the radio schedules because there were a whole lot of people phoning in, or not phoning in, radioing in.
00:12:32.72
Margaret
Yeah. And, you know, it was so educational because the people would talk about all sorts of things. You know, women having miscarriages and people having accidents on these sheep stations and they’d have to send the plane out. You know, all these, I don't know, it's so silly.
00:12:58.42
Margaret
I was really interested in all these things
Rebecca
This makes so much sense, like, hearing about how you, like your younger years how you came to love little babies so much. But also, what you're hearing on the radio is like why you went into nursing like both of those things really make a lot of sense. Like that's a common thread
Margaret
Yeah there's three of us nurses out of the six.
Rebecca
yeah wow
Margaret
Yes.
Rebecca
So how long were you in Cundeelee for?
Margaret
Well, I personally was only, as I said, they had a school there. And so we went to the school, my brother and I were the two eldest. My two brothers actually went to the school there.
00:13:46.77
Margaret
But after about, I think it was two years, Mum and Dad could see that, well, my brother was doing nothing in school, quite honestly. We were we were in under the Correspondence School, but we sat up in the schoolroom with the teacher and all the kids, you know.
00:14:11.26
Margaret
and only quite honestly, my brother did nothing. And he was very clever, my brother, and he did the fortnight's lesson in the one day that they had to be posted away.
00:14:23.46
Margaret
so, the rest the time he just... Fiddled around. Yeah, one teacher at school was a man at that stage out there and we were sort of the unofficial teacher assistants, we used to hear the kids read and all that sort of thing.
00:14:49.72
Margaret
and I wasn't very good at doing the schoolwork unsupervised either.
Rebecca
Why?
Margaret
He was really busy. He said he would supervise us, but he was so busy.
00:15:03.00
Margaret
And they used to have a huge
00:15:10.84
Margaret
big box that arrived on the train and it was from the Education Department. It was full of books. And I couldn't think more inappropriate books to be sending to the school at that time because they were all, you know, when you think about these Aboriginal children that lived on the land and lived very culturally, you know, and along came all these Shakespearean classics in them, in the books, you know, and like Treasure Island and
00:15:49.10
Margaret
Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. Merchant of Venice.
Rebecca
Oh, my goodness.
Margaret
You know several Shakespearean novels as well. And so that's where I spent most of my time doing.
00:16:02.67
Margaret
Someone had to read the books.
Rebecca
Yeah, yeah, you're like, look, it's a hard job, but someone had to do it.
Margaret
That's right. Yeah. So, for me, my time, there was like a big good adventure.
00:16:20.18
Rebecca
Yeah. So then where, after Cundeelee, how long were you there for? Like where did you go?
Margaret
It was two years. Mum and Dad stayed there. I had to board.
00:16:35.24
Margaret
and my brother and I and had to board out.
Rebecca
So, you would have been 14 then?
Margaret
Yeah. Two Christian families offered to board us, both school teachers. One, in fact, was the principal of Norseman Junior High School. And my brother boarded in Esperance with a teacher as well.
00:16:58.72
Margaret
And I boarded in Norseman. It was very hard. I was very homesick and I'm sure Ian was too.
00:17:10.99
Margaret
It was hard to fit in with the kids at school too. Because they all knew I boarded with the principal.
00:17:25.50
Rebecca
Oh, yeah. Yes.
00:17:29.78
Rebecca
That would be quite rough.
Margaret
And they were a young couple. They had two small boys where I boarded with.
00:17:40.38
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah. So, I hadn't had teenagers, but they... No, they hadn't. But they were very good to me. I learned a lot from them.
00:17:53.95
Margaret
I didn't appreciate it at the time, but looking back I did, yeah.
Rebecca
Wow. And then where did you go after, so you boarded in Norseman and your brother was in Esperance?
00:18:05.73
Rebecca
Yeah. Wow, so you separated quite young. And then where did you go after Norseman?
Margaret
Well, Norseman was,
00:18:16.16
Margaret
because there was only a Catholic church, church in Norseman. There was a Church Christ mission about 10km out of town.
