The Spirit of the Fields
by Suter Abis
On a stifling summer afternoon in 1910, a mournful procession crept down Hack Street in Sandstone, a small outpost clinging to the edge of the Western Australian scrub. It was a pitiful sight: a spring cart so dilapidated its wheels—lashed together with chaff bags and fencing wire—threatened to collapse at every turn. Pulling it was a horse so gaunt and weary it seemed a marvel he could stand, let alone haul the load. His harness was a patchwork of greenhide and rope, save for a surprisingly sturdy collar, the last remnant of better days.
In the cart sat a woman, about thirty-five, her face etched with exhaustion and resolve. Beside her, perched on a wooden box, she cradled a child of one year, while two others—a boy of seven and a girl of four—huddled on threadbare rugs in the back. Across from them lay a bundle, tightly rolled in a blanket: her husband. He had drawn his last breath that morning, six miles out from Sandstone. Their only sustenance was half a tin of condensed milk, the dregs of charity they’d received days earlier at Maninga Marley.
Image by Grok
The woman eased the cart to a stop on the northern fringe of town, where the scrub swallowed the road. She tied the horse to a gnarled tree, its leaves as sparse as their provisions, and left the two older children in the cart’s scant shade. With the youngest in her arms, she trudged toward the police station, her steps heavy with grief and desperation. There, she poured out her story—a tale of ten months adrift, a family unmoored from the Eastern States, chasing a fragile hope.
Her husband had been frail when they set out, too sick to work, his lungs craving the salt air and promise of fish along the western coast. She had shouldered the burden alone, scrounging jobs—washing, scrubbing, odd tasks at hotels and boarding houses—while he minded the children. Her earnings kept them moving, town to town, though rarely enough to spare a coin for horse feed. The animal survived on whatever it could forage, its ribs sharpening with every mile. At night, they camped by the roadside; she’d hobble the horse and hunt for him at dawn, praying he hadn’t wandered too far. Progress was agonizingly slow—sometimes just a few miles a day.
Kindness flickered along their path. Teamsters and travelers, moved by her plight, shared what scraps they could. But as the months wore on, hope thinned. Work dried up, her husband weakened, and the family teetered on starvation, their clothes fraying to rags. At Maninga Marley, twenty miles east of Sandstone, a final act of pity had sustained them—until now. The five-day crawl to Sandstone had been her last gamble, a bid to get her husband to a hospital. He slipped away on the fourth dawn, leaving her to drag his body—and their dwindling lives—into town.
Her words barely faded before Sandstone stirred. The police took her husband’s body to the morgue with quiet dignity. The horse and cart were led to the station yard, where the skeletal beast buried his muzzle in a manger brimming with hay—a feast he hadn’t known in months. John McManaway, the warm-hearted keeper of the Roscommon Hotel (Oroya Palace), swept the woman and her children into his care. He offered them baths, soft beds, and a table groaning with food. That night, the children slept on crisp sheets, their hunger silenced, while their mother, clad in borrowed clothes from the hotel’s womenfolk, felt a fleeting warmth she’d forgotten.
McManaways Oroya Palace Hotel, Sandstone – Photo SLWA
Word spread like wildfire. Subscription lists sprang up, filled in moments with donations from a town that knew hardship too well. The funds buried her husband with respect and left a small sum for the family’s future. The cart—deemed the sorriest turnout ever seen in those parts—was auctioned by ‘Spud’ Murphy. Worth less than five shillings, it sparked a spirited bidding war, fetching £12. The winner paid but waved it off. “Put it up again,” he said, and it sold for £10 more. The second buyer gifted it to an old fossicker, who reckoned he could “build it up a bit”—a task as hopeful as it was daunting.
The woman hailed from Ballarat, Victoria, and longed to return to her kin. The children, born to this wandering life, were gropers—Western Australian slang for newcomers—yet Sandstone embraced them as its own. Rail tickets materialized the next day, and the family boarded a train bound for the coast, the first leg of a journey home. As the scrubland blurred past, she must have marveled at the strangers who’d woven a lifeline from their rough-hewn generosity.
In that desolate summer of 1910, Sandstone’s spirit rose from the fields—not in the crops or the gold beneath, but in the hands that lifted a broken family from the dust.
It’s the way the Goldfielders have!
Moya Sharp
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Thank you for such a beautifully written account. My great-grandparents lived in Sandstone when my grandmother was born in 1912, so they may have been amongst those generous townsfolk. It is an insight into, not only the plight of this poor soul, but also the character of the town.
So wonderful. Truly. A beautiful story.
Such a tragic but beautiful story showing the long history of the Australian spirit. A time of deep understanding and less judgement than exists today.