Novel brings Montville’s pioneering women to life
The courage, hardship and co-operation behind Montville’s beginnings will be brought to life in local author Cate Patterson’s long-awaited historical novel, Through Her Eyes. The novel will be officially launched at a community event at Montville Village Hall, Memorial Close, on Saturday, August 15, from 2pm to 5pm, with everyone welcome.
Told through the eyes of Montville’s first postmistress, Jane “Jinny” Smith, the story follows the small group of selectors whose resilience and determination helped establish the Blackall Range village.
Through Her Eyes is not a grand, romantic saga of the rich and famous. It is a sensitive story about a very small group of people who took up selections at Razorback in the central Blackall Range west of Buderim and, in doing so, established the village of Montville.
The novel was inspired by a family history, The Smith Family: From Birtsmorton to the Blackall Range, which was published in 2012 and which documented how members of this family moved from Redland Bay to the Blackall Range in 1893 where they joined seven families who had settled since 1887, clearing land and building slab hut dwellings to begin a new life.
This family of thatchers, made redundant with the introduction of slate roofs, dealt with extreme social change and the careless decisions of their leaders that offered them little solace. Desperate, they moved from England to America, suffered a financial depression and returned to England before finally settling in the colony of New South Wales. Leading this struggle for a new life were Fred Smith and the family matriarch, Hannah Smith, who was 75 when she first walked up the escarpment to Razorback.
The family history was written by 10 descendants in a defining collaboration that Cate was able to compile into an exemplar of social history. The family wanted to learn more about their forebears and their journey. However, what they discovered was the role it played in building a community. Cate was able to very clearly record how, in fifty years, this large, refugee family played a critical role in shaping a very successful and prosperous farming community.
She has been able to establish how the principles and values of family life and village support overcame the almost impossible conditions of selection in around the turn of the 19th century. While hundreds of southeast selections failed, Montville selections survived, prospered, became independent farms and won international reputations for developing new citrus varieties. The key to this success was families working together in cooperative enterprises, helping each build sustainable farms and a supportive community.
In 1922 an itinerant labourer working for the Montville selectors, wrote in a feature article, Pioneering Days Recalled, in the Daily Mail, Brisbane: “There were others selectors there before the Smiths, but they all worked on their own. But the Smith brothers knew something about co-operation, so they got all the selectors together and proposed that each man put in a fortnight to cut a siding round the Razor-back. (Here the track narrowed to a horse trail known as the pinch and was often closed for months at a time.) The result was that a couple of horses could bring in a few hundred weight on a dray.”
In five short decades, the community had established churches, a provisional school, a School of Arts community hall, a post office and general store, some banking and insurance services, a sports and recreation ground and a range of social and sporting clubs.
Through Her Eyes is told by Jane (Jinny) Smith, Montville’s first post mistress. With Hannah’s steel and Henry’s support, Jane becomes a key community ‘influencer’, bringing people and ideas together.
Positioned as she is at the heart of both the Smith family and the emerging Montville community, Jinny is able to share their resilience, adaptability and cohesion as they survive the harsh realities of isolation. Readers are given the opportunity to walk along beside them, to feel their anguish, share their triumphs, to recognise the quiet heroism of everyday lives and honour the legacy of those who came before us.
Cate hopes to have the book available for sale by the end of the month. The cost is $25 + $12 postage. It will be available from the Montville Post Office and the Montville market or by contacting her at catepatterson294@gmail.com. Everyone is welcome at the August launch. For catering purposes, please RSVP by 1 August to Cate at catepatterson294@gmail.com
– Doug Patterson, Montville History Group
Cate Patterson’s long-awaited historical novel, Through Her Eyes.
Jane Smith in the sitting room of her home, Eastnor circa 1900.
The oldest seven of 12 Smith children circa 1900.