Loving God Above All

Loving God Above All The Ron and Joan Carne Story

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By Charles Micheals

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Loving God Above All The Ron and Joan Carne Story

L-R - Joan, Heather (baby), Janet,Ron, Hilary and David in 1963 (Photo Courtesy of David Carne) Cover Photo - Department of Agriculture Stock and Fisheries (DASF) Experiment Station (Ag Station Aiyura Valley, Eastern Highlands, New Guinea (Copyright 1950s © David Carne)

Winter Park, Florida

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© 2015 Charles J. Micheals Published by the Aiyura Valley Historical Society

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: Pending

First Printing 2015 (Not for Sale) Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

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Dedication To the men and women who have given their lives to the work of the Gospel in Papua New Guinea.

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This book is provided free of charge. However, if you would like to make a gift to the ongoing work of the author and his work with Wycliffe Bible Translators and help cover the cost of producing this book and others like it, please go to: Supporting Charles and Barbara Micheals' Work With Wycliffe Bible Translators

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Chapter 1 The Missionary Advance Ronald

Spencer Carne was born in Rani Khet in Northern India, where his parents were Methodist

missionaries. His father, Rev T.C. (Clem) Carne, was a minister, and his mother, Elsie (nee Thomas) was a doctor. His two sisters, Jean and Ruth were also born in India, where Ron spent the first 12 and a half years of his life.

1929 - Rev T.C. (Clem) and Elsie Carne and children (L-R) Jean, Ruth and David Carne (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1921 - Rev T.C. (Clem) Carne on the Douglas motorcycle with Ron and Jean Carne in the sidecar (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

The family transportation in the early years was by a Douglas motorcycle with a sidecar that all the children would squeeze into. Ron’s early schooling was by correspondence with his sisters, supervised by his mother on the verandah of their home, and bands of monkeys sitting on the rails chattering. The same verandah also served as a medical dispensary where local women would flock to seek advice and medicines from a lady doctor.

In 1932 the family came back to Melbourne (where Clem took up the ministry at Ivanhoe Methodist Church). Ron attended University High School from 1933 to 1936 and played in the school football team and was remembered for his ability in middle distance running. He won the 880 yard race in the Inter High School Sports two years running.

In 1937 Ron started at Melbourne University studying Agricultural Science and, like his father before him, became a resident at Queens College (Clem studied Divinity and Arts, and was a resident at Queens from 1909). After graduating in 1941, Ron worked with the Victorian Department of Agriculture for six years, and it was during this time he met Joan Day.

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Chapter 2 Childhood In India In The 1920's

by Ron Carne

In north India in the 1920's three young Australians grew up in a world vastly different from where they would spend the rest of their lives. I, Ron, was one of them, with my sisters Jean and Ruth. In India we traveled the road together, but on return to Australia in the 1930's although we lived together as a family for a few years we then went our own ways. So now, 80 years later, I would like to take a few glimpses into that story. (Ron’s sister Jean had died previous to this being written in 1984).

Jean was born in Benares (now Varanasi) on the banks of the Ganges River in November 1917, Ron in Rani Khet (literally Queen's Held) a Himalayan resort town in June 1919, and Ruth in Lucknow, a large town near where we lived, in January 1923. At the time our parents were Methodist Missionaries in Maunath Bhanjan and Azamgarh, towns in the United Provinces (UP, now Uttar Pradesh) in north India, about 150 km south of the Nepal border. Dad was Rev. T.C. (Clem) Came, and mother a doctor who was one of the earliest women to have graduated in medicine MBBS from Melbourne University.

My earliest recollection as a small child is of when we were at Mau and Dad had a Douglas motor bike with sidecar into which we would all squeeze. The smell of acetylene always takes me back to that motorbike, so we must have travelled sometimes at night as it had an acetylene lamp.

Dad was doing village evangelical work at the time, many of the villagers being outcasts or untouchables at the bottom end of the Hindu cast scale. They were known there as Doms, but I've since seen them referred to as Dallis. At the Mission there was also a small home for orphan boys, with whom I used to play. Some of the land there was almost sterile and dad did a lot to improve it so that trees and other vegetation would grow. I remember falling out of one of these trees and winding myself.

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We lived in a two-story house, sleeping upstairs under mosquito nets, out on the balcony in the hot weather. Dad and mothers' first furlough would have been in 1920-21 when Jean and I were about three and two years old, and we have a photo of us two with Grandpa and Grandma Thomas, mother's parents, in their garden at Sandringham (a beach suburb of Melbourne, Australia) where we stayed with them. 9|Page

We were there again in 1927-28 for two years. Dad had furlough every five years, and several times mother would come early or stay here later to give us more time in Australia. I think this was a big sacrifice our parents made for the sake of the children. Grandpa Thomas died while we were there in 1928 and Grandma moved to a new home in Ivanhoe to be near her other daughter Grace Lugton. We were to stay with her there also after our return to Australia.

Back in India in 1929 we had three years in Azamgarh

where

correspondence

we with

did the

school

by

Victorian

Department of Education curriculum. I did Grades 5, 6 and 7 while Jean would have done Grades 6 and 7, and then Grade 8 back in Ivanhoe with Grandma Thomas in 1931. 1921 – Grandma and Grandpa Thomas (Ron’s mother’s parents), Jean and Ron Carne (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

Those are the three years I remember most, when the three of us had school desks on the top verandah and mother supervised our studies. The work was in fortnight "sets" for each subject, and each two weeks we would post off our work to Melbourne and begin the next set. The mail by sea took three weeks each way, plus correcting time, so there was a seven to eight week delay in getting our corrected work back always an interesting opening of envelopes no doubt - though I can't remember much about it! But the courses must have been well prepared and implemented as we all fitted back into the Victorian system satisfactorily at Ivanhoe State School.

In Azamgarh dad was Superintendent of the Mission, which included being Principal of Wesley High School for boys. There were two hostels for students living out of town, known as the Hindu Hostel and the Christian Hostel. We lived in a bungalow attached to the Hindu Hostel. The housemaster was a Christian 10 | P a g e

and my main playmate was one of his sons, Annu. Ruth's main friend was a girl Soshi, daughter of the school’s Headmaster, Mr. Theophilus, who lived nearby. She kept in touch with Soshi by letter until quite recently. My only recurring contact with Annu is that his younger brother Wesley, known to us as a little kid as Babu, became an artist, married an Australian nurse and lived and painted in Nambour until he died recently.

1930 – Ron, Ruth and Jean Carne in Azamgarh (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

Dad and one of the other Indian teachers were well-matched at tennis and I well remember watching them in keenly fought games. Dad had a rather distinctive serve!

Mother used her medical skills always by having a dispensary on our verandah. Women from all walks of life would come for advice and medicines, a great boon for them as in general they would not want to go to the predominantly men doctors at that time. Later a women’s hospital was built by the Mission in Azamgarh. It was quite a stately brick building. Mother would be called on to help as needed, which I remember her doing from time to time. The hospital was allocated one of three 1928 Model Chevrolet cars which had been donated to the Mission by the Nicholas family in Melbourne - a very significant gift. 11 | P a g e

The other two were used elsewhere in the Mission and must have been a great blessing to the missionaries.

Memories of school on the verandah include visits from bands of monkeys who would sit on the rails chattering, and no doubt looking for morsels of food. We had two kinds of monkeys, smaller and ubiquitous ones with a brown coat, and a larger more lanky type with a short grey coat and a black face known as Langurs. Our visitors were mostly the former type the others being much less common. I well remember one incident when we were walking along a road somewhere, when a Langur stood on its hind legs in front of Ruth and placed its hands on her shoulders. Goodness knows why?

No doubt, her shrieks frightened it away! We saw more of the Langurs in the hills where they would swing from branch to branch as we see on TV programs. At the end of the rainy season, rivers on the flat Ganges plains are liable to flood, as they do here in Victoria. The one year the Tons river flooded severely in our time provided plenty of excitement for the Came kids. After inundating all the cropping land it crept up our tennis court and all around the house, until with several feet of water on the court we enjoyed a good swim. It must have been very devastating for all the villagers.

The Tons is one of many small tributaries lacing across the Ganges plains, and it played another part in my boyhood pursuits. I made a raft with four empty kerosene tins in line and one out to the side as an outrigger, with a simple square sail. I'm not sure that the sail ever did much, but I remember poling it up and down our stretch of the river. It says something for mother's faith in our resistance to disease etc. in letting me do it, as the Hindu custom is to cremate their dead along the river banks with the remains eventually merging with the Ganges. A generation later our son David and I made a replica of that raft and he sailed it on our fishpond at Aiyura in the PNG Highlands.

Washing clothes has always been one of many household chores, and facilities were so limited in Azamgarh that it was the practice to let the dhobi handle it all. He would come to the house and all the items would be counted out on to a sheet spread on the floor, and the next we would see of them they'd come back ready ironed. What happened in between we could only guess, but having seen them at work along the rivers and other waterways, pummeling clothes on a smooth rock and spreading them out on the banks to dry, we had a fair idea!

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1965 – David Carne with self-built raft (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

I should make some reference to our household staff too, as our relationships with them touched us in so many ways. As small children we always had an Ayah to help look after us, and our one was a gem, called Chuttan. She corresponded with our family for many years, until well after our return to Australia.

Our "bearer" or main domestic help was Manohar and he too was with us for many years. There were no stores to buy ice cream, but that didn't mean we had to go without. All we needed was a chum, a supply of ice and salt to make it colder, the ingredients and plenty of muscle power. The result was quite delicious and most welcome in the hot weather.

We had no running water, all our supplies being drawn from a well and kept in containers. Water for drinking all had to be boiled and kept in earthenware bowls, and due to evaporation on the outside surface it remained relatively cool.

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Just a mention of our church. There was a small attractive white church near us, built for the British army at some stage, and which the Mission was allowed to use provided the Church of England liturgy was followed. So we grew up with their Morning Prayers service, and the music and words of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were very much a part of it. Using them always takes me back to those days.

Something I haven't mentioned so far is that our Mission was a joint venture with the British Methodists, so for example the Missionary living next to the Christian Hostel was from the UK. We Australians were only at Azamgarh and Mau, but I understand the 1923 – Ayar Chuttan with Ron, Ruth and Jean Carne (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

British were at other locations also. Once a year the missionaries in both societies gathered together for a Synod, which included business of course but also much socializing. Tents had to be erected to house everyone, and a lot of planning went into the preparations. As things got under way the bright sparks in the teams produced some hilarious verse and stage shows.

From our point of view it was good to mingle with the other children whom we didn't get to see very often, and I'm sure our parents appreciated the fellowship and break from normal mission work. During the three or four hottest months of the year, about May to August, mother would take her young brood up to the cooler hills for better living conditions. Dad had to stay at his post in the stifling heat, but would join us for six weeks when he would help in teaching at the Language School as well as take some holidays.

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In their earlier days, he and mother would have attended Language School as students, but in our time he was fluent in both Hindi and Urdu, including their distinctive scripts. There were always missionaries there from other Societies all over northern India, attending language school and enjoying the cooler weather.

There were several hill stations, or resorts as we would call them now, in the Himalayas. I was born in one at Rani Khet, but after that we always went to Landour, just above Mussoorie - about 200 km north of Delhi. There was a big Mission School for expatriates at Mussoorie and Jean and I attended it for a few months in 1926, aged about seven or eight according to my estimates!

“Mussoorie and Landour, 1860” by Samuel Bourne – General view of Mussoorie and Landour.1

We had to walk down steep hillside tracks to get there. In later years when we were on correspondence, we continued with it at Landour, but most of our neighbors and friends attended Woodstock. In recent years, we have had friends in Wycliffe Bible Translators who worked in India or Nepal and whose children attended Woodstock so it must still be there.

1 - Licensed under Public Domain via Commons

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Landour is at about 5,000 ft. altitude, and while it experiences snow in the winter it has a very pleasant climate in the summer months. Among our memories are the Saturday walks with other missionary friends, when we went to favorite picnic spots which we got to know well. In one direction, we would walk slightly uphill overall, along tracks cut into the steep hillsides to a place called Top Tibba. From here, we had extensive views to the plains in the south, and north to the main peaks of the Himalayas. We were only in the foothills of the Himalayas, and quite a deep valley running east and west separated us from the main ranges to the north. The whole horizon there was one long line of snow-covered peaks, with an occasional one soaring above the rest. Everest was out of range to the east, in Nepal, but we could see Nanda Devi, which was the highest peak in India, just north of Rani Khet.

Another favorite walk was in the opposite direction going downhill through Mussoorie and on to a spot called Kempty Falls, well down in a valley.

On one of these jaunts to Kempty Falls, Jean and I got separated from the main group - perhaps we'd stopped to look at a butterfly or beetle. We became aware then that we were alone, but soon saw the main group a long way ahead and well down below us on the zigzagging track.

They probably hadn't even noticed our absence. Fortunately, the track must have been well defined as we caught up eventually - but the memory of seeing them so far ahead has remained! Kempty Falls2

A major experience in our annual sojourn at Landow was the train journey. Getting there and back never to be forgotten! I take my hat off to mother for negotiating it with three youngsters - about two days and nights all up - and to Dad for making all the bookings and other arrangements no doubt. In those days, the Indian railways were all privately owned by separate companies and we travelled on three of them: the Bengal and Northwestern Railway which was narrow gauge and the North East Indian Railway and the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, both standard gauge.

2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kempty_postal_ticket.jpg

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Great Indian Peninsular Railway3

There were four classes, First, Second, Intermediate and Third. We travelled Second class in a compartment to ourselves with the seats running lengthwise along the cabin and a top bunk for sleeping. The smell and taste of Nestles Condensed Milk always takes me back to those trips, as it must have been one of Mother's mainstays - a happy memory I may say!

All our food and drink had to be taken with us. The family made similar train trips to Bombay (now Mumbai) to catch the ship to Australia, although then dad would come along to see us safely on board. Two of the P&O liners I remember were the S.S. Chitral and the R.M.S. Narkunda.

At each station there would be a milling crowd of passengers getting on and off with food vendors squatting beside their wares or walking along the train with baskets of food on their heads, to sell to passengers through the windows, and others proclaiming their "Hindu Cha" - Hindu Tea. Monkeys were always in abundance, sometimes reaching down from the roof to try and grab a morsel. I remember being reprimanded once while walking along the platform because my shadow fell across the food of a Hindu squatting on the ground - though I'm sure he kept on eating! 3

http://www.mapability.com/travel/p2i/images/GIP_1918_Timetable_Cover_Page.jpg

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S.S. Chitral (Photo courtesy of Shipping Times)4

R.M.S. Narkunda (Photo courtesy of Mehr Baba’s Life and Travels)5

We would arrive at Dehra Dun station (the capital city of the State of Uttarakhand in north India), the end of the line early in the morning. We were met by hordes of coolies and transport entrepreneurs vying for our business, anxious to move all the passengers and their luggage the eight miles up the hill to Mussoorie or Landow.

Our suitcases, bed-rolls and miscellaneous trunks and boxes for a three month stay would be tied into bundles to be carried on the backs of coolies, held up by a broad band over his head. Our transport options were rickshaw, dandy, pony or walk. A dandy was a contraption the shape of a motorbike sidecar carried by four coolies, two fore and two aft, and seating one adult or two small children. We have a photo of Jean and me in one in our younger days! I can remember riding a pony at least once, and later on just walked.

On my 10th birthday, 1929, when I was a Meccano [toy] addict, I walked alone down to Mussoorie to spend some of my birthday money on new Meccano parts. It was an exciting experience, to get back and see how they worked!

Mussoorie features also in the first movie we saw, silent in those days, as we went there to see Harold Lloyd's antics in "Welcome Danger''6, a comedy act to rival Charlie Chaplin. It was in the afternoon, and coming out I remember experiencing for the first time that strange sensation of emerging from a darkened theatre into full daylight.

4

http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=3579 http://www.meherbabatravels.com/ship-travels/narkunda/ 6 http://www.flickriver.com/photos/greenman2008/4014659866/ 5

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One incident which I don't remember, when I would have been one or two, was during a walk at Landour with one of mother's missionary wife friends and her littlies. Apparently I tottered off the road and be rolling down the hillside. Mother took off after me, sliding feet foremost, and when I came to a stop she couldn't do likewise and pushed me on a little further. It seems she was more troubled by nettle stings and scratches than I! In later years one of the friend's littlies, then an adult, told of the incident in her biography, describing me as "little roly poly Ron Came" - 'nuf said!