00:18:29.68
Rebecca
Oh yeah.
Margaret
And the couple I was boarding with, they used to go out to the mission every Sunday. We spent the day out there; we went to church out there and
00:18:48.60
Margaret
I had my beautiful Bible class teacher out there. It was lovely. Yeah.
00:18:55.60
Rebecca
That's really lovely. So, when you finished school, where did you go after that?
Margaret
Well, by this time when I finished school the Mission had transferred. They had land in Esperance and they transferred Mum and Dad down there.
00:19:14.47
Rebecca
Wow.
Margaret
My father... Had this vision really of all these young men up on the mission that had no skills.
00:19:27.20
Margaret
And he was very keen to
00:19:36.42
Margaret
see them have like skills in life. And he started a hostel for Aboriginal boys down there in Esperance.
00:19:53.31
Margaret
But he had to build the hostel first.
Rebecca
Wow. The stories out of these missions are wild, like the things that people do.
00:20:07.80
Rebecca
Yeah, like the cost that it came at and like how... And I didn't know this and maybe is this the same about where your family was?
00:20:19.06
Rebecca
But Keren explained like her parents couldn't really go in and meet Aboriginal people unless they worked on the mission. Was that similar or was that at a different stage with your family?
Margaret
There was about 200 or so people camped at the mission all the time until certain times of the year and then they sort of had tribal ceremonies and they went walk about and they went as far as Yalata in South the Australia.
00:20:50.18
Rebecca
Wow.
Margaret
So, yeah, but we used to hear them at night having their corroborees and that sort of thing. So they weren't that far away camping from the missions.
00:21:07.64
Rebecca
So, they kind of came into they came into the mission for like schools and things like that
Margaret
They came into the mission for food because they lived off the land on those days. They didn't have any benefits whatsoever. They had no citizenship in those days and they used to, the government sent out rations for them and the missionaries supervised the rations.
00:21:41.46
Margaret
The government provided flour, tea, sugar and tins of campi, which was tinned meat and the rest of their,
00:21:56.09
Margaret
they lived off the land.
Rebecca
Wow.
Margaret
Yeah, because they'd kind of been moved off to make way for farming so they were really like hunting and then... The hunter-gatherers, they were... Yeah.
00:22:10.48
Rebecca
Yeah. Man, that's really rough. Really interesting times.
Margaret
Yeah. I mean, for us kids, we'd never were even seen an Aboriginal person before we came to Western Australia.
00:22:25.19
Margaret
You know, we lived in the 7Ks from the city of Brisbane.
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a massive shift into the middle of the country. Yeah.
00:22:38.27
Margaret
Yeah, isolated, like remote. Yeah. Yeah. Very remote. Yeah.
00:22:46.30
Margaret
It was sort of like a big adventure in some ways. Yeah. That's how I always felt it was, you know. But other members of the family didn't feel like that at all, that it was a big adventure.
00:23:00.29
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah, wow. So, then you moved Esperance because your parents had transferred to Esperance and your dad started this hostel. So, you're kind of back with your parents and your brother.
00:23:13.05
Margaret
Yes.
And then what were you doing after you left school?
Margaret
After I left school? Yeah. I got a job in a butcher shop.
Rebecca
Really?
Margaret
Yes.
00:23:24.92
Margaret
Serving the meat. And...
Margaret
And then at 16 and a half, 17, 17, seventeen I knew that I would like to go nursing.
00:24:02.56
Margaret
So, in those days you could get a job as a nursing assistant.
00:24:11.54
Margaret
so, I went I got a job as a nursing assistant and worked in Kalgoorlie Hospital.
Rebecca
Wow.
Margaret
Yeah, went to Kalgoorlie Hospital, lived in the nurse's home.
00:24:24.10
Rebecca
Yes. That's right, you were saying before we were talking, yeah, you lived there while you did your training. Yeah. Which I suppose now you're explaining it, it does make a bit of sense because if you're living in Esperance and you want to go get trained in Kalgoorlie, like that's...
