QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Uckermark to Fassifern

When a nearby school was opened in 1892, it was named Templin at the suggestion of a number of the immigrants. In the 1890s dairying replaced farming as the main industry in the Boonah area, and a creamery was built in the mid-1890s. However with the decreasing size of families by the mid-20th century, and the reduction of farmers in the district (as the small farms were taken over by large ones), the number of students dwindled and the school closed in 1974.

Some settlers in the Boonah area had already had farms in other areas, such as Walloon and the Logan River, while others moved on again, northwards to the Burnett. Johann Streiner opened a store and hotel in about 1882 on the Kents Pocket Road just outside Boonah, and the hotel was moved into the township two years later. Noel and Del Bergman recall some of their ancestors’ tales in the following anecdotes.

BRISBANE

Marburg

Ipswich

Templin

Boonah

“One family story we have on the Podlich family at Hoya near Boonah was that when Johann Podlich (my great-grandfather) took his crop to Ipswich to market, he would have a few drinks as one does. Story goes that his horse was so well trained that it would bring him home. There were also stories that, when they first arrived on their land, they would walk in circles around and around to flatten the brigalow scrub and grass before they could start clearing properly. “Another was that, before they had tanks or dams, my great-grandmother Christine Podlich ( nee Schrödter) would carry a wooden yoke on her shoulders, on which were suspended two kerosene cans, and walk to the nearest creek to collect water. Quite often she would have several little ones with her and, rather than carry them or have them walk back and forth for the water with her, she would place them in a dug-out hole in the creek bank so they would be safe. Akin to a natural playpen.”

Above left: The interior of Stumer’s slab hut at the Templin Historical Village Museum, 4km northwest of Boonah, sheds a little harsh light on the living conditions of the time, illustrated (main background) by this scene of a German family’s farm in the Fassifern Valley in about 1890; below is the Templin State School in its heyday, and, inset, a letter to the editor of The Courier-Mail published on 27 August 1936. Images courtesy Karen Ludlow and State Library of Queensland.

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