Back in Azamgarh late in 1931 dad took the Wesley High School hockey team on a tour to play school teams in Benares and Agra and he took me along for the experience, as a 12 year old. There are magnificent old buildings in those cities, particularly in Agra, where there is a famous ancient fort Fatipur Sikri and of course the Taj Mahal. We saw the Taj Mahal under a full moon, which really brings out its beauty. I kept my first diary on that trip, scribbled in pencil in a little note book. The whole trip was a very broadening experience for me, and good of dad to take me along.

The hockey games were skillfully played and well fought no doubt, but I don't remember much about how the scores went!

At the end of 1930 Grandma Thomas came to visit us at Azamgarh for a few weeks, and on returning home took Jean with her to do Grade 8 at Ivanhoe State School. Jean would have been 13. This was a bit reminiscent of when our daughter Janet stayed in Melbourne with her Nan to go to MLC in 1960 at the age of 11, when we returned without her to PNG. As it happened in each instance we were only separated for one year at that stage, as back in the beginning of 1932 Mother, Ruth and I returned to Ivanhoe where we all lived with Grandma We two followed Jean to Ivanhoe State School while Jean started at MLC.

So ended our "growing up" in India, and the beginning of further education in Australia, but that is another story.

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Taj Mahal (Photo courtesy of Taj Mahal Agra)7

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http://www.tajmahalagra.org/best-time-to-visit.htm

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Chapter 3 Back To Australia

by Ron Carne

Ruth and I returned to Australia with mother early in 1932 to continue our schooling here, on the P&O liner SS Narkunda. It was one of those black ships of that era, small by modern standards and with two or three tall very thin funnels. One clear recollection of that three week voyage is of sitting on the floor of the cabin with my Meccano, making and dismantling model after model. Another favorite spot was leaning over the back rails of the ship watching the swirling wake recede into the distance.

But our experience of life in Australia had really begun back in 1927 when we spent two years in Sandringham with Grandpa and Grandma Thomas. They had started married life in a very pioneering way by clearing steeply sloping land of tall trees, by hand, to establish a farm, "Lyrebird Mound" in remote South Gippsland near Kongwak. They left that spartan life eventually to return to live in Sandringham, when Grandpa started the Art Furnishing Co. in Elizabeth St. making quality furniture. One Saturday morning he took me to work with him - train to Flinders Steet then by cable tram up Elizabeth St. to the factory just north of Victoria Pde. I'd have been eight or nine at the time.

Grandpa died during our second year with them, in 1928, and later Grandma moved to Ivanhoe to be near her other daughter Grace and her family. During those two years in Sandringham we attended Athelstone Girls Grammar, a small private school next door. The Methodist Church was next door the other way and the beach was The Age Newspaper, August 31, 19088 8

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=MDQ-9Oe3GGUC&dat=19080831&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

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just down at the end of the street. I remember my first attempts at swimming with wildly flaying arms, and the sudden realization that I could stay afloat with much less effort.

That was when we would have first met our cousins Joyce, Ray and Keith Lugton whose Mother Grace was our Mother's sister. We were to see a lot of them later when living in Ivanhoe as we were of similar ages. Another daughter Shirley was born while we were back in India. When we came back for good early in 1932 after our final 3 years in India, Grandma was living in her new home in Ivanhoe in Station St., right opposite the Methodist church, where Jean was already established with her. Ruth and I attended the Ivanhoe State School and Jean began at MLC. Dad was due for furlough during that year, and applied for a return to a suburban church.

It so happened that the Ivanhoe church became vacant just then through a change of ministries, and Dad was available at the right time! - and became our minister in 1933. The parsonage was in Westley Ave one street up from Station St. just behind Grandma's home, so for the next 4 years we just crossed the back lane and down her driveway to get to church. With Dad as minister we all had a big involvement in the church: Sunday School, Christian Endeavour, Bible Study groups, tennis etc. It was a fulfilling period for us all, and I think dad felt that way too with his ministry.

It was during the depression, and one of the lonely souls whom Dad befriended came to live in the loft of what used to be a stable in our back yard, used by us as the garage - entered via the back lane. He was known as Uncle Charlie and had to climb a ladder to reach his "home".

After finishing Grade 8 (now Year 8) at the Ivanhoe State School I moved to University High School (UHS) in Parkville. The daily trip was by train to Victoria Park station, then cable tram up Johnstone St. and walk through the University grounds along Tin Alley. On the tram a seat on the very exposed cable car was a bonus - except on a rainy day. The four years at UHS provided a variety of experiences.

It was a mixed school but until the last two years boys and girls had separate classes. Our headmaster Mr. Stanton Sharman wanted us to understand the political processes, so he got the school to elect a House of Representatives with one member from each class. I was appointed as the first leader and had to chair meetings. I forget what we talked about and even what I was called - certainly not Premier! 23 | P a g e

One year I was Co-Editor of the school magazine, with a girl being the other. I played football, but my main sporting interest would have been athletics where the 1/2 mile (880 yds.) suited me best, and I was able to win this event at the Inter High School sports two years running. There were only six high schools in Melbourne at that time! Jack Krigsman was in my form in our early years there and later became my brother-in-law. Meccano, a model construction system that enables the building of working models and mechanical devices, was an absorbing hobby during those years. Another was to ride our bikes down to the Yarra River in the summer and swim with crowds of others at a regular spot where they had diving boards and a platform on the bank. Scrambling along the banks of the Darebin Creek was another past time. 1928 Chevy Tourer9

Later I played tennis with the church Tennis Club and on a court the Lugtons had at their home. This was the period in our lives when we were able to have holidays with all the family and we enjoyed several of them travelling in our faithful 1928 Chevy Tourer. Luggage in those days had to be tied securely on to the open carrier on the back of the car and on the running board.

One of these first holidays was to Euroa, Victoria, Australia, dad's old family town where his father had been a bank manager and his sister Mabel still lived, with husband Fred and daughter Nancie. Euroa is 150 km up the Hume Hwy and one of the towns where Ned Kelly held up a bank. Dad is reputed to have ridden his bike up there from Queens College for his 21st birthday. We visited friends and relatives on surrounding farms and one day walked up Balmattam Hill which overlooks the town - part of the Strathbogie Range.

Being summer we were in light clothing, when a sudden thunderstorm cut short our outing and we got home drenched to the skin. The sort of thing one remembers! Dad's brother Athol, Bank Manager at Minyip, with our Aunt Ivy and cousins Phil and Peg also visited us at Euroa. 9

http://my28chev.blogspot.com.au/

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A more adventurous holiday was to Inverloch on the South Gippsland coast. This time we shared accommodation in a rented holiday home with the Lugtons, Tom and Grace and our four cousins Joyce, Ray, Keith and Shirley. Our destination each day was to selected beaches with access to rocks, where we fished with bamboo rods in deep pools and surging waters.

We had great fun and caught a lot of fish, mainly Leather Jacket and Parrot. But in retrospect, in the light of so many tragedies where rock fishermen have been swept to their death by rougue waves, it was a rather hazardous past-time. However our guide to all these sites, and constant guardian was the local Methodist minister who was a friend of Dad's and knew the area well. So he would have known the dangers and kept us within bounds. We had many meals and snacks in lovely little secluded beaches, and it was a most enjoyable holiday.

During dad's fourth year at Ivanhoe, the missionary scene engulfed our family again with the sudden death on the field of Rev. Oliver McCutcheon, and dad being asked to return to relieve the emergency. He left towards the end of 1936 on the day I had one of my final school exams.

Mother stayed on to see us through to 1937 as it was rather a crucial time for both Ruth and myself. Ruth had been at UHS for three years, but now moved to MLC as a boarder. I decided to take up a Free Place offered by UHS and study Agricultural Science at Melbourne University. Dad had been in Queens College as a Theolog (theology student) and it was agreed I should move in there now. Being a son of the Parsonage the costs were somewhat discounted.

Jean was to stay on living with Grandma in Ivanhoe and continue her BA and DipEd studies at Melbourne Uni. My four years at Queens were a whole new experience which I won't try to encapsulate in these notes. It was probably fairly typical of teenagers passing through to young adulthood. The course was very varied and interesting, and suited my outlook on life and probable profession. The second year was used for practical experience at the State Research Farm in Werribee.

We lived down there from Monday to Thursday, with lectures and practical work at the Uni on Fridays. I stayed with Grandma over the long weekend, riding my bike down to Werribee early Monday morning and back on Thursday afternoon. There weren't many cars on the road in those days! - 1938. These were

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my hockey years when I played with the University B team, riding my bike to most matches round the suburbs on Saturday afternoons.

"Kimberley Farm" - This could be where I introduce Kimberley Farm and the Harding family. Ray Harding was married to Dad's younger sister Flo, and had farms at Broadford 70 km north of Melbourne, - and it was to Kimberley that I gravitated so many times during my holidays! It started in 1927 or 1928, while we were on furlough and I was aged eight or nine.

Our family went by train to Broadford where Uncle Ray met us in his buggy with “Lady" between the shafts. They lived on "Sugarloaf" in those days, their first farm a few miles north of Broadford on the Sugarloaf Creek, and this was my introduction to country living. By 1932 when we visited again they had moved to "Kimberley", about 3 km out of Broadford. By then the buggy had given way to the car, though horses were still widely used for riding and stock work, for the spring cart and dray, and for cultivation. And the three children Claire, Phil and Ted rode ponies to school in Broadford.

Back at my school in Melbourne I would day-dream about life on the farm! Over the eight years or so I took part in many aspects of farm work such as 1938 - Ron with farm horse (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

milking, working the cream separator, working horses, marking lambs, rounding up sheep and cattle, and cutting hay - always feeling most welcome and at home.

Auntie Flo was a lovely hostess, eventually outliving her husband and reaching her century! In later years while at Uni I “Baby-sat" the farm several times while Uncle Ray went to the Lighthorse Camp at Tooborac.

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Another Saturday afternoon adventure was to take two polo ponies to Tallarook, riding one, while Uncle drove the family by car. Several visits to Broadford were by bike, and one I even walked - at least to Kilmore. I had taken the tram to the Coburg terminus intending to hitch-hike from there, and not getting a lift I decided to try and walk it. - a good way to see the country in a new light, specially walking up Pretty Sally! By Kilmore time was moving on and I did the last eight miles by car.

On another occasion Uncle and I walked a mob of sheep to the Kilmore market, so I have covered the whole trip on foot! Overall my experience at Kimberley, although not inducing me to take up farming, at least probably played a crucial role in helping determine the career on which I did embark. And Uncle Ray was a type of mentor to me, fulfilling that role in his own way, especially while my parents were in India.

1945 - Ron on a long bike ride from Melbourne to Sydney (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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During 1939 mother found it necessary to return to Ivanhoe, where Grandma was seriously afflicted with osteoarthritis and Jean was still living with her. Later that year dad also decided to leave India again and return to suburban ministry. He was appointed early in 1940 to the Darling Road Methodist Church in East Malvern, where he served for four years during a critical period of the war.

It was decided I should stay in Queens for my final year, so I just got home for the week ends - after hockey! From then on I lived at home, and weekends were spent in church activities and bike riding with my mates whenever we had a free day. After four years at Darling Road in East Malvern, dad was appointed to the Camberwell Methodist Church and I moved with the family. Instead of travelling to town by train each day I now took the tram, which passed our home in Camberwell Road. And it was at this church that I met Joan! - the first occasion being on a social bike ride with other young people from the church.

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Chapter 4 Agricultural Work Begins At Last

by Ron Carne

After completing my University course towards the end of 1940, I worked for six weeks on Blackwood Estate, a large grazing property at Penshurst in the Western District. One of the other students Roy Hoult came with me and we drove down in his old family car taking my bike on board. We shared a small worker's cottage, possibly our first attempt at batching.

Shearing was on so we worked as part of the team in the whole operation, and with several thousand sheep to be shorn it took some time. Tasks included herding sheep into the yards, mixing ingredients for the dip and the actual dipping process after they were shorn, and throwing the shorn fleece onto the classing table and trimming the edges so the wool classer could do his job. On Sundays I rode my bike into Penshurst to church, and overall it was a new and interesting experience.

By the end of my stint there Roy had left to take up a job with Kraft Cheese, and I made my way home by bike over four days, spending nights with friends at Dunkeld and Ballarat, and at a Boys' Farm near Bacchus Marsh. A few weeks later, on 13th Jan 1941, I started work with the Victorian Department of Agriculture in the Cereal Branch of the Agricultural Division.

The main crop we were involved with was wheat, with field trials on new varieties and crossbreds, and various aspects of its cultivation and fertilizer requirements. Oats and barley were there also to a lesser degree. Later during the war flax (linseed) became of increasing importance as a source of textile fiber and also for linseed production, and sugar beet in the Maffra area - in case cane sugar production in Queensland was disrupted.

Being in a Reserved Occupation, connected with the production of food and other agricultural produce, I was not in the armed services. My work then was mainly to do with the allocation of rationed fertilizers 30 | P a g e

to priority crops such as vegetables, dairying, and flax and at one stage sugar beet in the Maffra area. Non priority crops such as wheat and broad acre pastures got a percentage of what they had purchased in recent years, which had to be determined. And of course there were always special cases to be sorted out.

My final six months with the Department of Agriculture, during the latter part of 1946, were spent at the Mallee Research Station, Walpeup, where I had been posted to serve as a member of the team there. The research program again covered mainly cereal crops, and selective weedicides were just hitting the market and we were testing them under Mallee conditions. Soil erosion was a severe problem, and cultivation methods and crop rotations to combat it were being tried out.

A grasshopper plague began moving into the Mallee from NSW late in 1946, and aerial spraying of insecticides was being used to try and stop its spread. The aim was to locate areas where hoppers were breeding and growing before they reached the flying stage; though they could still do a lot of damage eating crops even as hoppers. Having located these sites they were identified so as to be seen from the air with smoke cartridges at the beginning and end of each run. The plane could then deliver its load along that line.

I was allocated to this ground work, and having located the hopper swarms we lit our smoke bombs strategically on the ground, and then stood aside for the plane to do its work. While doing this in the Robinvale area one day I had the fright of my life when a smoke bomb I had lit caught fire.

The fire started spreading through the short dry grass and I tried frantically to put it out - I don't remember how! - possibly with my boots. To my great relief a few men who must have been working very close appeared with shovels. They quickly smothered the leading edge of the flames by throwing sandy soil along it, and the crisis was over! But what if it had really got going?! That is one of many instances in my life for which I regularly give thanks!

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Chapter 5 A Short History of the Agricultural Station Aiyura Valley is a situated at 5,300 feet (about 1,600 metres) elevation and has a Tropical Highlands climate. Warm days, cool nights, abundant rain and suitable soil for vegetation plus the Bae River snaking through the valley made this valley a prime location for agricultural study and sufficient to support the small groups of Gadsup and Tairora people living near the valley.

Aiyura Valley in the early 1950s (Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial)

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Aiyura Valley in the early 1950s (Photo courtesy of Peter Schindler)

In 1936, the Australian government started the “Highlands Agricultural Experiment Station� (today known as the National Agricultural Research Institute). It was headed up by Mr. Bill Brechin, an Australian agriculturist, who pioneered trials of tree crops for suitability for Highlands plantings at Aiyura. In May of 1936, Mr. Brechin walked the fertile land in the Upper Ramu area near the Yonki Valley (where the current water catchment area is for the Yonki Hydro Dam) and the adjacent Norikori Valley. He eventually chose the Aiyura valley area to settle and to establish a research station. In the same year, he planted Cinchona and tea. The tea grown could not stand the climate and withered away. However, the Cinchona plantings did grow well to warrant a planting of more than 10,000 seedlings. In August 1936, coffee was planted. He found immediately that the coffee plantings did very well. From such innocent beginnings the coffee industry has burgeoned into the multi-million kina industry it is now.

In April 1937, Mr. Brechin started clearing the site at Aiyura for an airstrip and also cleared more land for coffee plantings and Cinchona seedlings to be ready for the September rains. In April 1938, he employed 18 laborers from the Markham valley and 20 casual laborers from Bena Bena with additional casual help

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1946 – Aiyura Ag Station Work Force (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

being sought from the local villages and 12 men from Akuna, in the Aiyura area. In July 1938, he further employed 10 men from Markham, 43 casual workers from Bena Bena, a further 50 from Ramu in the Madang Province and thus a first “plantation” was established in the Highlands of PNG.

When World War II broke out, General Douglas MacArthur continued the experimenting at the agricultural station with the growing of the Cinchona tree. That tree was used for the ultimate production of the raw material from which Quinine for treatment of malaria is derived.