Margaret
Well, there was not a lot in Esperance at that stage. The farming area was opening up. It was Newland Farming, they used call. All this land was released.
00:24:49.72
Rebecca
And there was hardly any Western Australians in Esperance at that time, a lot of farmers came from the eastern states to, you know, farm in Western Australia. think it was just the era of the times.
00:25:04.16
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah, that would be similar to Zach's grandparents but they had land released because they had served. So, he got a farm there, which is their farm now.
00:25:18.61
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah. what did you do as a nurse's assistant? What? What kind of things did you do as a nurse's assistant?
Margaret
Yeah, and we sort of.
00:26:54.03
Margaret
made beds a lot of the time. We were very good at general nursing care. We were forever giving people, washing people and all that sort of thing.
00:27:04.87
Rebecca
Yeah. Wow. And then after that, did you do, like, you obviously trained as a nurse, but was that after all the nursing assistant things?
Margaret
Yes. Well, you had to be 17 and a half before they would take you.
00:27:19.58
Margaret
but the matron of Kalgoorlie Hospital at that time, she was a wonderful woman really. And she must have kept her eye on all the nursing assistants for potential, you know, and almost as soon as you turned 18, she sort of used to call you up and say, now there is a training course starting.
00:27:49.44
Margaret
in whatever time how about here are the papers you apply for that and so she really guided into nursing.
Rebecca
yeah so did you do nursing in Kalgoorlie?
Margaret
I did and we had to go to Perth once a year for what they call the drop that would be all the study
00:28:21.19
Margaret
I went to lectures during the year as well. There were tutors in Kalgoorlie. I had a nursing school down there as well.
00:28:30.19
Rebecca
Wow. So then when you finished your training, what did you do?
Margaret
Well, I decided that I would like to go back to Brisbane because it was all my relatives, right? Yeah. Cousins and we were a very close family before we went to Cundeelee. My mother had four sisters and they were married and they had, I used to say we didn't really have friends, we had cousins, you know, did a lot of things together.
00:29:04.17
Margaret
So I went back to Brisbane, to Brisbane Women's Hospital, myself and my friend, we'd done our training together and we did our midwifery.
00:29:18.38
Rebecca
So, like this just makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's all the stuff that you really loved to do. You know what I mean? Like little children.
00:29:30.89
Rebecca
yeah. And then midwifery. Wow. So how, so you would have trained as a midwife, don't know, how old were 20.
00:29:45.48
Rebecca
Wow. How long were you a midwife for?
Margaret
Oh, about 20 years.
00:30:00.14
Rebecca
Wow.
00:30:02.100
Rebecca
Like how did you... were in Brisbane and then how did you end up back in Esperance?
00:30:20.76
Margaret
Well, I had to make a decision whether I'd go back to where mum and dad were. and they were in Brisbane just as I'd finished my mid.
00:30:33.30
Margaret
And... No, I really didn't know what to do. I was sort of tempted stay there but with all the rest of the extended family or go back to the west.
00:30:46.98
Margaret
So, I went back to the west and they were in Esperance. So I went down to Esperance, not intending to stay long time with them.
00:30:59.88
Margaret
But when was back in Esperance, they were very short of staff and I thought, oh, maybe I'll see if I can get a job there.
00:31:12.99
Margaret
Yeah. So, I just presented myself at the hospital and the office desk and I said to the receptionist, I said, I was just inquiring whether there are any jobs here.
00:31:27.20
Rebecca
And she said, I'll just get the administrator. He came out and often laughed at this; he said to me do you mind what kind of job. I said yes, I do very mind. I was only 22 or something and he said well what do you want a job in the kitchen or the laundry and I said well actually no I said I'm a registered midwife and he said to me stand away
00:32:08.74
Margaret
So, and he went and got the matron and, you know, still can't believe in this day and age that this happened. That she said, come into my office and she did an interview of sorts.
00:32:23.67
Margaret
And she said to me, right, well, when do you want to start work? And I said, well, I've just got here.
