RILEY Hector Vida. RILEY Hector Vida.
1954-2006
Written by Phillip Riley
My father took up virgin land south of Nyabing (Kojonup locations 6663 & 6671) in 1954. My brother Hector and my father built our first building of one room that same year.
Mum, dad, sister Mary, younger brother Thomas and I moved to Nyabing at Easter in 1955. Mary and I started school in Nyabing after Easter and Thomas and I did all our schooling in Nyabing while Mary went to Perth for high school.
My parents cleared the first hundred acres with axes. Mum also did housework and cooking for Bulla Stephens who had general store, Vernon’s who had the garage and Massey agency, and also Gillis who had Nyabing Inn. She travelled in on the school bus.
Our first tractor was a Ford with Ferguson system and our machinery consisted of a Gaston eight-disc plough, 16-run Sunshine combine and a 5-foot Sunshine harvester.
In 1959 Dad lost his left arm when he slipped off the back of a truck and into the front of an AL harvester while helping George Hobley put oats back through the harvester to clean for seed.
In 1959, my brother Hector moved to Nyabing and took up a virgin block with Jim Loban in 1960. This is now Jim’s daughter Kate and Dave Ogle’s place. Hector died in 1961 in Gnowangerup Hospital, aged 21 years, as a result of a gunshot wound he received while kangaroo shooting.
Dad took up more virgin land in 1960 (Kojonup location 9840) which was later split up between my brother Robert and myself. Dad died in 1973, aged 65 years, and I took over running the original farm for my mother until 2000. When she died at 88 years of age the property was left to Thomas.
I also went shearing for twenty years around Nyabing and Gnowangerup until the farm could support us. I married Carol in 1982 and we had two children; Tara in 1983 and Brock in 1984. They both attended Nyabing Primary School and then went to Swanleigh Boarding School while attending Governor Stirling High School. Tara attended for five years and Brock for three years then attended Narrogin Agricultural College for two years.
Carol worked at Gnowangerup and Katanning hospitals as a nurse, and this helped to supplement the farm income. We lost Brock in a car accident in December 2004 aged just 20 years.
After selling the farm in 2006 to Ben & Jarrad Hobley, we moved to Albany where we still reside and enjoy travelling.
Can anyone provide any photos of the Riley family or of their time in Nyabing please?
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