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Aiyura Airstrip construction, circa 1937 (Photo courtesy of Pacific Wrecks)

1965 - “Highlands Agricultural Experiment Station” – Ag. Station is located at the left and right side at the far end of the Aiyura Airstrip. Professor Schindler's school in the foreground. (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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Bill Brechin stayed at the Ag station for the first part of the war. However, after several World War II aircraft crashed at the Aiyura Valley airstrip in 1942 and the Japanese were advancing on the station, Bill decided to fly out the valley with one of the surviving airmen in a bi-plane that had been stored at the Ag station. That one aircraft had been fixed up from two bi-planes located there that had not been working. However, before reaching safety, the plane crashed and Bill was killed.10

Aubrey (Aub) Schindler, who was working at the Ag. Station in 1944, replaced Bill as Director of the Ag station. Aub was a decorated World War II soldier from Australia who fought in the Battle of Milne Bay and won the Military Cross. Aub had also studied agriculture at the University of Queensland and was well suited for work at the Ag. Station. Aub worked there with his wife Ancie and their three children.

Ron and Joan Carne joined the Schindlers at the Ag. Station in 1947, arriving freshly married from Melbourne, Australia. The two families formed a close friendship that lasted over many years, even after the Schindlers left Aiyura and started their own coffee plantation. Although the Ag. Station was fairly isolated in the early days, more staff would follow over the ensuing years. As transport and communication improved and staff numbers increased, the Ag. Station grew as an important coffee research facility in PNG.

10

Read more about this crash at: http://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/aiyura_valley_in_world_war_ii

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Chapter 6 Heading to New Guinea One

by Ron Carne

factor in my choice of Agricultural Science as a career was that it may lead to a position in a

developing country - having in mind India at that stage. So early in 1946 when our work was edging back to normal, I wrote to the Allahabad Agricultural Institute in India, a missionary body well known for its work in agricultural education and research, asking if they had any positions available. The gist of their answer was that they only had positions for specialists with Ph. D's, as they had ample Indian graduates to fill other positions. As I did not meet this requirement India was now not an option.

1944 - Aiyura Ag. Station (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

Then while perusing The Age, or was it The Argus or The Herald newspaper, one day in mid-1946 after settling in at the Mallee Research Station, Walpeup, I came across an advert for Agronomists or Agricultural Officers with the Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries, in the Territory of PapuaNew Guinea. This is the first time I can recall seeing Papua New Guinea as the one country, as they were 38 | P a g e

under separate administrations before the war, - New Guinea a United Nations Trusteeship and Papua an Australian Territory. So that was the beginning of the road that led me there some months later. I could find out very little about where I may be posted, but it was made clear that married accommodation was most unlikely during my first term. Joan and I had been engaged since February, and it was because no married accommodation was available at Walpeup that there had been no wedding yet.

Now it seemed we needed to wait yet a little longer. Joan had known from the beginning that I was interested in work in a developing country, and when the PNG position came up she supported my application. She already had a background of interest in missionary work of some kind herself. So we decided that I would go up and sound out the situation, while she continued her work as a Metrologist at the Munitions Supply Laboratories in Maribyrnong. We didn't have to wait too long!

1951 - DeHavilland Dragon at Aiyura – Ag. Station in Background (VH-APL) (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

On arrival in Port Moresby in February 1947 I was informed of my posting to the Highlands Agricultural Experiment Station at Aiyura. After two weeks of orientation I flew to Lae, and thence in a small Rapide biplane 170 km up the Markham Valley and into the Highlands, and landed for the first of many times on 39 | P a g e

the short grassed airstrip at Aiyura - the same strip, though greatly improved by then, from which Joan and I left finally 27 years later. The Agronomist in Charge was Aubrey (Aub) Schindler. He has been posted there from the Army during World War II when he was with ANGAU (Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit). Aub stayed on when the Civil Administration took over in 1946. His wife Ancie had come up from Brisbane a year or so before us and they were married in Lae. They had lived for a time in a small cottage nestling against the edge of the clearing above the main dwelling while it was being completed, so they referred to it as "Honeymoon Cottage" - and it was now available for our use.

1950 - Aubrey and Ancie Schindler (Photo courtesy of the Ivan Schindler)

So it didn't take long to arrange with Joan for an August wedding at the Camberwell Methodist Church, with my father to marry us. Then Joan began the many tasks that present themselves in the lead up to such a happy occasion, while I continued settling in to the completely different life and work in the fairly remote, at that stage, the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea.

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1946 - View of Aiyura Valley from top house at the Ag. Station (Photo courtesy of the Ivan Schindler)

I boarded with Aub and Ancie for a couple of months then moved up to the little cottage to settle in and start preparing it for Joan. Some Dowling rods and a curtain became our wardrobe, and a simple dressing table made from packing cases completed our bedroom furniture. Ancie made some curtains for the windows and wardrobe with material cut out of colored parachutes rescued from airdrops during the war. The Ag. Station had been started in 1937 by Bill Brechin in the very early days of Australian penetration into the Highlands for its potential for commercial crops. It was abandoned during the early days of the Pacific war, but later revived to grow quinine in case it was needed for malaria control, using seed General Macarthur had brought out of the Philippines. However, Atabrin and other drugs eventually became available, so it was not needed. In the process about 100 acres of forest was cleared in two large blocks, and extensive nurseries established, and this must have caught the attention of the Japanese who dropped a few bombs and strafed a few buildings. The parachute air drops by the Allies were to supply the 20 or so troops supervising

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the activities and about 800 village workers who were employed at the time. They would have been fed mainly with sweet potato which would have required quite extensive gardens also.11

When I arrived on the scene the quinine trees were still quite small (far from producing a crop), the troops had all gone, except for Aub, and the workers reduced to about 200 for the constant weeding needed in that climate. One hot morning in August, 1947, a young, newly married couple climbed into a DH84 De Havilland Dragon biplane at Lae airport. A few minutes later it took off over the sea, into the rising sun, flying over a sunken Japanese ship that was poised on its end ready to slide some years later into deeper water. Then it banked and turned back inland to the west, to begin a slow and struggling climb to 6000', following the wide Markham Valley, with the silvery river snaking along one side, to top the ridges and get in over the Eastern Highlands. The plane's fabric coated wings and fuselage quivered as it seemed to hover in the air, giving the feeling that it could land quite safely in any of the treetops below, like a butterfly. Unfortunately, this didn't prove to be the case in several tragic instances in later years. An hour after leaving Lae, and some 100 air miles inland, the plane with its pair of adventurers and their few meager belongings (at that stage), plus other more routine cargo for the Highlands Agricultural Experiment Station they were bound for, landed. With just a few minor bumps on a short grassed airstrip at 5,000' altitude, they arrived in the small Aiyura valley where the air was cool and crisp.

11

Details of the Japanese bombings at Aiyura in WW II can be found in this book, “Though I Walk Through The Valley� by Charles Micheals - https://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/aiyura_valley_in_world_war_ii

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Aiyura Valley as seen from the Ag. Station (Photo courtesy of the David Carne)

This valley was typical of much of those Highlands - grassed slopes running right up to the ridge tops in most cases, except where this was above 6,000'. Above this they were usually capped with forest. The grasslands were kept that way by regular burning, which prevented them from reverting to forest. When not burned for several years the grass became very long and tangled. The base level of the numerous valley floors was about 5,000'. A signpost a few years later at nearby Kainantu, the first Highlands town passed through on the Highway from Lae, proclaimed to all: “The Mile High Gateway to the Highlands." I seem to remember that 5,280' used to be a mile!

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1957 – 1958 “The Mile High Gateway to the Highlands" sign in the Goroka Show located in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (Photo courtesy of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia)

But back at the Aiyura airstrip on that day in 1947, the passengers had alighted, the cargo had been unloaded, and the plane was taking off again for Lae. The two newcomers didn't realize then how many more such flights they'd be making in these faithful, flimsy-looking planes, seemingly on their last legs even then.

As it happened, about 40 years later on visiting Drage Airworld at Wangaratta Airport in north-eastern Victoria, they noticed one of these Dragon planes with "Puff the Chinese Dragon" painted on the nose, and carrying the markings VH-AON. On referring to old photographs, sure enough there was VH-AON, with Joan's parents standing alongside at Kainantu airstrip when they visited us up there in 1952. So we have a permanent reminder of early flying days parked right there at Wangaratta.

Joan's first contact with our new neighbors at Aiyura, just after we had landed, was having the village ladies run their hands up and down her legs with expressive ooh's and aah's. As a sign of that era Joan still

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1951 - DeHavilland Dragon at Aiyura grass airstrip (VH-AON) (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

had stockings on, and the local ladies must have wondered at the strange, silky feeling of her pale-colored skin!

She wasn't quite the first European lady they had seen though, as the Australian manager I was going in to assist had his wife with him. And pre-war, about 10 years earlier, Mrs. Brechin was there with her husband Bill, who had founded the Station in 1937.

And so began 27 years for us in Papua New Guinea, the greater part being spent in that little valley at Aiyura. During that time our four children were born and brought up there, and as you can imagine we saw and were involved in a great deal of change to all aspects of life and work. These changes covered the full orbit, from kitchen and other household facilities, transport and communications, to the quality and caliber of the PNG staff employed; and ultimately on to Self-Government for the country.

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1952 - View of Aiyura Valley from top house at the Ag. Station (Photo courtesy of the David Carne)

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Chapter 7 New Guinea’s Agriculture Industry Develops The island of New Guinea for centuries has been inhabited by a myriad of tribal language communities. They were isolated by inter-tribal warfare, high mountain ranges and an incredible large number of languages. Today, the country of Papua New Guinea is still known as the “Land of the unexpected” and it is home to 830+ unique languages and an even greater number of dialectics. While most tribal fighting has ceased since the nation gained its independence from Australia in 1975, it is ruled today by an unicameral single chamber legislature. However, when Ron and Joan Carne arrived in 1947, the New Guinea territory was just beginning to create, in the rough and tumble and sometime unpredictable highlands, an industry that would sustain a future independent nation and economy.

1952 – (L-R) Aubrey Schindler, Ron Carne, Ivan Schindler in the arms of Joan Carne, David Carne in the arms of Flora Nitsche with (L-R) Janet Carne and Peter Schindler in the Jeep (Photo courtesy of the Ivan Schindler)

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Forward thinking Australian government officials in the 1930s saw a need to establish agricultural, livestock and fisheries projects that could be exported to various locations on the island nation. Thus, the Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries was created in the Territories of Papua and New Guinea to meet this need.

The department quickly developed plans to create various experimental stations in the territories where sustainable projects could be developed so that the village people would have the means to create wealth for needed development. The station at Aiyura was one of the early projects, but WW II disrupted its growth and so after the war it became necessary to quickly develop the station so that experiments could be carried out on projects would work for people living in the Highlands of New Guinea. Development was quickly coming after the war and the time to do something was then!

The projects thus needed trained men and women to use their skills learned elsewhere and when the Carnes family arrived, they were joyfully greeted as a very welcomed addition to the staff at the Ag. Station. Ron’s training and life experiences proved to be valuable to Ag. Station and for the nation’s development as the various projects were trialed, improved on and then fully developed under the direction of the able station director, Aub Schindler.

The Schindler and Carnes family were among the first staff after the war to work in the Ag, Station, but many more people would follow. Soon, the Ag. Station was fully operational with many different projects underway. Training was also being delivered to many New Guineans who were learning, for the first time, how to tend to a crop for use beyond their own family’s needs. Thus, the projects at the Ag. Station later on proved to be the ones that would help feed the nation, provide large scale employment in the rural areas and provide much needed income as products began to be shipped and sold all over the world.

Today, you can drink the finest of Papua New Guinea (PNG) coffee and tea in the most prestigious restaurants around the world. Supermarkets around the world also carry PNG coffee, tea and more recently PNG spices. All of this has been brought to the world by men and women like Ron and Joan Carne, Aub and Ancie Schindler and a host of other Ag. Station workers in Aiyura and in other locations around the country. They, along with the hard work of local Papua New Guinea farmers and plantation owners, wholesalers, and sales companies have made these fine products available to millions and we can all be grateful for that! 49 | P a g e

Aiyura Ag. Station Crops and Livestock by Ron Carne Cattle The Highlands area is good cattle country, but our specific role was to test and develop suitable pastures for livestock including grasses and legumes. This involved both introduced species and learning to manage native grasslands. To utilize the native species they had to be kept short to make them palatable, and this could be done either by regular grazing or periodic burning.

1956 – Cattle Project at the Ag. Station (Photo courtesy of the Ivan Schindler)

As part of the large encompassing effort of the Ag. Station, Aubrey intoruduced cattle as part of the station. The Tropical Dairying Diploma he received in college paid dividends as these cattle we part of the everyday work of the station. In addition to cattle, the Ag. Station also had a stable of horses that were used by staff to move around the station.

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Coffee One of the major crops grown in Papua New Guinea is coffee. The start of that effort was at the Ag. Station. Veteran patrol officer, Jim Taylor, friend of the Schindlers, visited the Ag. Station to talk over coffee production.

1954 – Aubrey and Kainantu Patrol Officer Jim Taylor (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

Jim Taylor took part in the famous Wahgi Valley patrols of the Highlands with Daniel and Mick Leahy in 1933 and other patrols in the Hagen-Sepik regions. After the war and his patrol work was done, Jim became a coffee grower.

That crop that really turned out trumps, and became a viable and most profitable industry for New Guinea was coffee - Arabica coffee. A small plot of about 5 ac. Blue Mountain variety had been planted in a forest clearing right near the hilltop, just before the war. So it was well established and able to provide much of the seed for the plantations and village plots when this industry really got going during the mid-1950's.

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Nursery beds at Aiyura Ag Station (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

The seed for that first little plot at Aiyura had been brought in from Wau, where it was growing at the foot of the Wau airstrip - for those of you who may have been there! That Blue Mountain variety had actually originated in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica in the West Indies.

While passing through Central Africa during 1949, on my way home from a course in Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad at the Ruiru Coffee Research Institute in Kenya, I had arranged for several new selections to be sent across to Port Moresby. There they were raised under quarantine and then sent on to Aiyura for testing. One of these proved to be particularly vigorous and productive and we named it Arusha because it had first been selected near a town called Arusha, on the lower slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It later became a widely used variety, at least for some years.

Some of you may have seen the film "Out of Africa", with its beautiful scenic shots of that lovely country. Anything relating to the growing of coffee in the film was of particular interest to me, of course, and I'd say it all seemed quite factual and true to life. In Kenya whole areas of adjourning coffee farms were settled by English and other immigrants, leading to what became known as the "White Highlands." In New 52 | P a g e

(L – R) Stan Norgren, Aiyura Valley helper and Ron Carne at the Aiyura Ag Station (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

Guinea on the other hand, the policy right from the start was to place Australian settlers in ones or twos, interspersed with the villages, through the accessible parts of the Highlands.

I happened to be part of a small team consisting of a Patrol Officer, Surveyor, Medical Assistant and myself as Agricultural Officer, that moved round in the Wahgi Valley in early 1955, looking for blocks of land that were suitable for coffee plantations. We worked closely with the village people, selecting with them farm sized lots of anything from 50 to 500 acres that the people could readily spare, and were willing and sometimes anxious to sell to the Government.

These were then purchased by the government and put up for public tender as coffee blocks, and the successful applicants would lease them on long term. They would prepare the land by tractor or hand labor and plant their coffee, mostly living in temporary buildings of native materials for a start, and later maybe in more permanent homes. Many raised families there, and in fact one of our new neighbors in

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Sunburst Ave. is an airline pilot who grew up on a coffee farm in the Wahgi Valley while our family was growing up at Aiyura.

Some of the benefits or advantages of having expatriate plantations scattered like this through the Highlands were: 

The villages weren't dispersed or disrupted.



Plantations were all close to villages from which to draw labor if they wished.



Villagers could see and learn about coffee growing in their own area, and then plant up their own coffee gardens if they wished to.



That actually did happen in a big way, with the Agricultural Department helping with the establishment of village nurseries, and the laying out of gardens.

1951 - Developing projects in the New Guinea highlands - Sassaaura village (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

I was fortunate enough to be the Agricultural Officer in Goroka during this period, and so was involved in setting up some of the first village coffee nurseries. Each Monday and Tuesday the District Officer, Fred Kaad, and I would travel together in a Land Rover out along the newly made roads - on Mondays towards 54 | P a g e

1952 - The Ag. Station vehicle on the road leading from the Ag. Station in the far hills with the Aiyura Airstrip in the Centre of the photo. (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

the Bena Bena people and on Tuesdays towards the Asaro. While he would sit in court and hear simple disputes concerning land, pigs and marital matters (the main causes of disputes!), I would supervise the setting up of coffee nurseries with suitable shade cover, and then the planting and maintenance.