00:32:34.14
Margaret
I'd like a couple of weeks off. And she said, oh, okay, that's all right. This is in the morning. By lunchtime, the said matron had arrived at our house.
00:32:50.65
Margaret
She said to me, well, Margaret, you know, the night nurses are running sick and I've really got no one to work tonight.
00:33:03.05
Margaret
And I thought... I thought, goodness me. And she said, can you come in work? And I said, well, I suppose so. She said, well, don't worry.
00:33:18.05
Margaret
She said, there'll be two nurses, enrolled nurses on with you. So, you know, and we're not we're not very busy.
00:33:29.10
Margaret
and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. I said, well, I think I'd like to come and have a tour of the hospital before 11 o'clock… And that's how I started really. I went in.
00:33:44.34
Rebecca
Wow.
Margaret
And that bell the front bell during the night and I thought, oh my goodness. And there standing at the door was a heavily pregnant lady in labour who I did my general training with in Kalgoorlie. And thought... Wow.
00:34:09.10
Margaret
I knew her and I thought, well this is really... I was really quite worried. I thought would have hoped that my first solo delivery was someone I didn't know. Yeah.
00:34:25.91
Margaret
So, yeah. Wow. But... so but that's what happened in those days. I mean, this was in the 60s, you know, people would be appalled now.
00:34:41.18
Rebecca
Yeah. But also, like, yeah, you had so much experience in the hospital by that point.
00:34:49.37
Margaret
You know, you kind of got to follow around nurses and see what they did and all of that. Yeah, it's just a routine. Yeah, yeah. Because every hospital is different.
Rebecca
Wow. That is... So how did, just to change gears just slightly, but how did you become a Christian in all of this?
Margaret
I became a Christian when I was 12.
00:35:09.19
Margaret
And I can remember today, as clear as it was then, went to, we were, my parents were very, very active in the Taringa Baptist Church and in Brisbane.
00:35:27.85
Margaret
And... They had a children's mission and I accepted the Lord at that mission. Wow. And it was extremely real to me. And I've had people say to me, well, you were just a kid. And I said, yes, I was just a kid, but it would made a real difference to my life. I knew that.
00:35:56.33
Margaret
Jesus had come into my heart. I knew. Yeah. And I think that's the beautiful thing about Christianity, is like little children come.
00:36:07.09
Rebecca
Yes, absolutely. Yes. And so many people do.
Margaret
Yes, they do. Yeah. It's just, it is beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I can’t remember the fellow who spoke name, you know, just so long ago and still,
00:36:25.22
Margaret
remember I remember what he talked about. I remember him talking about it. It didn't matter if your mother and father were Christians, but to come to know Jesus was a very personal thing and everybody needed to come and know Jesus.
00:36:41.20
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, wow. from there, like, who is someone who's, like, you know, encouraged you or inspired you, like, in your Christian walk and why?
00:36:56.26
Margaret
Well, the Bible class teacher
00:37:02.29
Margaret
Norseman Mission really, it inspired me, really. She presented; they had a series of lessons in the Bible class talking about baptism being God's badge of obedience and...
00:37:19.95
Rebecca
I was baptised when I was 16 at Norseman Mission. Wow. So you were, yeah, like living away from your family. You're in Norseman by yourself. You're boarding with these people. Yes.
00:37:31.67
Margaret
And going out to the mission on weekends and that's the point where you're like, okay, this is an obedience. I'm going to get baptised.
Rebecca
Yes. Wow. And
00:37:40.98
Margaret
it was a, that too was a real experience for me as well. And, you had to give your testimony, just like they do now, you had to give your testimony before you were baptised and my parents had come down from Cundeelee to be there for me, which was lovely.
00:38:05.36
Rebecca
Yeah. Oh, that's really lovely.
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah. And like... And I can't say that I followed closely to the Lord through my nursing days, training days, because you didn't have much choice at what shifts you worked in those days. You often worked on weekends.
