Ileen Bridget Smith and Cyril Jesse Wright (my maternal grandparents) married in the Sacred Heart Church in Mildura, Victoria in 1925.
My mum (Eileen Wright-Curran) recalled that they moved around a lot as a family – for work opportunities. Cyril worked on the fruit blocks and as a fruit classer. Ileen worked picking fruit, packing dried fruit (for shops), house cleaning, and raising her seven children.
They had been married for 45 years when Cyril died in 1970. Ileen died in 1984. They are both buried in Mildura.
Memories about Ileen (Nanna) and Cyril (Pop) from Eileen Curran
Love
I never ever felt not loved or that I didn’t have the same as everyone else.
Nanna’s lost engagement ring
Pop was working as a fruit classer (rating the quality of the fruit) while Nanna was picking someone’s block. As she did so she lost her engagement ring.
She was really upset about it, ‘stranger than fiction‘ that was the headline in the Swan Hill paper. It was about Mr Wright who was the head fruit classer at the packing shed and he used to go up to the sweat boxes when the fruit came in, and he’d grab the fruit like that and look for colour and size and everything. And he did that and anyway one of the ones that he picked up, here’s his wife’s engagement ring. So they said, ‘stranger than fiction.’
Nanna Wright
Nanna Wright would buy clothes for us and knit jumpers for us. She was a good embroiderer.
They used to tear rags and wind hair around the rags to curl the hair back then.
Memories from Greg Curran
I remember Nanna used to love going to the Senior Citizens Club in Minyip where they’d play cards, have chats and go on outings.
Nanna also loved a bet or two and lollies, which she used to hide because she wasn’t supposed to eat them due to her diabetes.
In Minyip she had a little dog called Whiskey who was highly excitable and would run laps at top pace around the huge tank in her backyard.
Generous Pop
…he had nothing but would give you everything. He would bring back gifts from Adelaide where he went for treatment for emphysema.
He would bring back Friction Cars that made lots of noise much to the annoyance of mum with her headaches. Every time Michael and Kevin [my brothers] would hear the Volksy [Volkswagen] they’d say, ‘Pop’s here,’ thinking that he’d have something for them.
My mum while pregnant with me (Greg) couldn’t keep food down. She could only have flat lemonade which my mum and dad couldn’t afford. Every week Pop Wright would bring down 7 bottles for them.
Mum (Eileen) and Dad (Kevin) needed a car one time to take one of us kids to a doctor in Adelaide. Dad first asked his dad, Herbert Curran.
I said to dad about borrowing the car cos he had a new car every few years anyway. And he said, ‘ohh I’ll have to have it greased and do this and do that.’ And I said, ‘stick it.’ (laughs) And I went out to Mary’s father, Cyril and told Cyril about it. And he gave us the Volkswagen which was in an older condition than Dad’s was. So we took the little Volksy…
Pop Wright was apparently the best one to pick grapes for according to my dad (Kevin Curran) cos he paid better and he wasn’t a hard boss.
Card Games (memory from Mary Davis)
Pop liked to play cards and one family joke played on him was that whenever someone said, ‘whose turn is it to deal?’, everyone would say, ‘Pop’s turn.’ He didn’t realise that he was always dealing.
Where they lived
Here are the places Nanna and Pop Wright lived together:
1941 Cardross (Ray Hampton’s place)
it was like a paradise cos that was like a normal house…flowers over the pergola, like little roses…Dad put up swings for us with ropes on the trees because there were plenty of trees. I used to think it was heaven…
Cardross (Picker’s Hut on Cardross Road)
…there was a hut outside the main part… a kitchen and one bedroom. I don’t know what we did for baths. Mum must have got dishes and that cos I remember when we were in the mud-house we used to wash our face and hands and…she’d wash us down in a dish every night in front of the fire.
…the boys used to sleep outside in the bungalow. Mum, dad and the babies used to sleep in mum and dad’s room.
Red Cliffs (out the back of it) – Mud House
Pop had a contract for the picking of two blocks…Nanna wanted them to move out of the mud house because it was too damp. So they moved.
That (the mud house) was a better house than the pickers’ hut. There was more room and privacy.
Red Cliffs (on the way into town) on Bob Langford’s property
It was difficult to find places to live that would accept a family of seven.
Benifra (on the road to Swan Hill) near Nyah West
My father [Cyril] got a job as a fruit classer [rating the quality of the grapes] at Nyah West Packing Shed, which was pretty elite in those days…mum of course was out picking on someone’s block…for money to help the family.
Eileen (my mum) remembers going to Benifra State School which only had 1 teacher and around 30 kids.
Irymple – 7 Gowrie Grove (Housing Commission place)
We lived there till, mum worked with dad at the shed, saved enough to put a deposit on a house in Thirteenth Street [Mildura].
106A Thirteenth Street, Mildura
…It wasn’t a real flash house or anything. My mum lived here (Ileen Wright) when she started going out with my dad (Kevin Curran).
My mum (Eileen Wright) lived here till she got married to Kevin Curran.
Family house of Cyril and Ileen Wright on Cowra Avenue in Cardross – 2011.
15th Street and Cowra Avenue, Mildura
This was the last Mildura place Nanna Wright lived in till she moved to Minyip, Victoria.
15th Street Mildura, near corner of Cowra Avenue in 2011
Main Street, Minyip
Nanna Wright lived on her own in Minyip in a rented place owned by the Germano family till her death in 1984.
I remember this as a cold, dark place – no matter the time of day. It got very little natural light. It only had an outdoor toilet that needed to be emptied (Greg Curran)
Her place was diagonally opposite us (the Curran family) in the Post Office where my dad (Kevin Curran) worked as Post Master and mum (Eileen, Mary Wright) worked as a telephonist and mum.