From here on a lot of help was given to the people in showing them how to prepare their actual coffee plots in the field - preparing the ground, lining it out with the correct spacing, establishing suitable shade plants, and then planting out the seedlings during the wet season. Local staff were trained to do all this and by then I had been transferred to Rabaul for one of our short stints away from the Highlands!

By the time we family left New Guinea in 1974, some 20 years down the road from then, the total value of the annual coffee crop from the Highlands was some $A 30 M, with roughly two thirds coming from small-holder or village production and one third from larger plantations. The small-holder coffee is usually purchased at roadside buying points, by traders, nearby plantations or Co-operative Societies.

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After Independence, there was a gradual move for all expatriate coffee growers to sell out to locally based companies. This included Local Government Councils, local businesses, or groups of villagers operating together. By now I think all are locally owned, one of the last to go belonging to a Chinese family we know. Many of the new owners employ managers, arranged by agency companies that specialize in this. These managers are often Indian, Indonesian or locally trained New Guineans.

Coffee from PNG, being grown at a high altitude and therefore in cool conditions, can be top quality if processed and handled properly; so it is exported all round the world. With the equitable climate and soils it can also be very high yielding. Coffee is harvested almost all year round in PNG, with certain flush periods, because of the fairly even spread of rainfall; whereas in some countries, such as Kenya and Brazil, there are one or two harvest periods and then nothing for the rest or the year.

1959 – Coffee seedlings (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1969 – Coffee growing shaded and unshaded (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1963 – Coffee tree flowering (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1965 – Ron in a coffee tree plot (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1965 – Coffee picking (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1965 – Coffee cherry collection (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1964 – Tipping cherry into receiving vats (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1958 – Coffee pulping (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1958 – Coffee weighing (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1964 – Coffee drying trays (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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At Aiyura we conducted a number of long-term field experiments with coffee testing such things as: 

Pruning systems and fertilizer use.



Types of shade trees and their effect on yield.

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Spacing between bushes, e.g. 7 ft., 9ft., triangle or in rows.



Varieties.

These factors all interact with each other, so experiments were designed combining several factors and some layouts were quite complex.

Pyrethrum The Agricultural station grew and so did the plants introduced. In the early 1960 the Pyrethrum was introduced. Pyrethrum was used for centuries as an insecticide and as a lice remedy in the Middle East (Persian powder, also known as "Persian pellitory").

1965 – Pyrethrum Plants (Photo courtesy of the Peter Schindler)

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Pyrethrum is a type of Chrysanthemum (C.sinnerarifolium), where the flowers are used for an insecticide. Seed was introduced soon after the war, and sufficient planting, selection and testing for pyrethrum content was carried out at Aiyura to establish its suitability and viability for Highlands conditions. But it also was moved further west to the higher altitudes of 7,000 ft. to 9,000 ft. where the flowers grow bigger, brighter and better. The country there is too high and cold for coffee, so pyrethrum fitted in well as a cash crop for the people in those parts.

Quinine

1946 - Ag Station - Cinchona seedlings turn to mature trees (Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial)

During our first years at Aiyura the crop absorbing most time and attention was 100 acres of quinine, planted by an ANGAU unit during the war in several forest clearings. The steep hillsides had been cleared laboriously by hand, when up to 800 Highland villagers were employed. The whole area had been meticulously bench terraced, and it looked like a giant amphitheater when I first saw it - although by then the seedlings were several feet tall.

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General Douglas Macarthur had brought a small packet of quinine seed with him when he left the Philippines, no doubt with malaria control in mind, and that had triggered off all the activity at Aiyura. However, it was some years after the war before the bark was finally ready for processing (bark being the part of the plant used, as with wattle bark), and by then synthetic anti-malarials were in plentiful supply.

The bark was all harvested however and processed into Totaquin tablets, which were tested in the Trobriand Islands as malaria was then, and still is, a very serious problem. They didn't prove to be very effective, basically I think because the species of quinine brought-out was a robust one but rather low in quinine alkaloids. A side benefit of the whole exercise was a huge supply of fine building poles from the bark-stripped trees, which we used for some years! That species of quinine is a handsome upright tree with a straight trunk, not unlike a young eucalypt.

Many other plants were being introduced and tested during that same period – vegetables, food crops, cereals, fibers, grasses, legumes and trees. Plant introduction is an on-going exercise in all countries, including Australia, but particularly so in such an un-developed land as the PNG Highlands just after the war.

Sheep You may remember Sir Edward Hallstrom, of "Silent Knight" refrigerator fame. He established a Livestock and Fauna Trust at Nondugl, a delightful spot on the northern flanks of the Wahgi Valley, and flew in a flock of Romney Marsh sheep in the early 1950's. We also had sheep at Aiyura in those days, and we both experienced the same gradual decimation of our flocks as stomach worms got the upper hand. This was despite intensive drenching with the drugs available at that time.

So sheep were given away for a while. Bur eventually, with better drugs and more suitable pastures, they were brought back for another try - after our time up there. The last we heard, a few years ago was that they were doing "as well as could be expected." They could be a real asset in subsistence farming with their meat and wool, and smaller size then cattle for family meat supplies.

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Sweet Potato Known locally as Kau Kau this would have been the most important crop, by far, in the Highlands, being their main item of food. There were many varieties altogether, each area having its own selection of types suited to that locality. A collection of some 100 varieties was assembled at Aiyura, and initially the main experimental work was to compare these, and try out and compare different local methods of planting on mounds and ridges.

Tea We always had some tea growing at Aiyura, as a few bushes had survived the neglect of the war years. These had been propagated by seed and cuttings, and seed plots and plucking areas established. But the main experimental work was moved to Kuk Experimental Station on the Wahgi Swamps, near Mt. Hagen. That is where tea is now being grown commercially, mostly on large plantations with their own factories, but with a mix or village small-holders bringing their leaf in to the plantation factories.

1963 – Ron’s mother examining tea leaf-tips in a tea plot at the Aiyura Ag Station (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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Ag station tea (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

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Visits By Government Officials In 1948 Sir Donald Cleland visited the Ag. Station. Sir Cleland had been appointed in 1942 to the position of the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General of the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) in Port Moresby. In March of 1943 was appointed the additional position of chairman of the Australian New Guinea Production Control Board.

This made Sir Donald Cleland, effectively chief of staff. Thus he was responsible for the day-by-day civil administration of Papua and New Guinea, for the running of the pre-war plantations and for ANGAU's operational commitments. They also oversaw the standards of health care and labor supervision on the plantations and beginnings of a new national staff education scheme.

1948 – Aiyura Ag Station visit by Sir Donald Cleland (right,) Ag. Station Director Aubrey Schindler (Centre) and New Guinean staff (left), Donkey’s name is Namu – Lead donkey used on trips to coast to gather supplies (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

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In 1956 a delegation from the United Nations visited the Ag. Station. It was part of a larger investigation they were doing to evaluate the state of the economy in Papua and New Guinea as it pertained to their move toward independence.

1956 – Representatives from the United Nations visit the Ag. Station (Photo courtesy of the Ivan Schindler)

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Chapter 8 Life In New Guinea

by Joan Carne

Our first night in Lae, we stayed in the Hotel Cecil at an old AWAS campsite clearing in the jungle. We slept under a heavy green Army mosquito net, watching little geckos climb up the low partitions between the rooms, and looked for scorpions in our shoes!

1946 - Hotel Cecil in Lae (Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial - Public Domain)

The next day John Hughes, the Agricultural Officer in Lae, arranged a flight for us, with our luggage and stores, on a little fabric coated Dragon 6-seater bi-plane, and we set off on an interesting and remarkable bone-shaking flight up a wide valley, looking down on to the lacy outline of the multi-stream Markham River.

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After an hours flying our little plane huffed and puffed and struggled to climb up and over the pass into the Highland plateau. We landed on the minute grass airstrip at 5,000 ft. above sea level and were met by Aub and Ancie Schindler, with the jeep and Ron’s new dog Bounce.

1947 - Ron and Joan Carne at the Ag. Station with their dog Bounce with Aub Schindler standing in the background (Photo courtesy of the Jack Keith Murray Collection – UQFL91, Album 2, Item 108, University of Queensland12)

People from nearby villages surrounded us and also gave us a warm but alarming welcome - they were very curious and excited - ran their hands over my hair and body and silk stockings! That was the first and

12

https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:732527

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last time I wore stockings in PNG, I think! At 5,000 ft. the climate was mild and pleasant - about 25°C degrees in daytime and 15°C at night. We drove up the steep, winding dirt road in the jeep (the only vehicle in our valley at that time) to Schindler's house on the hill, and had morning tea and lunch there. We then climbed up a walking track to the little log cabin that was to be our home for almost a year. The view of the Aiyura valley from there was well worth the climb! Both houses were built by ANGAU personnel during the war.

1948 – Aiyura Ag Station – view from the top house (Photo courtesy of Peter Schindler)

The log cabin had push-out shutters on the windows, and little PNG heads used to appear over the windowsills at any time of the day, and particularly when I played my violin! The violin didn't like the extra humidity and didn't last the distance of our stay in PNG. I haven't played since! A big open fireplace, the width of the room, was a feature of the living room, and we enjoyed it in the evenings.

Ron had made furniture out of packing cases, and Ancie had made curtains and a dressing table skirt from parachute material. The coloured parachutes had accumulated in the big store from food drops during the war. A small piece of red parachute boiled up in the copper with some white parachute material 72 | P a g e

made pretty pink drapes for the house. The "haus kuk" (kitchen) was a separate building where Sinoko, the household help from a village nearby reigned supreme, until I was able to learn some Pidgin English and set foot in my own kitchen!

It was an interesting year of new experiences, and life was rosy. We were able to grow our own vegetables, but most of our stores came up from Lae in little planes, or we ordered in bulk from Mcllwraiths in Brisbane. These were sent up by ship to Lae and were flown in from there. Despite the isolation, we socialised a lot with other staff on the Ag. Station - Schindlers, Stan Norgren (the stockman) and his family who came later, Agricultural Cadet Malcolm McIndoe - and also the Government Patrol Officers and families at Kainantu, seven miles away, and several mission families in the area. We also met gold miners and their families in the neighbouring valleys.

We became quite friendly with Sylvia and Albert Frerichs, Lutheran Missionaries from America who were stationed at Raipinka 10 miles away, and spent several weekends with them. We couldn't buy bread anywhere in those days and the accepted practice was to make it using sweet potato yeast, producing a very sour heavy loaf. The yeast was made by boiling up sweet potato (the staple diet of the PNG people in the Highlands), and mixing flour and sugar with the water in which it was cooked. This was bottled and left to ferment. The cork was tied down to prevent it exploding on to the ceiling!

Sylvia taught me how to make nice light bread and Chelsea buns with American dried yeast - a great improvement on the previous sinkers!

We traveled between neighbours either by foot or by horse, or shared the only jeep on the Station. There was a hand made gravel tennis court near Schindler's home and we used to play tennis there. Also we would hit golf balls up and down the parade ground at the top of the hill. Later we joined the Kainantu Golf Club13, where the course was something of a mountain goat lay-out!

13 - The Kainantu Golf Club by Charles Micheals - https://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/kainantu_golf_club

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1960 - Kainantu Golf Club house (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

The women from nearby villages often used to come to see me with their children, and brought bunches of bananas and green vegetables to exchange for clothing and sheets of newspaper, in which they would roll their tobacco and smoke their homemade cigarettes. We provided accommodation and hospitality for many itinerant government officials and overseas travelers, so life was never dull. Amongst others there were some of note, such as the Administrator Colonel J.K. Murray, and the Minister for Territories Sir Paul Hasluck. Identical twin brothers from England, Tom and Jack Fox, who had come out to PNG to seek gold in pre-war days, were colourful personalities employed on the Ag. Station for a few years after the war. They both had New Guinean wives, in fact Jack had three wives and a family of children, who later were educated in Australia. Another colourful personality, an E.M.A. (European Medical Assistant) at the Kainantu hospital, provided the only medical assistance in the area at that time. He was gruff and bearded and always had a bottle of whisky in his hip pocket, and was often a bit tipsy. I was expecting our first baby (Janet) at that time and had to go to him for regular check-ups. I was terrified of him! 74 | P a g e

One entry in my diary about then was: "Stan and Ivan de la Lande were up at our place for dinner, when the E.M.A. turned up at 7:00 pm rather muddy and the worse for wear. Funny evening! We played monopoly while he slept if off by the fire." Writing and receiving stacks of letters from family and friends, and parcels from home, was a big part of life and meant a lot to us in those early days. My parents and Ron's parents wrote weekly, as did my sister Margaret. I spent considerable time replying to them all. With no local shops in which to buy anything I spent a lot of time sewing - often using the parachute material. I made cushions using sponge rubber out of the seats in crashed planes on the Aiyura airstrip, and stuffed cushions with wool shorn from the sheep that had been brought in as a trial on the Ag. Station.

In those early years we had no water laid on, and water was heated in an outside copper. It was carried inside in a bucket to fill the bucket shower, which consisted of half an oxygen cylinder fitted with a screw rose, and rigged up with a pulley. It provided quite an effective shower. Our refrigerator, iron, lamps and primus (single burner cooking unit) all worked with kerosene fuel. In later years we had power from a small hydro-electric plant on the Station. There was a lot of interaction with the local people, and we made many friends among the PNG people.

1974 - Ron Carne with friends and coworkers in front of the local Aiyura Lutheran church (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1974 - Heather and Joan Carne with national friends (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

Ancie Schindler and I were the first women to travel by jeep down the steep and rugged road over the Kassam Pass from the Highlands into the Markham valley, put in by Rupert Haviland, a Government Patrol officer and his team. Aub and Ancie, Ron and I used to go for picnics down to Watarais, a village at the bottom of the Kassam Pass. The jeep had to negotiate the hairpin bends, sometimes taking two or three bites, with a 2,000 ft. drop on one side and a rocky wall on the other.

Coming back, it was a case of taking a run at the sharp steep sections and hanging on tight, as we bumped and bounced over the boulders, and slithered over the muddy sections. Later when the new road over the Kassam Pass had been completed and the bridges over the Markham built, we used to drive to Lae in our Holden - a four hour trip. But even then the many landslides which occurred in wet weather were a hazard.

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1953 - Aub and Ancie Schindler and Joan picnic “cuppa” at the lookout on Kassam Pass. (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1953 - Joan and Ancie with Janet giving the jeep a rest on the road leading to the Kassam Pass (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1965 - The Carne’s red Holden on the road to Lae – The Kassam Pass is in the background (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

By 1951 there were three jeeps in Kainantu and Aiyura (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1959 - Markham picnic with the Schindlers and Van Horckes (another Aiyura family) (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1963 – Picnic spot enroute from Aiyura to Lae (L-R) Cory Kooyers, David, Heather, Joan, Janet, Hilary, and Ron’s parents visiting (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1957 – Land Rover on the trip to Mt Hagen – Hilary, Joan and Ron’s mother (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

Over our years in New Guinea we must have had about 50 flights in small planes. It was always a challenge for the pilots navigating their way through the clouds over the mountain passes, and we had a few hairy flights. One of the more memorable such flights occurred when Ron's parents were up visiting us in 1957, and Ron drove mother and dad, and Hilary (aged two) and me to Hagen in our Land Rover, on one of his work trips to that area. Dad wanted to visit the Methodist Mission Stations at Mendi and Tari, so Ron put him on a flight to Mendi from Mt. Hagen while he was busy working. As the roads were very rough he also put his mother, Hilary and me on flight home from Mt. Hagen.

The weather deteriorated after take off, and the pilot found himself caught under the clouds in one of the small flat-bottomed valleys typical of Highland terrain. In driving rain we circled round and round in the valley looking for that elusive gap in the clouds. At one stage I thought he was going to land on the road we could see below; but suddenly, there was that small bright blue patch between the cotton wool clouds, and with a few sharp and steep tums, we were up and over the surrounding mountains in a flash with 80 | P a g e

clear sky above. A petrified village woman who had probably never flown before, and mother who seemed blissfully unaware of the situation, and I with Hilary on my lap and my heart madly pounding, were the only passengers.

1963 – (L-R) Joan, Heather (baby), Janet, Ron, Hilary and David (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

Another time we had a flight in a Posts and Telegraph helicopter, which landed on the lawn of the big top house. We gave the pilot and our friend Tom Pearson, (who was doing a survey of hilltop sites for beamed telephone communications) some lunch, and in return they offered us a short ride in the helicopter to view the Station from the air. They took the door off so we could see better and take photos!!! That time Ron and I went with four-year-old Heather on my lap.

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1963 - Helicopter ride over Aiyura – Ron, Joan (Heather on Joan’s knee) and pilot (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

From 1964 - 1974 I ran a weekly Aiyura Women’s Club for the wives of the PNG men employed on the Ag. Station and women from nearby villages. Country Women’s Association groups in Victoria, Australia supported the Aiyura club by sending money to buy treadle and hand sewing machines.

