MAGINE a town that time forgot, pioneers perched high on a hill with little more than the bare necessities. There was no running water, no sewerage system and no electricity. It was a time long before television and video games but the people of Old Adaminaby were happy with what they had.
Having little was a fact of life and they simply got on with things.
Cooma-Monaro Shire councillor Jenny Lawlis is looking forward to reunion activities planned for the shire in commemoration of the 60th reunion of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, which saw her quiet, little, country town flooded in the name of progress.
As a child Mrs Lawlis remembers running through the freezing family home in Old Adaminaby bare foot. Houses were poorly heated and many children suffered chilblains. Mrs Lawlis recalls nursing red, itchy swollen feet on a number of occasions but said no one ever complained it was just the way things were.
It was a different time, but soon Adaminabywas thrust into the 20th Century.
Adaminaby would take centre stage as the whole world watched, this tiny village transformed to play its part, in what would become a globally recognised and celebrated historical feat that is the Snowy Scheme.
“I was in fifth grade by the time we left. I can remember the Old Town. For a while we went by bus from the Old Town to the New Town for school before we eventually moved to Cooma,” Mrs Lawlis said.
Mr Lawlis said the family all lived in Old Adaminaby but when the time came fragmented and dispersed.
“I’m not sure why, I guess they just wanted to make a big change of a little change.”
Uncle Lennie and nanna Carter moved to New Adaminaby, but Mrs Lawlis’ other grandparents grandma and poppy Kennedy moved to Caddigate.
“Grandma Kennedy also bought a house in Adaminaby, for on the weekends. She wanted to keep up her social life.”
As the trucks rolled in to move the houses on to Old Adaminaby, Mrs Lawlis recalls getting in trouble from the nuns at St Joseph’s school. The children were so excited watching the trucks they got into trouble because they were watching the trucks and not where they were supposed to be.
“We had never seen anything like that before, even now you don’t really see houses and things moved whole.”
It snowed more than it does now and Frying Pan Creek was between Mrs Lawlis’ family home “Roseleigh” and her grandmothers place.
“One day when the creek was flooded my dad got a stick and pole vaulted across to the other side. He sat me on a rock and said don’t move until I get back. Now you couldn’t ask a child to sit and wait until their parents returned. I don’t know what I did to pass the time, but I didn’t wander very far.”
The village of Old Adaminaby had a post office, butcher shop, service station, general store and town hall.
On the way home from school Mrs Lawlis picked up a loaf of bread for the family. If her and siblings Michael, Susan and Dianne were a little peckish they would tuck into the bread on the way home, but then would be in big trouble when they got home.
Sausages occasionally were on the menu from Mr Yen and it was the children’s job to bring them home.
Without malice as a little joke Mr Yen would pop the children on the block and pretend to chop their heads off with his massive meat cleaver.
“I can’t remember being scared,” Mrs Lawlis said.
In recent times Mrs Lawlis has returned to the site of Old Adaminaby and was saddened to see the town resurfacing with the drought.
As the anniversary of the Scheme draws near Mrs Lawlis wants everyone to remember the
people who had their lives improved, enhanced, fragmented and displaced by the Scheme. The men, women and children who lived in Adaminaby before it was uprooted, flooded and never to be seen again.
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