00:38:29.39
Margaret
And so, I wasn't as probably following as close to the Lord as I should have been. But I always knew that he would never let me go, know, even though sometimes I thought, oh,
00:38:47.05
Margaret
You know, that's it. I can't do it. It's too hard. Yeah. He will always bring me back.
00:38:59.68
Rebecca
I love that. So, could you tell us about like a hard season or suffering you've walked through and kind of how you experience God's faithfulness in that?
00:39:13.93
Margaret
yes, I
00:39:18.13
Margaret
I met my husband while I was a midwife in Esperance and we got married and but my husband wasn't a Christian and I had two sons.
00:39:39.41
Margaret
Stephen and Hayden and it was
00:39:47.11
Margaret
quite hard. we the
00:39:53.52
Margaret
We had an agricultural business. He was a New Zealander. He'd come off a farm in New Zealand and because Esperance was just booming in those days, people were
00:40:09.29
Margaret
you know, opening farms and there was a lot of work in the farming sector. He
00:40:19.21
Margaret
decided that he and his brother would do agricultural work. And so, after we got married, we bought a caravan and we lived in a caravan and we went and I camped in the caravan while the boys did the agricultural work.
00:40:42.93
Rebecca
Wow.
Margaret
Then we did ploughing up Malley roots.
00:40:53.56
Margaret
A lot of Malley roots to be picked up.
Rebecca
Oh my gosh.
Margaret
And I had my first baby while they were still
00:41:08.93
Margaret
doing the agricultural work and lifted the caravan with the baby on the edge of the paddock.
Rebecca
Oh, my gosh.
00:41:19.65
Rebecca
Margaret.
00:41:21.21
Margaret
I washed the nappies in a plastic bucket.
Rebecca
Oh, wow.
And hung them on the string to the caravan, hung the nappies on the ropes.
00:41:32.01
Rebecca
Wow. Yeah.
Margaret
Yeah. And it was, you know, busy.
00:41:43.08
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah. Because we had other men working for us as well. I cooked with the other women.
Rebecca
Oh, wow.
00:41:55.24
Rebecca
Yeah. You're doing full farm life thing, but also, yeah, in a caravan.
Margaret
And we moved around a lot, you know, from block to block.
00:42:07.08
Margaret
Paddock to paddock. Paddock to paddock. And there was another couple, another couple that were in the same boat as us, so to speak.
00:42:17.76
Margaret
And so, I got quite friendly with her. Both in the caravan with babies. Yeah.
00:42:27.57
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, and how... How was that shift for you going from, like, nursing and being in one world and then all of a sudden, like, being in a very different world?
00:42:43.45
Margaret
Yeah, it was really quite hard, really, quite different. But, yeah, you just do these things, you know.
00:42:55.16
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because that was our livelihood at the time, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, what did you learn about God's faithfulness in that season?
00:43:11.34
Margaret
Oh, very much so. God was very faithful to me.
00:43:18.64
Margaret
We were a long way out of this for it sometime. We were almost at Ravensthorpe.
Rebecca
Oh, wow.
Margaret
Out at Cascades and places like that. And
00:43:30.47
Margaret
so, I didn't get to church very often in those days, but I definitely knew that God was with me.
00:43:42.01
Margaret
Yeah. Is there like a verse or scripture that helped you? Well, during this time when I probably wasn't walking very close to the Lord, used to,
00:43:54.51
Margaret
God would bring verses to my mind.
00:44:00.28
Rebecca
in various situations of my life and verses that meant, came to mean a lot to me over the years.
00:44:15.81
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah. So, there was, our oh like actually you in Peter, I think it is,
00:44:28.04
Margaret
Casting your care upon me because I care for you. It was very special to me at that time. And, yes, 1 Peter 5, verse 7, Casting all your care on him for he cares for you.
00:44:47.70
Margaret
Yeah. And that was very – but it was amazing, you know, that
00:44:56.14
Margaret
In times when I felt low and just it was amazing who God would bring across my path, you know, that I would meet or come into contact with.