I would buy bolts of material from the Chinese trade stores in Lae, and taught the women to cut out and sew simple items of clothing such as skirts, tops and children's clothing. Up to sixty women and their young children attended from different language groups in the area. Most were not literate, so I would start the meeting reading stories from the Pidgin translation of the New Testament, and items of interest from the Pidgin newspaper. We also had talks on nutrition, child welfare, hygiene and cooking. It became quite a social day out for the women. We also started some basketball games.

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1965 - The Aiyura Women’s Club soft ball game at the top of the Aiyura airstrip (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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Our Houses Over our 27 years in Papua New Guinea we lived in five different parts of the country. We lived in Aiyura and Goroka in the Highlands, Rabaul and Keravat on the island of New Britain, and Mageri near Port Moresby in the Territory of Papua. We moved into twelve different homes in the process, ranging from a bush material home, a Qonset Hut, a Sisalcraft paper house and the pre-fabricated government houses.

1946 – The early houses at the Ag. Station built in WW II (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

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Aiyura Homes

1955 - Qonset Hut home Aiyura – Janet with Joan’s parents who were visiting (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1963 - Aiyura “top house” – Janet in the garden, David and Hilary background (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1958 - Aiyura “bottom house” (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1963 - Aiyura main house –Ron’s parents, Joan and Heather (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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Goroka Home

1954 – Goroka home – David on front lawn (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1955 - Goroka township (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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Keravat, Port Moresby Homes and Rabaul Scenery

1960 - Keravat house - Joan and the children (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1952 - Mageri house – Joan David and Janet (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1957 - Rabaul Harbour from Observatory Point - David, Ron and Hilary (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1961 - Rabaul – David, Heather, Janet, Hilary and Joan (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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Joan’s Flowers I was able to indulge my passion for flowers and gardens in New Guinea, and established a garden wherever we lived. There was always plenty of space and it was easy to employ one or two of the village boys to help with the hard work.

In the Highlands, we could grow some of the temperate climate plants such as Roses, Delphiniums, Daisies, hedges of Gardenias and Impatiens, as well as some of the more tropical plants such as Bougainvillea, Hibiscus, Frangipani, Poinsettias and bush Orchids. The spectacular tropical Rhododendrons known as Vireyas grow wild on the bushy hillsides, and village people used to bring armfuls of these flowers to sell to me.

1963 - Heather with a bunch of the native Vireya flowers (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

(Note – A more detailed account of the flowers that Joan planted in Aiyura Valley will be noted in a subsequent chapter)

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Aiyura Schools In 1954 Ancie Schindler started up a primary school for about 15 children of expatriate families in the area. It was held in an old office building on top of the Aiyura hill. Janet and David and some of the early SIL children attended there.

In 1960, the department of Education built a one room Primary “A” School on the Ag. Station down near the airstrip, at which Ancie Schindler taught about 50 children of government, mission station, private enterprise, and SIL families, as well as a few local English speaking National children. The Australian government would not give Ancie another teacher until the school reached 60 pupils.

In 1961 another room was built under the original high standing school room and Joan Kirwan came from SIL to assist Ancie in teaching. In 1962 the Schindlers moved from Aiyura to their own coffee plantation. Ancie had got the school up and running and kept it going those eight years. She was very missed when she left.

Other government teachers were initially provided. As most of the students were from SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics – a linguistic and Bible translation organization that had a centre of operations called Ukarumpa in Aiyura Valley), SIL started providing teachers. At first, it was to supplement the government teachers. Eventually SIL took over supplying all the teachers and other staff positions. Joan Kirwin was followed by Nancy Fisher (who later married Athol Rosenberg, an SIL cabinet maker), Dorothy Holsinger and other SIL teachers.

The children travelled the 2 km from the SIL Ukarumpa centre in the old double-decker bus that SIL purchased for that purpose. (It later became a play-house in the backyard of SIL members, Karl and Joice Franklin!) I understand SIL children still come over for their Primary School education – now much extended.

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1957 - Aiyura “A” school at the top of the hill – Janet and David Carne (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

1958 - First Row (L-R) Lori Nicholson, Charlie Van Horck, Judy Frantz, Marlin Richert, Steven Davis, David Carne, Timothy Dean, Kathy Frantz, Larry Nicholson, Roseanne Dean, Paul Franz - Second Row(L-R) Freddie Burgoyne, Ivan Schindler, Sharon Dean, David Frantz, Phillip Richert, Unknown, Janet Carne, Peter Schindler, David Richert, Paul Van Horck, Elsa Van Horck (Killeen), Ruth Davis (Milligan) (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

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1960 - New Aiyura Primary School (Photo courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

1960s - Aiyura Primary School (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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Later in the 1960s - Aiyura Primary School (Photo courtesy of Gail May)

1960s – Old school bus (Photo courtesy of Gail May)

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1970s - Aiyura Primary School (Photo courtesy of SIL PNG)

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Family Events

1960s - Aiyura Ag. Station pool (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

1960s - Aiyura Ag. Station pool (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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Hilary Carne’s birthday party with Heidi Baptista Witt, Ruth (Schanely) Mumbauer, Lynne Dallinger and Lauren Nicholson (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

1959 (L-R) David, Heather, Janet, Hilary Carne (Photo courtesy of Heather Brooker Carne)

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1959 - Aiyura Ag Station Christmas party (Photo courtesy of Peter Schindler)

1965 - A favorite picnic spot on the river between Aiyura and Ukarumpa - Joan, Heather, Hilary and David (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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1965 - On the river between Aiyura and Ukarumpa - Same picnic spot with David’s bamboo raft on board for fun in the river. Joan, Hilary, Heather Janet and David (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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Chapter 9 The Carnes’ Association With SIL-PNG - 19571974 (Written By Joan Carne, May 1990) “Ron and I first arrived at the Highlands Agricultural Experiment Station (hereafter referred to as the Ag Station) in the Aiyura Valley of PNG in 1947 - the year we were married. We flew in and out from Lae in a small flimsy De Havilland Dragon aircraft for those first six years.

Because of the isolation in the early days we were delighted to welcome new neighbours in the Aiyura Valley when we returned there in 1957 after a short posting to Rabaul. Jim and Gladys Dean, Lynette and Bill Oates, Des Oatridge and Alex Vincent were the first SIL people to build their small homes just across the river from the Ag. Station. They used local materials – bamboo plaited walls and grass thatched roofing. We enjoyed getting to know them and were soon joining their Sunday evening Bible studies and playing volleyball with them on Saturday afternoons.

It wasn’t long before other SIL families started arriving at Ukarumpa Base – Ray and Ruth Nicholson, Doreen Marks, Lorna Luff, Joy McCarthy, Gladys Neely (Strange), Robert and Rosemary Young, Walt and Vonnie Steinkraus, Edie West, Joan Kirwan, Don and Launa Davis, Dorothy Drew, Audrey Payne, Joice and Karl Franklin, Marj and Chet Frantz and the McClure sisters were some of the fore-runners.

Flying back from Lae in 1957, a young electrician was on the same plane coming up to work with SIL at Ukarumpa – it was our first meeting with David Cummings. Henceforth, David was the life of the volleyball games in which we used to join on Saturday afternoons. They were hilarious occasions!

Sunday services were held each week in a small hall on the site which later became the sawmill. In those early days of isolation, limited transport and facilities, SIL and the Ag. Station were able to help each other and share resources, equipment, machinery and talents to the mutual benefit of both. For our part, it was 100 | P a g e

wonderful to find someone who could cut hair or mend a radio in their free time, cut timber in exchange for the loan of a tractor, etc. It was wonderful to have friends with whom to play tennis on our court at the Ag Station and with whom to share gardening interests. We made long lasting friends with so many SIL families. Our children enjoyed having SIL companions at the government Primary “A” school, and being able to go over to the Sunday School on the Centre and later to the High School there.

1966 - Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ USA Archives)

We all had to make our own entertainment in those days and many were the SIL concerts and skit nights we enjoyed. One particular evening comes to mind when Walt and Vonnie Steinkraus put on a skit showing their family departing from Aiyura for a stay in the village in the Sepik. The stage was set up with a mock-up of the side of a little Cessna plane, complete with a cargo pod. Walt and Vonnie loaded the cargo for the village bit by bit through the door of the pod. First five or six suitcases, then boxes of groceries, rolls of wire, several buckets, a scoop of chickens, a couple of live ducks, potted plants, etc. etc. kept being produced and poked through the door of the pod in a continuous stream.

Then as the family climbed aboard, Walt rushed to the door of the Meeting House exclaiming with a deadpan face, “Just one more thing.” – he came back leading a live and somewhat reluctant cow down the 101 | P a g e

aisle. Understandably, the said cow didn’t quite make it to the pod as it was decidedly nervous at the shrieks of mirth which greeted its entrance and tears of a few terrified children in the audience. The cow as kindly removed before the outburst sent it berserk!!!

Because of our mutual interest in flowers, plants and gardens, Vonnie Steinkraus and I became great friends, and shared many plants with each other.

1959 - The Steinkrauses’ home at Ukarumpa – Flowers were a love of both Vonnie Steinkraus and her friend Joan Carne (L-R) Gladys Strange (Neely), Vonnie, Joy McCarthy, Kathy Glasgow (Barker) (Photo courtesy of Alan Healey)

We shared in the great sadness that overwhelmed the SIL community when the whole Steinkraus family lost their lives in the Tifalmin landslide on March 21, 1971. Their family had just returned to New Guinea from a time in the USA visiting with their family and Christian community. After spending a short time at Ukarumpa, they flew out to the village where they had been working on the translation of the Bible for the Tifalmin people. Shortly after the landslide, Ron flew out to Tifalmin with a group from Ukarumpa to be present at the burial service of the little two year old Kathy (Walt, Vonnie and Kerry’s bodies were never found).14

14

Read the story of the Steinkraus family in the book, ‘Called By My Name’ http://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/calledbymyname

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Walt, Vonnie, Kerry, Kathy Steinkraus (Photo courtesy of Norman Steinkraus)

1971 - Landslide covers the village to the bottom of the river (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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1971 – Ron (on the right of the photo) stands at the edge of the landslide (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1971 - Lex Collier conducts the the memorial service in the village for for the Steinkraus family (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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Steinkraus Memorial Garden at Ukarumpa. (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

Steinkraus Memorial Garden with the Meeting House in the background. (Photos courtesy of David Carne)

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Joan was involved with the preparation of the great floral tribute in the front of the Meeting House for the Steinkrauses memorial service at Ukarumpa. After the memorial services were finished, Joan developed a Memorial Garden at Ukarumpa near the Meeting House at Ukarumpa that Walt Steinkraus helped build.

Steinkraus memorial table at Ukarumpa prepared by Louise Bass – Flowers by Joan Carne (Photo Courtesy of Phyllis Meier)

Over the next ten years, many more SIL members arrived and more homes were built on the Ukarumpa Centre, schooling requirements became important. The primary school at Aiyura, started up by Ancie Schindler, was a real provision for SIL and for us. Some lasting friendships for our children came from those years. Janet and Sharon became close friends, and likewise David and Tim Dean. David visited Tom on Vancouver Island on his way to England a few weeks ago.

In the early fifties the Aiyura Airstrip was lengthened and up-graded and maintained by the Ag Station. In the mid-sixties, JAARS was operating in and out of Aiyura, and SIL obtained a lease on the airstrip taking over the management and upkeep. They also built the present hangar and JAARS buildings about that time. It was a treat to travel in Cessnas instead of bone-shaking little Dragon aircraft.

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1965 – (L-R) Joan, David, Hilary, Janet and Heather at SIL Aiyura hangar ready to board the SIL Cessna aircraft (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

In the years before the hangar was built we were living near the top of the airstrip and SIL folk would often wait at our home for planes. We enjoyed getting to know several families this way. Also, in those early years before SIL had many facilities we used to have a group over at Christmas time each year to hear our recordings of Handel’s Messiah.

The wedding of Alex and Lois Vincent was the first of many over the years to be held on Ukarumpa Centree. They were married in June 14, 1958 by the river behind the Steinkrauses’ house. Rev. Johannus Flier from Raipinka Lutheran Missions performed the ceremony. Lois’s wedding frock from Australia arrived only just in time. I iced the wedding cake and helped with the flowers. David Cummings played a little portable organ perched under a tree on the river bank. Refreshments were set out on a tressle tables on the river bank.

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The Wedding Party – (L-R) Doreen Marks, Bill Oates, Lauren Nicholson - flower girl, Lois and Alex Vincent, Gladys Neeley, Robert Young (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

Alex and Lois Vincent’s Wedding at the SIL Centre at the Bae River (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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The wedding “Cake of cakes!” (Photo courtesy of Lois Vincent)

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Joan And The Ukarumpa Missionary Children’s Boarding Home In 1959, the first missionary Children’s boarding home was set up on the Ukarumpa Centre with three sisters, Doris, Elsie and Olive McClure (known affectionately to all of us as ‘the Three Aunties”) caring for about 12 primary age children whose parents were working on Bible translations in the village. The boarding home was called DORELO which was named after Doris, Elsie and Olive. Later on, at Ukarumpa there were a number of other children’s homes built for both Primary and Secondary students.15

I developed a friendship with the Three Aunties and also with many SIL children and enjoyed helping at Ukarumpa where I could. When the last Auntie died, I was asked to give a eulogy in memory of the Three Aunties at the memorial service at the Wycliffe Bible Translator office in Kangaroo Grounds, Australia. I was happy to do so for these special elderly women.

The Three Aunties with Joan and Hilary Carne in front of the DORELO missionary Children’s Home (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

15

Read the story of the McClure sisters in the book, ‘What God Can Do’ http://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/what_god_can_do

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Memorial Service for the “Three Aunties” Eulogy by Joan Carne - Kangaroo Ground, Sunday, February 14, 1988

Like David Cummings, I too

first met the three McClure sisters the day they arrived in New Guinea

Highlands in September 1958. They had quite an eventful and interesting sea trip up from Sydney to Lae in a Chinese Line cargo ship.

As David mentioned at the service for Auntie Doris last Wednesday, he met them with the SIL tractor and trailer at Kainantu airstrip - the nearest government patrol post to the SIL Centre.

As passenger vehicles were scarce in those days, SIL had asked us on the agricultural station nearby if we, too, could help out with transport. So, Ron [Joan’s husband] sent me in to meet the party in our Land Rover. Not that they would have been unequal to the challenge of a ride behind a tractor if they had to they were game enough for anything - as time proved. But that seven miles of rough dirt road was pretty bumpy in any vehicle! Their luggage and other cargo from Lae came in the trailer.

Their trip in from Lae in an old DC3 cargo plane was their first flight, and they were so excited about it all, and exclaimed about all they saw as we travelled over to the Ukarumpa Centre. They waved and called greetings to the numerous children by the roadside, and that was the beginning of a love relationship with all the children of the surrounding villages. Whenever they moved about, either on foot or in vehicles, children would come running from all directions calling "ullo Aunties.” Children seemed to be drawn to the Aunties as if to a magnet.

My friendship with them, too, developed from that first day. We found we had a lot of common interests. After all, we were all from the same home town of Melbourne!

It was not long before they started a Sunday School for SIL and local village children on the Centre. They also took Scripture classes at the government primary school for expatriate children. This school was on the agricultural station, and two of the Aunties would travel over with the school vehicle. After the weekly classes were over they would set off to walk the three miles home. I would look out for them as they

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passed our place one mile down the hill. We would have a cup of tea, and walk round the garden and share plants; and then I would drive them the rest of the way home.

And so the Aunties gradually settled into the work they had come up to do - to look after the children of the linguists while their parents were working in the villages.

In 1959 the first Children’s Home on the Ukarumpa Centre was opened with the Three Aunties caring for about 12 children. They were firm, but loving house parents. It was quite a big task for them to take on in their late 50s. Just getting breakfast for 12 children and seeing them off to school each morning complete with lunches, took organization. For six years they tended to every need of each child, even helping them with their homework. And the children loved them. The home was later called DOR-EL-O, after Doris, Elsie and Olive’s names. Many of the children who were in their care have kept in contact with them over the years.

The Three Aunties in the DORELO Children’s Home (Photo courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Around 1962, the Aunties felt led of the Lord to start a village work at the nearby Gadsup village from which the SIL Centre took its name - UKARUMPA. They continued in the Children’s Home, but started

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negotiations for a lease of land near the village. This took three years. In 1965, they built their home on the land there and were given honorary branch membership in SIL in recognition of their seven years of service there. Their love of flowers and trees and shrubs showed in the beautiful garden they established round their home.

