Kathleen Maher might never have imagined she’d become the matriarch of what’s believed to be Australia’s biggest family when she stood admiring her favourite roses in a Shepparton store during The Great Depression.
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But, a strapping young stranger, named William (Bill) Scott, wandered by and bought her one.
The random romantic gesture sparked a more-than five-decade love affair that stood not only the test of time, but hardship, loss and grief, while producing more than 20 children.
Kathleen and Bill’s grandson, Robert Power, spoke to The News recently with undeniable love, pride and admiration for his grandparents; his mum Daphne’s parents, who married in 1931.
The pair conceived 25 children over 25 years, of which 22 survived, including 14 boys and eight girls, with two sets of twins among them.
“They lived on the riverbank at Daish’s Paddock between Shepparton and Mooroopna, just off the Causeway, in big marquee tents for 18 years,” Mr Power said, as he showed a photo of his grandmother, mother and aunty posing before a tent in bushland.
“Pop made a kitchen building, but I asked Mum where they all slept and she said they all had a bed each in big canvas tents.”
Mr Power said his ‘Nan’ had a knack for keeping sheets the whitest shade of white and that the “welfare people” visiting the makeshift homes along the river never felt the need to check on the Scotts “because they reckoned her dirt floor was cleaner than any house they’d been in”.
“People think they’ve got it hard today, but they had no electricity and no hot water down by the river,” he said.
“Mum used to go to the riverbank and there was a bucket on a rope and she’d throw it down there and pull it up full of water and that was her job.”
Daphne would also row her younger siblings to school when rising floodwaters all but cut the family off, while the other older kids also took on roles of responsibility, looking after the younger kids while their parents worked.
Bill was more than familiar with the rowboat as well, having rowed Kathleen to the Mooroopna Hospital, where all their children were born, to give birth several times when the river was in flood.
Eventually the family secured accommodation in a house on Benalla Rd when Bill got a job working on the property’s orchard.
It was during that time that a devastating quadruple-fatality crash just down the road claimed the lives of two of Kathleen and Bill’s sons, Albert and Joey.
“Nan never recovered from that,” Mr Power said.
“She outlived many of her children and it took its toll on her.”
Another of the couple’s children, one of their twins named Barbara, also died in traumatic circumstances when she was ran over by a bus at five years old.
The family eventually moved back in to Shepparton, into a home in Cameron Ave.
Bill was resourceful and skilled, taking on many jobs to make money, from working at Shepparton’s abattoirs and picking fruit, to gathering wool from dead sheep and breaking in horses.
As Bill and Kathleen’s kids grew, so too did their family.
Their kids had 54 children of their own, of which Kathleen also raised five of them, including twin boys whose father had been killed in the Shepparton East crash.
“I have 110 first cousins,” Mr Power said.
The arms of the devoted parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were always open to their family, and their family stayed close to the unwavering support.
“If there were 20 people at the house, she'd feed every one of them,” Mr Power said.
“I remember when they were alive, Nan and Pop, everyone used to meet at their place during the day.
“One of my aunties used to walk around with a notepad, ‘Do you want coffee, tea, white, sugar?’, like a waitress.
“Every day there'd be at least 20 to 30 people there visiting Nan and Pop.”
Sadly, in 1984, the family faced more loss when Bill died at 75.
“Pa died at home in bed, because he wouldn’t go to the hospital, and there were about 50 people in the bedroom when he died,” Mr Power said.
“How I miss those days where we used to all go around and all the cousins used to go out the back and we'd play cricket or footy, and all the aunties and uncles would be inside, gossiping and having cups of teas and coffees and biscuits and cakes.
“It was tradition, every day.”
Mr Power said his nan took up smoking at 83 because all of her sons smoked.
“So she thought she might as well,” he said.
“But she hated the smell on her fingers, so she would put the cigarette in a peg to smoke it.”
Despite taking on the habit late in life, raising 22 of her own children and five of her grandchildren, Kathleen lived until the ripe old age of 97.
She died in 2010 leaving a huge contribution to the Goulburn Valley population between her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Mr Power’s dream is to see his grandparents’ legacy recognised with something named after the family locally.
“I just see roads like Zurcas Rd and Furphy Rd,” he said.
“I don't know whether it's an achievement that my nan had 22 kids, but I think it's a pretty big achievement how she raised them.”
* With thanks to Shepparton Heritage Centre for providing key dates.