00:45:14.12
Margaret
and it was about that time that I don't know whether you've heard of Christian Women Communicating Internationally, CWCI. Yes.
00:45:25.25
Margaret
Yes. Yes. Well, just seeing that when felt at my lowest, they would be coming into town for, they have what they call safaris and they go to all these country places and they have conventions, day conventions.
00:45:46.84
Margaret
they were a tremendous encouragement to me. and that, of course, is when I, got into KYB after that.
00:45:57.98
Margaret
So, I have been involved with CWCI for a very long time and later I got to be on the committee at Esperance.
00:46:11.60
Rebecca
Oh wow.
Margaret
And they were featured very largely in my life, put it that way. I'm getting a bit tongue-tied here.
Rebecca
No, that's beautiful. It's like Christ did care for you when he came and found you and he came and brought women to you.
00:46:28.39
Margaret
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, very definitely. And CWCI always had a creche. So, it was just fantastic. I used to drop the boys off and, you know, and I can remember going to KYB and breastfeeding at the same time.
00:46:47.82
Margaret
Yeah. So, it's been a big feature of my life.
Rebecca
That's so beautiful. So, then you, would you go into like Esperance, one of those, or Ravensthorpe, or?
Margaret
Whichever was closest. I used to go roughly once every 10 days or week or something like that to shop.
00:47:13.66
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah. And then would you have ladies there that you would meet in like the KYB groups or?
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:26.48
Rebecca
Wow. Yeah.
00:47:29.75
Margaret
Then we were finished with that and we bought school bus.
00:47:38.89
Margaret
And we lived in a little place called Conding Up.
Rebecca
Where's that?
Margaret
It was north of Esperance. Wow. No, east of Esperance, sorry.
00:47:52.93
Rebecca
Yeah, I'm shocking with directions. But yeah, so you were kind of like East of Esperance, but...
Margaret
It was an hour out of
Rebecca
Oh, okay, so much closer.
Margaret
Much closer. Yeah. And I was living in the house.
00:48:05.14
Margaret
Yeah. And with, yeah, I had, at that time, I had a four-year-old and a two-year-old.
00:48:16.60
Rebecca
Yeah. Wow.
00:48:18.62
Rebecca
And like... What happened from there? You had all this KYB stuff happening, but it sounds like your husband wasn't a Christian.
Margaret
No, he wasn't.
Rebecca
How did he respond to all of this? If you're going and meeting with these women fairly regularly and reading the Bible.
00:48:34.39
Margaret
He never tried to stop me, but he just didn't want to know. Before we were married, he did go to church.
00:48:44.80
Margaret
Yeah. And, yeah. But then as soon as we were married, that thought that all stopped. He was like, I'm done. Yeah, I'm done now. It's too hard, he used to say to me.
00:48:57.07
Rebecca
Oh, yeah.
00:48:59.52
Margaret
Yeah. But, no, God is very gracious. God is very gracious. And through all the ups and downs, because there was...
00:49:17.61
Margaret
When my boys got to the teenage years, it was quite difficult. My oldest son had a mental health illness and that was extremely difficult at the time. And by then, my husband had moved into the fishing industry, which is just like farming, really.
00:49:46.45
Rebecca
Farming the fish.
Margaret
Yeah, and financially it was extremely hard.
00:49:57.100
Margaret
And yet I can honestly sit here and say that God just looked after me. Just... Then my younger son had a huge traffic accident and that was difficult as well.
00:50:17.47
Margaret
Two very difficult periods of my life.
Rebecca
What happened to us like your youngest? Was he okay?
Margaret
Yeah, he was okay, but he's lived with the results of that accident for a long time. He broke his thoracic vertebra.
00:50:33.79
Rebecca
Oh, wow. That's fairly high up, right?
Margaret
Yes, but not high enough to be paralysed.
00:50:40.100
Rebecca
Oh, wow.
Margaret
He was thrown out of the car. He was driving. He had a head-on collision and really, he shouldn't be alive. And I have, you know, often marvelled at, you know, how he's not a paraplegic.