2013 – The Three Aunties’ house in Ukarumpa village (Photo courtesy of Charles Micheals)

In the early days they had started sewing classes for the village women and girls, and now they had a special building put up in the village, with thatch roof and plaited bamboo walls. Auntie Olive continued her classes there right up until they left. She would work with five or six selected girls at a time, and taught them to work to her own very high standards. The girls she trained began sewing for the village people.

The Aunties believed that if a thing is worth doing it is worth doing well. They were perfectionists with sewing, and their handiwork was beautiful. When our youngest daughter Heather was born at Kainantu in 1959, the Aunties brought us such lovely gifts they had made for her, from materials they brought up 113 | P a g e

with them - little Viyella baby nighties embroidered with rose buds, a lovely wool blanket, satin edged with hand-made motif, and a tiny organdy and lace sun bonnet. Heather’s own children have worn some of these, and I still have the 29-year-old baby blanket and use it for our visiting grandchildren. Such was the quality of their workmanship.

As the Aunties lived and worked amongst the Gadsup people, they shared in their lives, and the people came to them with their problems, joys and sorrows, and their love touched many hearts. They taught the people from the Word of God. Some of the younger boys came to their home each day and were taught to read and write, and to know the Lord. They sponsored them through secondary school and even through CLTC. They did have their disappointments and heartbreaks along the way, but also great joy as they saw some of them grow in their Christian faith.

1960s Bafi Wamaneso being baptized by Rev. Ed Long (Photo courtesy of Wendy TalenĂŠ)

One such young boy was Bafi Womaneso. He responded so readily and quickly to their teaching, it was apparent that the hand of the Lord was upon him. I think David Price will be telling you more about Bafi and how he is fulfilling all their hopes for him. 114 | P a g e

The Aunties also became involved with the Government Primary School for Nationals, helping and encouraging the students and teachers, and sponsoring some of the village children, keeping them in school clothes and lunches. I remember how the Aunties once made about 20 sports uniforms for one class!

The people came to them with their medical problems and would line up each morning for the good, oldfashioned proven remedies of the Aunties. Anything too difficult they would send in to the Government Hospital in Kainantu, where they became well known for their work, and were given supplies of medicines for their home clinic. One of their specialties was to buy large bags of peanuts from the Markham Valley and with the help of a corn grinder make peanut butter, roll it into balls, and hand them round to the village children who they considered needed extra nourishment.

They were often seen in Kainantu on a Sunday afternoon, visiting sick friends at the hospital and visiting prisoners at the Gaol. It was about this time it became important to them to be able to move around more to these places, and to other villages in the area. So little Auntie Olive decided she would learn to drive, and at the age of 60, she obtained her license, and a little Volkswagen car became available to them. I think a few ditches were jumped, and there were some pretty close shaves as they sallied forth! But the Lord protected them - and everyone else - and Auntie Olive and her little car became a wellknown feature of the countryside. She actually became a good little driver, even though there were those who pretended to give her a wide berth!

Auntie Elsie was the shopper, and despite her restricted sight, she was better than anyone I know at finding the best buys and a good bargain! She also was in charge of the little village Sunday School held in their open garage. Auntie Doris was the home lover - she was the writer, she was a very good cook, and she master-minded their programs.

The Aunties helped establish a little village mission church nearby, known as Aiyura Evangelical Mission, where their influence and guidance was strong. They saw many lives transformed by the power of God. In later years a friend of ours who visited a more distant village found there were many radiant Christians there. When she asked how all this started she was told, "Well - the Aunties lit the match and the fire has spread!"

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1965 – Ukarumpa village church (Photo courtesy of Chuck Greenlund)

They were great encouragers to young people - there seemed to be no generation-gap problem. The village youth group would meet at their home once a week and Auntie Doris would spend most of the day baking such delicacies as jam tarts and pikelets for their tea or supper.

We all know the Aunties were great prayer warriors. We have known and felt their prayers covering us as a family over many years - as have other families. So many have been touched and blessed in this way. I have learned much from them over our 30 years of friendship.

There are many stories to illustrate the miracles that took place because of their prayers. The big iron roof on their home collected water for their tank. They shared this tank with the village people, as they had to carry water from the river some distance away. One very dry season everyone’s tanks were low or empty, but the Aunties did not want to stop the people using their water. So, they committed the matter to the Lord, and in a miraculous way, whenever they checked it that tank was always topped up and never ran dry, even though the people were still using it freely.

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We retired from the Department of Agriculture in PNG in 1974 and returned to Melbourne, just a year before the Aunties left. That was the year Auntie Elsie lost her eyesight again. They felt God was telling them that their time in New Guinea was now finished and that they were to leave the work to those who they had nurtured in the faith. So they returned to Melbourne early in 1975.

Since then family and friends have had a chance to minister to them in their twilight years, while they have lived in their sister-in-law Hazel's flat in Montrose. They made lots of new friends there. Then after Auntie Doris was left on her own, Marjorie and Eric16 have ministered to her as she spent the last year and a half of her life in their home.

The Three Aunties (Photo courtesy of Dale Brabhams)

16

Eric and Margaret (Marjorie or Marge) Brabhams

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But even in these later years, the Aunties were still ministering to others. In the years of her blindness, Auntie Elsie rolled hundreds of bandages for the leprosy mission - I think it could have been thousands. Auntie Doris collected old sheets from friends or Op. shops, and prepared the good sections of the material for Auntie Elsie to roll tightly and evenly. They knitted dozens of their famous little jumpers for babies and gave them to friends and Missions. They knitted scarves for prisoners. They sent many boxes of used clothing to their Gadsup friends - as Olive Howe and Janet well know, having helped them with the parceling up! Until very recently Auntie Doris has regularly spent an afternoon visiting an elderly people’s home in Templestowe, just talking to and encouraging those folk.

The DORELO missionary Children’s Home (Photo courtesy of Gail May)

Yet greater than any of these things they have done, is the radiance of their own personal lives, which showed so clearly their great love for their Lord and Master.

Bronwyn Checkley, daughter of Marie and Harland Kerr, translators for the Wiru people of PNG, rang me from America last week to express her feelings after hearing that Auntie Doris had been called Home. She said Auntie Doris had been a mother, grandmother, friend and counsellor to her over the years. Even though Auntie Doris would be rejoicing now with her Lord, and with her sisters, she felt that a great light had gone out of this world. But then we hope that that light will still shine on in the lives of those who have been touched by the Aunties.

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It is a mystery to this day just how the Aunties communicated so well with the New Guinea people, as they used so little of the local or trade languages!! But then - the three McClure sisters were indeed remarkable ladies!!!�

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Joan’s Work With Flowers Continued Over the years, I helped with flowers for many of the weddings at SIL, including the wedding of Sam and Nancy McBride and Francine and Oren Claassen17 in November 1966. I also enjoyed working with Vonnie Steinkraus, Val Bailey, Ruth Oatridge and others on the Ukarumpa High School (UHS) banquet corsages each year. I also helped plant flowers at the UHS.

Sam and Nancy McBride’s wedding at Ukarumpa – Flowers by Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of Nancy McBride)

Francine and Oren Claassen’s wedding at Ukarumpa – Flowers by Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of Nancy McBride) 17

To read about the work of Oren and Francine Claassen, see this book: https://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/the_hand_of_god

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Ukarumpa High School Banquet corsages – Flowers by Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of Bruce Neher)

One of my hobbies was propagating plant material from their one-acre garden. From this I was able to provide planting material when I was asked to plant up several of the gardens on the Ukarumpa centre. One of the first was a hedge of double red poinsettias at the High School. Later on I helped with the gardens round the Linguistic Centre and Language Cubicles and the gardens around the Translation Lodges.

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1974 – Ukarumpa High School – Poinsettia’s planted by Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

1978 –Ukarumpa High School and gardens (Photo courtesy of Bruce Neher)

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Linguistic Centre Poinsettias planted by Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

Linguistic Centre and Language Cubicle foliage planted by Joan Carne (Photo Courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA Archives)

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Translators Lodges – Many flower beds planted by Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of Craig Campbell)

Translators Lodges – Many flower beds planted by Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of Craig Campbell)

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I was also was involved with the floral tribute for the memorial tribute for the memorial service for those lost in the Aztec crash on April 7, 1972.18 (Author’s note - In that crash, five Wycliffe missionaries died and two Papua New Guineans died. It was a loss that was difficult to bear for everyone who knew those who perished, but the Lord had others in place to take up the work and even in this event the Lord was drawing people to Himself.]

The crash of the Piper Aztec (Photo courtesy of the Post Courier Newspaper)

18

Read more about the story of the Aztec crash in ‘The Hand Of God’ http://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/the_hand_of_god

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Funeral service at the United Church in Lae (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA Archives)

Graveside service In Lae – Caskets (R-L) Kath McNeil, Darlene Bee, Doug Hunt, Oren Claassen, Francine Claassen, Beb (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA Archives)

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One of the most difficult things about life in PNG for me came when the children had to go away for secondary schooling. Our eldest, Janet had to go to Australia when she was 11 to stay with my mother and start secondary school at MLC in Melbourne. It seemed so young to leave home. But she was able to come back for years 9 and 10 as one of the first students at Ukarumpa High School.

In 1962, SIL set up a small building on the top oval to be used by 7th or 8th High School students doing correspondence courses. It was believed it was from a car case. From the families’ memory, those who took part in this were Philip Richert, Sharon and Jeanie Price and Sharon Dean. Our eldest daughter Janet was up from Melbourne, Australia doing year 9 by correspondence at home.

1963 - Ukarumpa High School (Photo Courtesy of Gail May)

In 1963 SIL built the first building of Ukarumpa High School on the present site, and it was dedicated on March 1, 1963. Janet was invited to join the Ukarumpa High School (UHS) students on supervised correspondence (year 10) and rode her bike to the Ukarumpa Centre each day. Barry Irwin was the headmaster, Lance Woodward was the French teacher and Betty Baptist taught art. The High School was later subsidized by the government, but SIL provided the teaching staff.

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Janet returned to school in Melbourne in 1964 to do years 11 and 12. David started at UHS in 1964 to do year 7 and 8, by which time they were teaching the Australian NSW High School Syllabus, instead of supervised correspondence. Hilary started UHS in 1967 and was one of three students in PNG to pass the NSW School Certificate in 1970 with 6 A-level passes, which says a lot for the standard of teaching at UHS. As there was no teaching for Australians beyond year 10 at that time, Hilary did year 11 on NSW correspondence with some supervision from the UHS teaching staff before she returned to Melbourne to complete her schooling and nursing training. After doing SIL linguistic training in 1976 and 1978 Hilary joined Wycliffe.

Hilary at the time of this writing had served for 11 years with Wycliffe and SIL, serving in PNG and Vanuatu. She served as a nurse at Ukarumpa clinic and was on staff at Pacific Orientation Course Madang. She was also involved in language work, partnering with Arlene Sanford (Weimer) in the Tauade Language program in PNG and then Joan Blaymires (Finlay) in the Tanna Language program in Vanuatu.

Our youngest daughter Heather started in year 7 at UHS in 1972 and was there until we left PNG in April 1974. It meant a great deal to us as a family that our children were able to attend UHS for some of their secondary years, so they didn't have to go away to Australia so early. We have always been particularly grateful to SIL for this. Some of the extra-curricular activities they participated in with SIL students were the camp-out retreats, horse riding, annual Science Fairs, sporting activities and musicals. (Hilary was ‘Cousin Phoebe’ in HMS Pinafore in 1970 and Heather in Oklahoma in 1973)

Heather in Oklahoma (Photos courtesy of David Carne and Gail May)

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Hilary Carne (Back row with blue hat) HMS Pinafore (Photo courtesy of Gail May)

HMS Pinafore (Photo courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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Some of the highlights of the relationship that built up between us and SIL were the farewell gift of a trip to the Sepik in a JAARS Cessna, and the farewell concert in the Meeting House when SIL gave us Honorary Membership of the PNG Branch.

Since our return to Melbourne, Australia in 1974, we were involved firstly with Wycliffe’s Area Committee and later on with Wycliffe Associates. Ron works one day a week looking after the lawns, gardens and grounds at the Home Division Headquarters at Kangaroo Ground. I attend the Wycliffe’s Women’s monthly meetings and am on the catering committee of both Wycliffe Associates and Wycliffe Women. We have a Wycliffe Associates prayer group meeting in our home each month.

[Author’s note – Ron continued working at Kangaroo Grounds mowing lawns until he was 80. He decided then it was probably time to stop and leave it to the younger ones. Joan gradually reduced her involvement in the ladies meetings as she stopped driving in her later years.]

In 1981 we went back to PNG for a visit and to see Hilary. We stayed with Dick and Joanne Wagner and enjoyed seeing again many expatriate and national friends at SIL and the Ag. Station. A highlight was a trip to Kiam Village for the dedication of the Nii New Testament translated by Al and Dellene Stucky.

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The dedication of the Nii New Testament translated by Al and Dellene Stucky

Ron and Joan with Dick Austin – Nii village for NT dedication

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1980 - Hilary and Ron with Baru and friends at Baru’s coffee plantation. Baru was a friend and previous co-worker at the Ag Station, now well set up on his own coffee plantation in the Aiyura valley. (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

1980 Joan with friends and previous Aiyura Women’s Club participants at Aiyura (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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[Author’s note: The Carne family had 27 years in all with the Department of Agriculture in PNG - 18 of those being at Aiyura Ag. Station. They made many close friends among SIL families and shared hospitality with them. They still kept in touch with about 40 families and singles from those days until their deaths.]

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Chapter 10 Ron and Joan Carne’s Deaths The Lord was gracious to both Ron and Joan and they lived to a ripe old age!

Ron lived to be 92 years

old and Joan lived to be 90 years old. They kept their Christian faith and now are with the Lord whom they served.

Ronald Spencer Carne (B. June 10, 1919, D. May 12, 2012) Joan Mary Carne (B. September 14, 1922, D. April 13, 2013)

Ron and Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

At their funerals tributes were read by their children. These tributes follow.

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A Tribute To Ron Carne May 17, 2012 - Tribute to Dad from the children

Celebrate the Life! DAVID:

On behalf of Mum, Janet, Hilary and Heather, I would like to welcome you here as well, and thank you for joining us to celebrate the life of a very special man. Thank you, Anneke too, for taking the service for us. Janet & I would now like to say a few words on behalf of the family about our Dad.

JANET:

Dad was born in Rani Khet in Northern India, where his parents were Methodist missionaries. His father was a minister, and his mother was a doctor. His two sisters, Jean and Ruth (who is here today) were also born in India, where Dad spent the first 12 and a half years of his life. In some reflections Dad recently wrote, he recalls early childhood memories of travelling around when he was 3 in a Douglas motor bike with a sidecar which they would all squeeze into. He recalls his correspondence schooling with his sisters, supervised by his mother on the verandah of their home, and bands of monkeys sitting on the rails chattering. The same verandah also served as a medical dispensary where local women would flock to seek advice and medicines from a lady doctor.

The family came back to Melbourne (where Grandpa was a minister at Ivanhoe Methodist Church) for most of the years Dad was in High School, first at Ivanhoe then at University High School. At UHS Dad played in the football team and was remembered for his ability in middle distance running. Apparently his friends and colleagues would all cheer him on by calling “C’ARN CARNE”

Dad stayed in Melbourne to study Agricultural Science at Melbourne Uni, when his parents returned to India for several more years. After graduating Dad worked with the Victorian Department of Agriculture for six years, and it was during this time he met Mum – and for that next season David will continue. 135 | P a g e

DAVID:

A lot of our memories of Dad are obviously tied up with who Dad and Mum are together. Their relationship has been an example and inspiration for many years to all the family. I have loved how Dad has expressed his love and appreciation to Mum so often. There were so many times during my childhood in Aiyura and when older, living at Sunburst Ave, that Dad would say how beautiful Mum was, just as part of day to day conversation.

Dad met Mum in 1944 when Dad’s father took up the ministry at Camberwell Methodist Church. Mum’s family attended that church regularly, and it was not long before Mum & Dad were falling in love. Dad has often recalled the time early in their relationship when they climbed One Tree Hill, after catching the train to FTG. They ended up getting totally soaked in the rain and came home (in dad’s words) very bedraggled but in very high spirits!

1946 - Ron and Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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They were married on August 7, 1947 and went straight to the highlands of New Guinea to start their life together. Dad’s working role was helping to set up the coffee industry in New Guinea. Their home was on an Agriculture Experimental Station in a remote part of the highlands where the only access was by small fabric-coated bi-planes. There was only one other European couple there at the time, and they became life-long friends.

