Picture: J.L. “FRED” SMITH
THE life of late Millicent forester and conservationist Charles Pawsey has been fondly remembered by 30 local historians.
Millicent resident Dr Virginia Pawsey spoke of her father at the October monthly meeting in Millicent of the South East Family History Group.
Originally from Victoria, Mr Pawsey died in Millicent in 2004 aged 89.
Mr Pawsey spent much of his working life as a forester with the then State Government Woods and Forests Department at Mount Burr and then as a researcher in this area with the Federal Government.
Among his community interests were chairing the Millicent High School Council and co-founding the Millicent Field Naturalists.
Such community involvement led him to being awarded the Centenary of Federation Medal in 2003.
He married Zena Mowbray in 1941 whose father Reuben Mowbray was the long-serving editor and owner of The South Eastern Times.
They had a family of two daughters and one son and lived in a small timber house in the Mount Burr Forest Reserve.
His grandfather was Henry Kendall but Dr Pawsey said this was not the famed poet of the same name.
She said her father suffered from tuberculosis for three years and so he did not complete his secondary education until he was 20.
He was the dux of agriculture at his school and he won a scholarship to the University of Melbourne and later studied at the forestry school in Canberra.
“Dad worked as a junior staff member at Mount Burr from 1939 and did all the same labouring jobs in the forest as the other workers,” Dr Pawsey said.
“He spent a few years in the RAAF during the Second World War and then took charge of the Mount Burr research station in 1946.
“He remained there until his retirement in 1973.
“His life’s work was the selective breeding and cross-pollination of pine trees”.
Dr Pawsey displayed a number of photographs of her father’s life including two junior staff at the research station: Elizabeth Bonney (nee Bodfish) and Alayne Pettingill (nee Walter).
In their retirement years, the Pawseys built a home called Arramagong in a scrub block west of Millicent.
During his working life, Mr Pawsey befriended a number of Italian and German prisoners-of-war who were sent to work in this area as labourers on farms and in the forests.
As a result, he helped secure the migration of a number of members of the Mustillo family to Australia.
“The last of them is Gemma Mustillo, of Millicent,” Dr Pawsey said.
She described a childhood at Mount Burr with plenty of freedom.
“There was a swamp and we had a boat which was powered by an engine from a lawnmower.
“We had chooks and a vegetable patch and we even had a cow on the Crown land.
“Dad built his own caravan and we had holidays to places like Melbourne and Sydney.
“He saw that tracts of land would be conserved and recorded birds and especially migratory shore-birds.
“Dad was patient, caring, frugal, eccentric and independent.
“He cherished education and was a true gentleman.”