00:51:00.54
Margaret
He is, even though his back has never been right, often after that,
00:51:10.09
Margaret
yeah, it was quite a difficult period, yeah.
Rebecca
Wow, yeah. so, this was happening all at the same time. Your husband's going into fishing and then your youngest has an accident, like kind of in the same maybe...
Margaret
In the same in the same years, I guess, yeah.
00:51:30.91
Rebecca
Wow. Yeah. How did you even get through all of that? Well, that's, you know, the surprising thing. I remember...
00:51:44.33
Margaret
When my son had his first episode of mental illness, I just couldn't even pray. I just was so... It was so... So difficult, you know. There's not much help for mental health problems at all. And I don't feel that that has improved at all over the years either.
00:52:13.66
Margaret
but that experience
00:52:18.30
Margaret
of that time, even though it was just because my husband had to go and fish and he would go up north for the snapper season every year. But I went, I was free, I was back at work by then. And...
00:52:41.43
Margaret
I was on my own and Stephen was down there and he was extremely unwell and it was a very difficult time for me.
00:52:55.30
Margaret
But God kept me. God kept me. And one day I was at work in because by that time, I'd gone into community health and... One day at the office this huge, beautiful floral from the forest came and beautiful bunch of flowers and connected. I didn't say who they were from.
00:53:27.39
Margaret
There was just this verse from Joshua.
00:53:33.65
Margaret
Have I not commanded you? strong and courageous. Do not be frightened. All dismay, for the Lord your God is with you.
00:53:45.45
Margaret
Wow. And that was just amazing. Wow. Just amazing. That's beautiful.
00:53:56.06
Margaret
Yeah, it was. And I never knew, don't know now, whoever sent that bunch of flowers. And it was huge. It must have cost them a fortune, it was huge.
00:54:08.58
Margaret
You know? I don’t know which stage but what it did was, it reminded me that, yes, God is still with you.
00:54:20.03
Margaret
God is here. He knows what you're going through. Yes. He sees and he knows. That was the most amazing thing.
00:54:32.73
Rebecca
That's just stunning. That's really beautiful.
Margaret
Yeah, it was. It was really nice.
00:54:39.28
Rebecca
I had some really good friends, good friends that would, and one was a lady that I worked with, a much older lady, she was a receptionist and
00:54:54.54
Margaret
yeah, she wasn't a Christian at all, but she was just an amazing woman.
00:55:01.48
Margaret
What did she do that was so... Well, she just stood by me, you know, and if I had to, sometimes when Stephen was very ill, I had to go home. I had to, you know, see what he was doing.
00:55:24.19
Margaret
would have preferred to stay at work sometimes, I can tell you, yeah, yeah.
00:55:31.39
Margaret
But I find through that experience that the number of people I have met since then with children who have mental health disorders is staggering.
00:55:43.56
Margaret
And even in our church, you know, I've been able to support people who are sort of experiencing the same thing. Yeah.
00:55:55.32
Margaret
You know, so it's been a real...
00:55:59.44
Margaret
A real blessing, really, to be able to talk, to be being available for those people who, you know, sometimes you just need to talk to someone who knows what you're talking about. Yeah.
00:56:10.79
Rebecca
It's almost like, and again, I'm going butcher this, but there's like a verse in 2 Corinthians, and it's almost like God comforts us in our suffering so that we can comfort others.
00:56:24.05
Rebecca
Yeah. So almost like the way that your friends were really just available, like God’s like, I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere. Your friends were like we are here, yeah and because of that you are like I’m here for you. If you just need someone yeah to listen.
Margaret
That's right and that's mainly what it is and how you can identify with some of the crazy things these people do, you know.
00:56:58.75
Rebecca
Yeah, for someone who know, say like there is a woman who either has, yeah, what would be a word of encouragement for a woman you could offer who has a child with like a severe mental illness?
00:57:10.77
Rebecca
Like what is a word of encouragement you could offer to her?