Dad had for a long time a keen desire to work in a third world country and Mum shared that passion, although there must have been times it was hard being so far away from their families in Australia. Dad loved his work up there and it certainly was an ideal place for us four to grow up in. Dad felt to move back to Australia at one stage in 1961 but it did not take long to realise that our place was back in the Highlands and I can remember feeling extremely excited to be going back to be with my friends there at Aiyura as an 10 year old.

August 7, 1947 - Wedding Day for Ron and Joan Carne (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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I would like to mention here, that the Highlands of NG now has a thriving coffee industry which makes up a large part of PNG’s export industry, and earns more foreign exchange than any other industry. Most of it now, is grown by small plots in the eastern highlands, sometimes only 20 trees, along -side subsistence farming.

Dad’s work, along with others, contributed to this as they chose the varieties that suited best, and experimented with pruning methods, spacing and shading methods that produced the most coffee. Quite a bit of Dad’s work in the 50s was to go out on patrol to remote villages and help them choose plots to start growing coffee, and providing the seed for it ..... so now when you enjoy a cup of tasty, organic, New Guinea Highlands Coffee, you know a bit more about it!

After moving back to live in Australia in 1974, 27 years after arriving in New Guinea, Dad’s working roll changed to a more administrative job with the Soil Conservation Department. He and Mum adjusted back into Suburban life in North Balwyn. They also had to adjust to life without dependent children.

My memories of Dad at this stage, was how devoted he was to helping Mum with all her interests. She loved flower arranging and gardening and Dad was there by her side so often carrying buckets of flowers to weddings, and occasions like this, doing all the hard hack work so that Mum could express her giving spirit which blessed so many people.

That was the time they were so active in North Balwyn Uniting Church, and I am sure many of you here remember that time so well. Another aspect of Dad’s devotion to Mum during this time was how he faithfully typed up so many of Mum’s letters she wrote to us while we were in the UK so that we could benefit from the speed of the email form of communication.

There is a characteristic of Dad that has been there, as long as I have known him, and that is his grateful and thankful nature. Meal times were always a special family time and I have very vivid memories of many meal times in Aiyura, in my early childhood, where Dad would always thank Mum for the delicious food she provided. There is touching story about Dad’s appreciation of food just on the morning of the day he died. He was trying to tell me as I said goodnight last Friday something I couldn’t understand.

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He ended up moving his hand as if writing, indicating he could write down what he was saying. I got him a paper and pen and I could just decipher the word “porridge”. So I asked if he wanted porridge for breakfast and his eyes lit up and he nodded eagerly.

The next morning when I arrived, his porridge had apparently been whisked away too soon. Mum suggested I ring Anne to make some more and so I spoke to her over the phone using Mum’s advice on the way Dad likes it cooked the best. Dad was smiling as I did this, and made a little joke, in words I could easily hear, saying: “I will have to eat a lot of that for it make much difference!” ...... The porridge duly arrived and Dad delighted in three tiny spoonfuls expressing so much appreciation!

We all felt in different ways Dad expressed his grateful heart to us as he was dying over the last week too. His last words to Janet, when she was about to return to Sydney a few weeks ago, was “Thank you for coming down.” His many words to me as I sat with him and fed him small portions of food and drink right up until just before he died was “thank you” even though many times they were just barely audible whispers. I felt so much he was giving to me more than I was giving to him over those last few days.

As far as Mum and Dad’s relationship goes, I’d like to finish, describing what I felt was a most beautiful thing to remember between them. It was only last Friday night when we helped Mum bend over Dad’s bed to kiss him goodnight. He gave her a big kiss but that was not quite enough for him, so he grabbed her hand and kissed that and then as she was standing back up and moving further away he kissed his hand and rubbed it on hers, all the time beaming at her with a big beautiful smile. This was their last goodnight as he died peacefully the next day.

JANET:

Many people have used the word “Gentleman” to describe Dad. He didn’t seek the limelight, didn’t waste words, and was a gentle man, not prone to anger.

On one occasion when I was a young teenager, out with a group of friends, we were riding horses, galloping down the grass airstrip in the highlands of PNG. One of the boys suddenly veered his horse sharply off course through the coffee trees. Without me expecting it my horse also changed course, leaving me sailing through the air straight ahead and landing on the ground in a rather ungainly fashion. 139 | P a g e

Dad was watching this from the top of the airstrip and came tearing down in the land rover. Once he had established that I was quite OK, he spoke his mind quite freely to the young man who had initiated the horses’ antics. I remember being very surprised as I had not often seen him angry!

Dad had quite an artistic streak, with a talent in pencil drawing, which he re-developed later in his life. In his younger years many of his letters to Mum when they were away from each other due to Dad’s work, contained lots of drawings, to help illustrate and describe the places where he was staying and the scenery he saw. On one of his visits to us in Sydney, when they travelled up by train – Dad always loved train travel – he made many little pencil sketches of scenes along the way.

Dad has always been willing to embrace new ideas and technology, and he took up the challenge of learning to use a computer when he was in his 80’s, mainly so he could communicate by email with Hilary in PNG and David and Anne in England at the time. He persevered with the technology until he mastered it enough to use it regularly. Dad and I spent many hours on the phone together working through computer complexities.

Dad, with Mum, has always shown great love and commitment to keeping in touch with family over the years when distance separated many of us. As our children were growing up, we had a period of 14 years when each summer holidays we would drive south to a caravan park on the NSW south coast and Mum and Dad would drive north and join us there for two weeks, mostly staying in a basic caravan and using public amenities well into their late 70’s. That’s dedication! It was these holidays, combined with their visits to us in Sydney, when our children spent most time with Dad.

DAVID:

A few of my childhood memories .... As a Boy growing up in Aiyura, I remember how much fun it was when Dad helped me build my first “rattlebomb”, it was a go-cart which I could tear down the hills in, racing my friends. Dad showed me how by putting big wheels on the back it made it go much faster. Dad has written some beautiful stories of his own childhood, and I have enjoyed reading them over the past few days. He describes, building a raft out of empty kerosene tins with another kerosene can as an outrigger, and a sail to propel it along. He would sail it on a tributary of the Ganges in India, near where they lived.

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1960s - Go cart racing in Aiyura Valley (Photo courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

He commented on how much faith his mother must have had in his resistance to disease, to allow him to do it. (knowing what went into that river!). When I was about 11 years old, Dad helped me build a similar raft out of bamboo, again with a sail, and I had so much fun using that on the river that ran through Aiyura valley as well as the fish ponds at the bottom of the airstrip.

Dad also had a huge collection of meccano he had built up as a child, which he passed on to me when I developed an interest. In his child hood writings he described himself as a meccano addict, and would look forward to visiting the local towns in India to spend his birthday money and build up his collection, which he started as an eight year old. The pieces are rather colourless now compared with Lego, etc., but are much more interesting to work with than plastic playthings. (and i-pads and i-phones for that matter!)

JANET:

While Dad was working in the highlands agricultural station, where he was for a large part of his 27 years in NG, he and Mum had a close association with the Wycliffe Bible translators, who had their PNG 141 | P a g e

headquarters nearby. David Cummings, a close friend from Wycliffe, would have dearly loved to have been here himself today, but has sent a tribute which I’ll read.

“As we reflect on Ron's long and very special life, and his quiet ministry a lot of things crowd in on our thoughts. I well remember meeting the Carne family at the Lae airport in 1957 as they were returning to Aiyura for Ron to take up a leading position at the government Agricultural Station. Little did I know that the meeting that morning was to set in motion a wonderful relationship and partnership that has lasted over fifty five years.

I know it was Ron's commitment to the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in commencing the work of Bible translation that no doubt encouraged the staff of the Ag. Station, our next door neighbors, to be cooperative and helpful as our work pioneered its start in PNG. The way equipment was loaned to us as we set about construction and building the roads and infrastructure for the mission was deeply appreciated. We knew that Ron's influence was quietly behind this generosity.

It is frankly hard to talk about Ron without including Joan as they were so together in their willingness to be involved wherever they could help. Whether that was in providing a well-polished Land Rover as the bridal car on those early occasions when our dilapidated old war jeep was all we had, or the magnificent flower arrangements that Joan was always ready to share.

We appreciated the commitment to join with us at the weekly prayer meeting in the early days and then participating in the church services that grew with the team later on. I remember at one of the early prayer meetings in one of the grass roofed original houses, that as I was sitting there while we were praying I felt strangely giddy and finally opened my eyes to get my balance only to see the kerosene lantern swinging from the roof and everyone in the room with their eyes wide open except Ron who obviously was not in the least perturbed about what was going on.

That was the first experience of an earth tremor for most of us. Ron then informed us that it was nothing to worry about, it was just a little one! How good to have an old hand around.

We remember that the SIL (and Wycliffe Bible Translators) team wished to let Ron and Joan know how much they were honored and loved by the team there in PNG. They decided to make them Honorary 142 | P a g e

Members of the organization. Such an honor is not normally given actually, but in one special way they made the statement that all the member's felt for them.

One of the challenging and inspiring aspects of Ron's life for me was his servant attitude and willingness to help in the most menial ways. When I was directing the work of Wycliffe out at Kangaroo Ground Ron in his retirement, would come weekly and help in all kinds of ways around the property and I have a lasting image imprinted in my mind of him mowing the lawn outside my office window and being inspired to have a servant heart like his. It is therefore with deep gratitude that we say farewell to a dear brother who has crossed the bridge to Glory.

DAVID:

Adjusting to change. I so admired Dad’s ability to pre-empt and prepare for inevitable change. A huge move was when Mum and Dad felt it was time to move out of Sunburst Ave, our family home in North Balwyn for 31 years. There was so much change in their life from then on. They had 6 years in Bedford Heights retirement village and certainly made the most of that time, and then the most painful time really, adjusting to life in a Nursing Home. Dad made that change so bravely and with his usual spirit of thankfulness. I was more distressed than him it seems, as I left him there on his first night on the 10 th of December 2010. He knew it was the right time and he settled in so well to the home at Thames Street, Box Hill, which was the same home he used to visit when he was an elder in this church. Mum was able to join him there a few months later and they have been able to spend the last 12 months there together.

JANET:

Dad has 11 grandchildren and 9 of them are here today. Sarah and Jeremy would have loved to be here too, but Sarah is due to have a baby any day so couldn’t travel interstate, and Jeremy is on the other side of the world in London.

Jeremy, David’s son, wrote an email to Dad on Saturday, which David read to Dad a few hours before he died.

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I’d like to read it here:

“I love you very much Grandpa. I love the person you have been, are and always will be, in my life. I wish I could be with you now, but I feel very much there by your side with my spirit.

I have cried a fair bit thinking about you, how you must be feeling and what I imagine it’d be like for you and Nana during this time. I know your soul has glowed abundantly (both together as a team with Nana, and individually) on my life, as well as all those you’ve shared your life with. I know that outpouring of life and love you have given to people and nature will spread through the ongoing life on earth forever. And your soul will live on. I love you Grandpa.”

Dad has 14 great-grandchildren, ranging in age from nearly 12 to minus a few days!

The example of a wonderful life, so well-lived, is a great inspiration and example to all of us, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We love you Dad and will miss you terribly, but we know you are now in a better place, free and joyful, and we all have many wonderful memories that will always be with us.

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Ron Carne’s Memorial Program

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A Tribute To Joan Carne May 17, 2012 - Tribute to Mum from the children

Celebrate the Life! DAVID Janet, Hilly, Heather and I want to thank you all as well for coming to share in this Thanksgiving Service for our mother. We want to spend a bit of time now, talking to you about our very precious mum, who has finally left her body and this earth now, to join our dad, and to be with Jesus.

Mum .... or “Aunty Joan”, “Nanna”, “Great Nanna” ... and of course “Joan”, to most of you, was born at St Georges Hospital, Kew on 14th September 1922. (Over 90 years ago) She was the first of four children to George and Lilian Day.... all of us Day cousins, (and there are quite a few!) knew George and Lilian as Puppa and Nan. Mum recorded memories of her life in a document called “Joan’s Jottings”, written about 16 years ago now. My sisters and I are going to refer to, and quote from that, several times today as we talk about our very special mum.

She starts her writings by describing how she grew up in a “very happy family atmosphere”, starting in the Day family home in Walpole Street, Kew. Her aunties also lived there, George’s three younger sisters, Aunties Em, Gert and Floss, so it was a big family home with stables and a tennis court. Mum describes so many happy family parties there, tennis and Christmas parties, children doing concerts for the adults, and Chocolate Royals for the children! The youngest sister, Aunty Floss had 3 daughters, mums cousins,.... Barbara, Elizabeth and Alison ... all of whom mum was very fond of.

The Day (junior) family moved to 28 Currajong Avenue, Camberwell, when Mum was seven and her youngest brother Max was born. There was also her brother Alan, and her sister Marg. Max being the youngest was apparently quite a tease to his sister ... and reminding mum about that, when he visited her in hospital last week, brought a big smile of acknowledgement from her... so it must be true!

The Day children all attended the primary school in Camberwell and in 1934, Mum went to MLC for her secondary education. She says how much she loved it there and especially enjoyed the sporting and 146 | P a g e

musical activities. She played the violin in the school orchestra, and later the Old Collegians Orchestra and then after finishing school, she played in the Junior Conservatorium for a year or so. She says later in her letters how playing her violin in the little bush cottage where they first lived in the highlands of New Guinea, would bring crowds of curious little local children peering through the windows. The violin eventually succumbed to the humidity of the tropics and she said she never played again. I do dispute this statement, however as we have a great photo, you may see in the slide show outside, with mum joyfully playing my wife Anne’s violin in Monbulk where we lived in the early 80s.

Mum had a great love for hockey too, and always played the Right Half Back position and won her colours for the school team. She still played hockey for several years after leaving school and played for the X Graduates, and then reached the squad for state selection, but did not make it further than that.

Family memories at the Day family home in Walpole Street also included all the tennis afternoons there on Saturdays with family and friends, when mum was a child. This obviously started a long enjoyment of that game for Mum. She played on a variety of very rough handmade courts while living in New Guinea and when returning to live in Australia, was still playing regular weekly tennis with her sister Marg, and brother Alan and sister-in-law Ailsa well in to her late 70’s.

I think eventually vertigo when she served and a broken wrist, were the things that stopped her playing. I’d like to mention mum’s brother Alan here, who is only a couple of years younger than mum, as he has also shown the same family sporting prowess, especially in golf and tennis and was playing both very well up until his hip replacement a few weeks ago. He is determined to get back to both, as soon as he can... or as soon as Libby will let him!

HEATHER About Nanna (Comments by Heather on behalf of the grandchildren)

Mum had 11 grandchildren and 15¾ great grandchildren and her life has made an indelible impression on each one of them. When asked about their experience and recollections of their Nanna, the stories and memories flowed freely:

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

Memories of the dining table at Sunburst Avenue laden with food – quiche lorraine, sumptuous roasts, delicious desserts, icy poles from the freezer under the house;



Memories of flowers – the magical garden with its wonder world of colour and the lurking danger of rose thorns; and flowers in magnificent arrangements around the house, often fighting for space on that dining table laden with food;



Memories of toys, a seemingly endless array of toys to be explored in the garage, ridden down the footpath, hit or kicked around the backyard; and the once-fashionable Harma Beads that filled the time of many a rainy day.

So many wonderful memories.

But the most significant recollections were not so much about what Nanna did as about who Nanna was. Her personality, her passions, her qualities: these are the things that her grandchildren cherish most! Like sunshine, one said: always warm, joyful, peaceful, loving, light.

Nanna was kind, loving, generous; wise, caring, creative.

Nanna was stylish: with her fashionable clothes, silver hair, classic perm, pink lippy – one of the grandchildren thought she looked like a member of the Royal Family!

Her smile was inviting and her laugh infectious. Her interest and pride in her grandchildren was evident to others (who were subjected to endless photos), but more significantly, it was felt by the grandchildren themselves.

Nanna was a source of wisdom and experience. She loved her grandchildren (and they were left in no doubt of that), and they loved her in return.

Perhaps the best tribute that can be made to any person is that they have had a positive impact on the lives of others. That is certainly true of Nanna: her passions, her values, her qualities have actually shaped the lives of her grandchildren and, through them, the lives of her great grandchildren. They have chosen to adopt these values as their own, and in that way Nanna’s influence will live on, continuing to form their lives and the lives of generations to come. On behalf of all the grandchildren: thank you, Nanna. 148 | P a g e

DAVID

World War II broke out the year Mum left school and she trained in the science of Metrology (weight and measures) and worked in a high security munitions supply and national standards laboratory in Maribyrnong for seven years. This involved calibration of precision instruments use at that time for wartime purposes. It was during this time that Mum met Dad in 1944. I talked a lot about mum and dad’s relationship last year when talking about Dad on this very spot, and so I won’t repeat it all now, except to say they were married in 1947 soon after the war was over.

