quality control and time and motion, chemists with bubbling beakers and temperature-controlled processing plants. âAs I found out yesterday,â he offered, âmaybe Iâm a relic . . . still.â
Instead of getting straight to it, disinfecting crushers and fermenting barrels, repairing faulty bubblers and converting the house into a winery, he fetched a tawny port from their cold cellar (where soldiers had once searched for Mein Kampf ) and joined Joshua around the fire of Blumaâs kitchen, forever stoked, eternally warming the cottage.
After a while the talk turned to the past. William fetched his family photographs, tied up in a Blundstone boot box from his fatherâs day. Sacred of the sacred was a photo showing his father, Robert, helping his grandfather, Anthelm, build the walls of the very cottage they were sitting in. âBefore then it was a wattle and daub cottage with a thatched roof,â William said, going on to explain how, as a boy, Robert would sleep beside contented cattle under the single roof which formed their home. In the background the Muller vines were already flourishing and the half-finished spire of St Johnâs, at Ebenezer, was pointing towards a sky of hot north easterlies and unpredictable dust storms.
Another photograph showed Robert and Brigid, his wife, sheltering from a rainstorm inside a hollowed-out gum tree a family named Herbig had lived in for years. The back read Newly joyned in Godâs eyes, 1898, Springton, B. Valley .
William pulled out pictures of himself, excitedly explaining them to Joshua as he spilt his port and mopped it up with his sleeve, pouring himself another and topping up Joshua. Photos taken by cameras he wouldnât have in his own house: him as a part of the Lutheran Boyâs Club, a group of serious kids in overalls restoring an early Thomas Carter stripper. Bluma and her sister working at Lauckeâs mill as girls, sewing up bags of flour. Nathan as a baby, being held by a nurse on the front steps of Scholzâs Willow Hospital at Light Pass. A car wreck on Godâs Hill Road which had killed a young Latin teacher from town, six months out of college. Festival displays of wurst. Streetscapes. An old Turk whoâd set up a trash and treasure outside the deserted Ampol on Murray Street. No one could remember anyone buying anything, until one day he was gone, taking his prayer mat and stubble with him. And finally, a serious portrait of Anthelm, clutching a Bible, now lost, in which Pastor Kavel, the valleyâs founding father, had supposedly written. Possibly explaining why heâd led his followers (Anthelm barely moving out of his shadow) from Silesia to England, across seas under hostile skies to Port Adelaide. There to settle amongst the gum trees and black fellas, experimenting with new forms of blutwurst beside the River Torrens.
And the only other shot of Anthelm, standing beside his wife Margaret on a block of virgin land they would tame and make productive. Sustaining generations until Christ returned to reward them for keeping the faith. Establishing a thousand-year dynasty in which everything would remain much the same, cucumbers grown, preserved and eaten within the boundaries of their new Eden.
âAnthelm took me further away from the church, but closer to God,â William explained.
Because of Anthelm and Kavel, the Lutherans had been given the opportunity of bringing the true Christ to Australia. Spreading His word through Hermannsburg and Boundary Gate and a dozen other missions to black fellas, who, if the truth be known, were probably beyond salvation. But in the tradition of Luther and Kavel they had to try. When Christ returned he would ask them, âWhat did you do to save others?â And they would have to be ready with a reply.
The last photo was Elizabeth Street, Tanunda, 1936, a whole convoy of tractors driving towards Nuriootpa. Joshua smiled and looked at William. âYou
Instead of getting straight to it, disinfecting crushers and fermenting barrels, repairing faulty bubblers and converting the house into a winery, he fetched a tawny port from their cold cellar (where soldiers had once searched for Mein Kampf ) and joined Joshua around the fire of Blumaâs kitchen, forever stoked, eternally warming the cottage.
After a while the talk turned to the past. William fetched his family photographs, tied up in a Blundstone boot box from his fatherâs day. Sacred of the sacred was a photo showing his father, Robert, helping his grandfather, Anthelm, build the walls of the very cottage they were sitting in. âBefore then it was a wattle and daub cottage with a thatched roof,â William said, going on to explain how, as a boy, Robert would sleep beside contented cattle under the single roof which formed their home. In the background the Muller vines were already flourishing and the half-finished spire of St Johnâs, at Ebenezer, was pointing towards a sky of hot north easterlies and unpredictable dust storms.
Another photograph showed Robert and Brigid, his wife, sheltering from a rainstorm inside a hollowed-out gum tree a family named Herbig had lived in for years. The back read Newly joyned in Godâs eyes, 1898, Springton, B. Valley .
William pulled out pictures of himself, excitedly explaining them to Joshua as he spilt his port and mopped it up with his sleeve, pouring himself another and topping up Joshua. Photos taken by cameras he wouldnât have in his own house: him as a part of the Lutheran Boyâs Club, a group of serious kids in overalls restoring an early Thomas Carter stripper. Bluma and her sister working at Lauckeâs mill as girls, sewing up bags of flour. Nathan as a baby, being held by a nurse on the front steps of Scholzâs Willow Hospital at Light Pass. A car wreck on Godâs Hill Road which had killed a young Latin teacher from town, six months out of college. Festival displays of wurst. Streetscapes. An old Turk whoâd set up a trash and treasure outside the deserted Ampol on Murray Street. No one could remember anyone buying anything, until one day he was gone, taking his prayer mat and stubble with him. And finally, a serious portrait of Anthelm, clutching a Bible, now lost, in which Pastor Kavel, the valleyâs founding father, had supposedly written. Possibly explaining why heâd led his followers (Anthelm barely moving out of his shadow) from Silesia to England, across seas under hostile skies to Port Adelaide. There to settle amongst the gum trees and black fellas, experimenting with new forms of blutwurst beside the River Torrens.
And the only other shot of Anthelm, standing beside his wife Margaret on a block of virgin land they would tame and make productive. Sustaining generations until Christ returned to reward them for keeping the faith. Establishing a thousand-year dynasty in which everything would remain much the same, cucumbers grown, preserved and eaten within the boundaries of their new Eden.
âAnthelm took me further away from the church, but closer to God,â William explained.
Because of Anthelm and Kavel, the Lutherans had been given the opportunity of bringing the true Christ to Australia. Spreading His word through Hermannsburg and Boundary Gate and a dozen other missions to black fellas, who, if the truth be known, were probably beyond salvation. But in the tradition of Luther and Kavel they had to try. When Christ returned he would ask them, âWhat did you do to save others?â And they would have to be ready with a reply.
The last photo was Elizabeth Street, Tanunda, 1936, a whole convoy of tractors driving towards Nuriootpa. Joshua smiled and looked at William. âYou
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