Margaret
Well, I always tell them that I can pray for them. And I have a list.
00:57:22.54
Margaret
I have a list of, interestingly enough, it's Yeah. Because you would know they're probably the biggest cohort, aren't they, of a lot of mental illnesses.
00:57:38.98
Rebecca
Absolutely. Yeah. I don't believe any of the statistics that women have, like, worse mental health. But remember arguing with a lecturer, I'm saying, and saying to him, I was like, yes, but women will go see someone and get a diagnosis. So, that of course, they have a higher rate.
00:57:53.22
Rebecca
But, like, you know, men will get into fights. They will drive their car into a tree. Yeah, they end up on, like, the mental health wards, but they don't stay long because they don't... Yeah.
00:58:03.76
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah, it's... a Yeah, very...
00:58:09.82
Margaret
Now, what were you asking me? But just the encouragement to say, yeah, like a mum with a child with a mental illness... I just listen. I just listen. And I can to identify with so much of what they're going through...
00:58:27.56
Margaret
And, you know, as I say, I do pray for them, give them a ring,
00:58:37.53
Margaret
have them round for coffee. Yeah. No, I love that. Like Miriam, you probably wouldn't know Miriam De Silva, but I spoke to Miriam and what she said, said something that stuck with me. She said, I have a ministry. She's like, I have a job. She's like, no one's given me this job. But it's like a ministry of phone call. So, she's like, you know, I ring people.
00:59:08.35
Rebecca
And exactly that, like I just ring to check in.
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca
Like I ring to just like listen. And that sounds like the same. It's almost like because of that pain of yours, you're like, I know what it is to just.
00:59:24.38
Rebecca
listen and just be here and like I said I'm going to pray for you and I will pray for you.
Margaret
Yes, yes, you yeah
00:59:34.76
Margaret
I still find that. I still find it a great comfort to be able just to lean on the Lord and let it all out, so to speak.
00:59:46.76
Rebecca
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Like I can bring all of that to him. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I think that's so beautiful. There's like those two threads just throughout your story.
01:00:02.89
Rebecca
Like one is the love of like little babies and mothers that you've just seen like that has just gone consistently throughout your life, like with midwifery training, but even as you've gotten an older with just crèche and caring and coming alongside like mums and children.
01:00:19.21
Rebecca
But I love on the other side of that, like, almost because of those experiences of feeling so alone, like earlier in your life, like perhaps being in Norseman and tell me if I'm wrong, like Norseman and all those places, like being on your own and then being almost feeling like you're on your own with your son when he was so unwell. Yeah.
01:00:41.26
Rebecca
Like that sounds like they drew you so desperately to the Lord to be like, I need you to comfort me, be with me. Like he carried you through that.
Margaret
Absolutely.
Rebecca
And because of that, it sounds like that's the thing you want to communicate and do so strongly for other women.
01:00:57.47
Margaret
Yes, I
01:01:04.21
Margaret
Like I've, because I've lived very isolated too, I even when I was married and we were the in the caravans and some and we did that for four years, the first four years.
01:01:22.03
Margaret
I just know that you need someone, you still need, even though the Lord is with you, you need someone on the ground.
01:01:35.61
Margaret
Like God will bring you an actual person. Yes. Yes. That's his mercy to you. And have found that all through my Christian life when times when I've got really down and that and I've thought, oh, you know, I don't know if I can keep doing this.
01:01:51.63
Margaret
And I decide that, you know, I'm not going to do this anymore. It's too difficult. Yeah.
01:02:04.12
Margaret
all the things that were happening in my life, you know, it was just too difficult. And someone had come and visit me say, Margaret, they're having such and such long at the church. Would you mind bringing a plate?
01:02:23.89
Margaret
thought, oh, yeah, so... You know, God uses all sorts of things.
Rebecca
I love that. that is That is excellent.
01:02:35.49
Rebecca
Yeah. Thank you so much. that That was really, really beautiful.
01:03:51.24
Rebecca
So, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Margaret
Thank you very much, Bec, for having me.