Mum’s two bridesmaids are both here today and I want to say a bit about them and how much they meant to Mum.

Mum’s sister Marg had an incredibly close relationship with Mum. Mum often described the times at Currajong Ave when she returned from New Guinea, when Janet was born, and stayed there for some time, while dad was overseas doing a course in Tropical Agriculture. Her younger sister, Marg, was recovering from Polio and immobilised in a plaster cast for the best part of a year, but helped out so much looking after Janet as a baby. I’d like to read what Mum wrote about that time.

“I can still picture Marg on her trolley bed out under the Jacaranda tree at Currajong Avenue, with a carpet of mauve petals on the grass, and Janet and Marg entertaining each other for hours at a time!”

Something deep bonded between those sisters.

For the next 27 years, while mum and dad were in New Guinea, they wrote to each other every week and not just short little notes, but long detailed letters about all that was going on in their lives. Marg was like a second mother to Janet and I when we returned from PNG to live with our Nan for schooling in the 1960s.

When mum and dad returned from PNG in 1975, there were very few days when Marg was not in contact with mum or visa versa. I know while Mum and dad were in Bedford Heights Retirement Village, Marg visited them almost every day even when she probably should not have been driving! She would always bring something delicious to eat and so I benefitted if I happened to be visiting as well. We have a deep 149 | P a g e

gratitude to you A. Marg, for all that you were for mum and to all of us “Carne kids”. A very big Thank you .... and we were glad you were able to get in to see mum when you came in each time over the last week, with the help of your family. Our Hewitt cousins (Rob, Peter, Mike and Doug) were a big part of our life for many years and Mum was Peter’s Godmother. I know you all thought of mum in similar ways we think of Aunty Marg.

Aunty Ruth was mum’s other bridesmaid and she is here today as well. Ruth is dad’s younger sister and she met, fell in love with dad’s groomsman, Jack Krigsman, at mum and dad’s wedding and they were later married. Ruth has just celebrated her 90th birthday surrounded by her children, nephews and nieces as well as her many grandchildren and great grand children. She also has held family values very highly, like mum, and at her 90th celebration we all enjoyed talking about aspects of her life that were important to us. Ruth’s children, Ronald, Graeme, Margie and Ian, our Krigsman cousins... were also great friends to us growing up. Thank Aunty Ruth for all you were to mum. I know what you felt about mum and that you will miss her very much too.

Mum was a great communicator! I mentioned all her letters to Aunty Marg but then there were also weekly letters to her mother, dad’s parents, and when Janet, Hilly and I all came back to Australia, weekly letters to us as well. She has beautiful flowing script and a had way of expressing things about day to day life and feelings that made us feel so much part of what she was going through. It was the highlight of the week when the postman delivered her letter and we all developed a Sunday afternoon routine to sit down and write back. I know we all personally looked forward so much to those weekly letters when we were down here for school and learnt how much value mum placed on hearing from us as well.

Another aspect of the importance mum put on relationships was her MLC gang. A group of ten friends from when they were together at school in the 1930s have stayed closely in touch ever since, with an annual chain letter lasting for many years when they were in different countries and then annual gets togethers after that. There is only one member left from that group of ten now ... Aunty Julie, in Perth. She is a cousin of mum’s through the Day side and stayed very close to mum over the years.

She wrote her tribute to mum with some flowers this week that said, ”She was my friend all my life.” Julie was a great traveller and treated all of us Carnes as special people, she visited us while we were in the UK several times. .Julie has three daughters, Jolin (Who is mum’s god-daughter), Pam, and Elizabeth. The 150 | P a g e

interesting thing about this group of ten school friends from the 1930s, is that the next generation of daughters have also become very good friends. Libby, Heather King’s daughter, said goodbye to her mother, just last Friday. Heather and Mum were the only remaining members left in Melbourne until then. So, Libby, our Hilary, Pam (Aunty Julie’s daughter) and Janet Torode all still keep in touch regularly.

When mum and dad started attending Trinity Uniting, just up the road from here, on returning from PNG in the mid 70s, that started another group of very close friends in the church community there. These relationships meant a lot to mum, I know. There was a smaller group from Trinity that got together regularly for their birthdays over many years. Dad, when he was alive, being the only surviving spouse, joined in with these and was made quite a fuss of I, believe! This group included, Vera, Edith, Marg and June.

Then there are her friends at Thames Street where mum and dad spent their final few years. We got to know most of them well, when we visited mum and dad over that time, and we feel grateful to them for all their care and support towards mum, especially in recent months. The staff at Thames St., also were a real support to mum and we all want to thank them, as well for all their care.

HILARY

Mum (and dad) taught us so many things, but we all agree that one of the most precious things we learnt from them was to know and love God. God was a part of who they were and they lived His love and truth out in their lives.

Mum often said to me that her grandmother Amelia was a big influence in her life and they talked about spiritual things a lot. They were very close and mum reckoned that as Grandma Amelia’s first grandchild she might have received an extra dose of her attention and affection (not sure if Alan Max & Marg would agree with that or not).

Mum actually said she had often wanted to be a missionary, but, as she says in her “Joan’s Jottings” she “quite happily settled in to being an agronomist’s wife in PNG.” Her early life there actually consisted of a lot rougher living conditions than most missionaries face today, including me. And seeing she had often

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wanted to be a missionary herself she couldn’t really object when I headed that way for most of my working life!!

Some of mum’s earliest friends in PNG were Lutheran missionaries. Before they had a Landrover mum and dad use to ride horses over to see them, 18 km away. Later when SIL set up their PNG centre in the same valley as Aiyura, Mum and Dad had some very good friends amongst the SIL people. I still hear stories of Mum’s hospitality and gardening skills from various people who were there over those PNG years. They talk of many wonderful hours shared over meals, gardening, flower arranging, cake decorating, picnics, Bible Studies, tennis, and afternoon teas.

1948 - Ron and Joan Carne and their horses in Aiyura Valley (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

Then when dad retired and they came back to Australia, mum joined the Wycliffe Women’s group at Kangaroo Ground. She was on the catering committee and her gift of hospitality was put to good use. That formed another group of friends who were really important to mum.

We all have different gifts and skills – mum seemed to have an abundance of them, and she certainly used them all to share, care and bless other people. 152 | P a g e

JANET

When you think of mum, one of the first things that comes to mind for many people is flowers. Mum had a passion for flowers. She established flower gardens in every one of the many homes she lived in.

She loved picking and arranging flowers, and created many beautiful vases for church services, weddings and other special occasions, as well as just to place in her own home. She could often be found in the garden, and she had a compulsion to stick bits of cuttings into propagating mix, to see what she could grow. I have many of these lovely plants in my garden now as a result.

Mum had a wonderful sense of colour - and this showed in her floral arrangements, and in how she combined colours so skillfully in the way she dressed, and in her other craft and sewing projects.

Mum has always loved sewing, and speaking of her early days in PNG she writes, “With no local shops to buy anything I spent a lot of time sewing – often using parachute material. I made cushions using sponge rubber out of seats in crashed planes on the Aiyura airstrip, and stuffed other cushions with wool shorn from sheep that had been brought to trial on the Ag. Station”.

She also talked of boiling together red and white parachute material to make pink curtains. The coloured parachutes had been saved from food drops during the war.

Later in her time in Aiyura, over a period of then years, mum ran a weekly Aiyura Women’s Club for the wives of PNG men employed on the station and women from nearby villages. CWA groups in Victoria supported the club by sending money to buy tredle and hand sewing machines. Mum bought bolts of fabric from the Chinese trade stores in Lae, and taught the women to cut out and sew simple items of clothing. Up to 60 women and their young children would attend and Mum would start by reading stories from the pidgin translation of the New Testament. She also gave talks on nutrition and hygiene. One time when I was visiting with Tim who was then a few weeks old, we gave a demonstration of bathing a new baby. (Tim probably doesn’t remember it!)

Hilly still has contact with some of these women and they speak fondly of mum and tell her of the ways they use what Mum taught them. 153 | P a g e

Mum’s culinary skills are another thing she is remembered for, (as the grandchildren have mentioned). In the kitchen mum was very particular about getting everything just right and presenting food well; but in case you think she was a saint, she was also known for leaving behind her a messy kitchen with a trail of dirty dishes and saucepans; which dad after his retirement often cleaned up after her.

DAVID

I would also like to talk about mum’s courage as many people have commented about that. It certainly was very apparent, over the last week of her life in Mitcham Hospital.... as well as the last eleven months at Thames Street, after dad died.

I think mum’s family saw her courage back in 1947 when she knew in her heart she wanted to live with dad in a third world country after they were married. She had a very comfortable life style here in Australia, but she chose to follow her follow her heart to live and set up home with dad, in a remote part of New Guinea. I loved how our Nan and Puppa fully supported mum in her desire to do what they did. I think granddaughter Sarah has inherited some of that courage, determination and commitment that mum had. She just flown back from Uganda where she now lives with her husband and baby son, to attend this service for her Nanna.

Janet will read a passage from mum’s writings describing her experience when she first arrived in New Guinea in 1947.

JANET

“My first impression of Lae was not very favourable. The hot, humid climate was a bit of a shock to the system for a Melbournite like me! The town was surrounded by jungle and strewn with war debris – old jeeps, crashed planes, a half submerged ship wreck in the Harbour, piles of Mardsen matting, 44 gal. drums and caves dug out of the hill side by the Japanese for a hospital and hide-outs. No one seemed interested in a couple of newly weds arriving on the scene! The Hotel Cecil, where we stayed, was part of an old AWAS camp in a clearing of the jungle, which served up hot greasy stew for most meals. We slept under heavy army mosquito netting and watched the geckos climb up the low partitions between the room, and looked for scorpions in our shoes”. 154 | P a g e

DAVID

I was born in this town, Lae, a few years later (over 60 years ago now!) and fortunately the hospital in a cave in the hill, was replaced by an old tin shed they called the army hospital, by then. Mum certainly displayed some courage to have me there (not that there was much choice probably!).... but anyway, I don’t think I am any the worse for wear for it!

Mum goes on to describe her journey by air from Lae, up to their home in the highlands.

JANET

“We set off in a little fabric coated Dragon 6-seater biplane, had a remarkable bone-shaking flight up a wide valley, looking down on the lacy outline of a multi-stream Markham river. After hours of flying our little plane huffed and puffed and struggled to climb up and over the Kassam pass into the highland plateau. We flew over the surrounding hills to the little flat bottomed valley of Aiyura where the Ag station was situated, where were to spend so much of our 27 years in PNG. We landed on the minute grass airstip at 5,000 ft. above sea level and were met by Aub and Ancie Schindler”.

DAVID

And that started another very long and special family friendship. Aub and Ancie’s three children, Peter, Ivan and Gillian, our childhood friends, all still keep in touch with us and regard us as family, and have all written and expressed how much they feel in their memories of their “Auntie Joan”.

As much as her first impressions were not that favourable, mum actually absolutely loved her life in New Guinea and her writings are full of that.

I am sure most people who knew mum would say, that there was joy in her life that would naturally draw you to her and made you want to just be with her.

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1970s - Peter, Ivan and Gillian (Photo Courtesy of Peter Schindler)

JANET

Our dear Mum!

In many ways we have been grieving for mum for the last few years, - as she bravely recovered from a broken hip, moved into a care facility with Dad, watched him become frailer, and then lost him.

After Dad died mum became increasingly confused and frail herself. It has been really hard seeing her losing her independence, and trying to make sense of the world around her.

During these recent, difficult years Hilly has been an immeasurable support to mum (as she was to dad), visiting almost every day and caring for them so wonderfully. David and Heather and I will never be able to thank her enough.

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But, now we have a real joy in our hearts that mum is no longer perplexed but at peace, and in her real home, and as Hilly says, worshipping God and dancing with dad! And we can say, as mum would, the beautiful words of Psalm 23, which Matt will read to us in a minute.

Psalm 23 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

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Joan Carne’s Memorial Program

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Ron and Joan Carne’s 25 Wedding Anniversary – August 7, 1972 th

August 7, 1947 Wedding party – Jack Krigsman, Ruth Carne, Ron, Joan, Ron Cooper, Marg Day (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

August 7, 1972 – 25th Wedding Anniversary (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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August 7, 1972 – 25th Wedding Anniversary party (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

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Chapter 11 The Carnes’ Family Today Here is just a quick snapshot of the Carne children:

Janet and her husband Mike live in Sydney, Australia. They have four children and fifteen grandchildren. David and wife Anne live in Melbourne, Australia. They have three children and soon to be five grandchildren. Hilary retired from Wycliffe Bible Translators and is living in SE Queensland, Australia. Heather and husband David live in Melbourne, Australia. They have four children and three grandchildren.

2013 - The Carne siblings (L- R) Heather, David, Hilary and Janet (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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The Carne Children And Their Spouses

2015 - The Carne siblings and spouses (L- R) David and Heather (Carne) Brooker, Anne and David Carne, Hilary Carne, Janet (Carne) and Mike Knight (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

Mike and Janet (Carne) Knight Family

Mike and Janet (Carne) Knight family (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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David and Anne Carne Family

David and Anne Carne family (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

David and Heather (Carne) Brooker Family

David and Heather (Carne) Brooker family (Photo courtesy of Hilary Carne)

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Appendix

The Australian Women's Weekly Wednesday 26 May 1954

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The advertisement for Agronomists or Agricultural Officers with the Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries, in the Territory of Papua-New Guinea that Ron Carnes saw in the November 30, 1946 edition of the Canberra Times.

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Bibliography Aiyura Valley, Photos, Australian War Memorial, <http://cas.awm.gov.au/photograph/099617> Clarke, Wendy, Online Posting, Lae-Markum Reunion Souvenir Booklet <http://www.docstoc.com/docs/38642853/Souvenir_20Guest_20Booklet_202006> Godbold, Kim Elizabether, Online Posting, Didiman: Australian Agricultural Extension Officers in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (1945-1975), Queensland University of Technology, Humanities Program, 2010; 129-131. <http://eprints.qut.edu.au/37665/1/Kim_Godbold_Thesis.pdf> Kershaw, Hollie Smith, Kainantu, Gateway to the Highlands, Marquell Press, Goroka, 1986: 46-49. Pyrethrum, Online Posting, Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrethrum>

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About The Author

Charles Micheals is a native of Michigan and lived the first thirty years of his life there, eventually working in the grocery industry. In 1985, Charles, his wife Barbara and their four small children joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and moved to the country of Papua New Guinea (PNG) where they worked with the internationally known non-profit linguistic organization, SIL International (formerly the Summer Institute of Linguistics). Charles served in a variety of administrative roles in PNG, including several years as the Chairman of the SIL PNG Job Evaluation and Wage Review Committee and on the SIL PNG Executive Committee.

During their 15 years of service in PNG, Bible translation work was completed in 67 languages and over 100 additional Bible translation projects were started. Today, almost 180 language communities, representing 1.8 million people in PNG have access to the Scriptures in their own languages.

In 2000, Charles and Barbara moved back to the USA and Charles served for several years as the Regional Director for Recruitment for Wycliffe, living in the Chicago, Illinois area. In 2004 they moved to Orlando, Florida where Charles served for six and one half years as the Vice President for Recruitment Ministries for Wycliffe. He currently heads up Wycliffe’s Management and Professional Recruitment Department and speaks at various mission conferences and colleges each year. Barbara helps coordinate Wycliffe international internship program.

Charles holds a BS degree in Food Distribution from Western Michigan University and a MA degree in Organization Management from Dallas Baptist University. He served on the Board of Directors for The Finishers Project, a non-profit mission dedicated to helping people in the second half of life find places to serve in missions. He has also been involved in helping create and develop Mission Teach, a ministry dedicated to helping place teachers in MK (Missionary Kid) mission schools around the world and Military

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Believer, a growing ministry dedicated to helping military personnel who are leaving the military, find opportunities for service in global missions.

Charles has also authored a number of articles about the work of SIL in PNG and other historical articles about life in the Aiyura Valley in PNG. (http://issuu.com/cbmicheals)

Both Charles and Barbara are members of Saint Andrew’s church in Sanford, FL and are involved in a variety of church activities there. Charles serves as an elder at the church. However, they are still members of Second Christian Reformed Church, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is the church that commissioned them for their work with Wycliffe. All four of their children are actively supporting missions and church ministry work. Two of their four children are serving with Wycliffe around the world.

(Back cover – Ron and Joan Carne’s wedding photo – August 7, 1947)

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c

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