Of hardships, health food and hats

Campus life challenges during an earlier worldwide crisis: The story of Olive Josephs

The year 2020. It is only halfway through and has already unloaded so many challenges. Newly enrolled students at Avondale University College scarcely had opportunity to introduce themselves to each other and to their studies before the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic—particularly the restrictions on gatherings—sent them packing home to continue their tertiary education online. Some media outlets have compared coronavirus to a war. While that is debatable, the Avondale students of today are not the first to face a worldwide crisis and the uncertainty it brings.

Olive (Buller) Josephs came to the then Australasian Missionary College during the war years (1942-43), another time of anxiety and uncertainly for staff members and students. While Avondale was far from the battlegrounds of World War II, it felt the financial stress and physical scars from it. Take, for example, the “slit trenches dug around the girls’ dormitory at the time the Japanese army was threatening Australia and reports were appearing of Japanese submarines in Sydney Harbour.”¹ Olive remembers the trenches when participating in required practice runs. Despite the trenches often harbouring muddy water, the students would have to dive into the nearest trench when the siren sounded.

Other not-so-hidden hardships were “the number of young women without stockings.” While less than ideal, the staff members “relaxed the rules in the workplace only, allowing girls to work without stockings if the supervisors gave permission.”²

Radios had always been forbidden in rooms because they “distracted” students from study. But as a compromise in 1940, the 10-minute news bulletin at 7 am each weekday was relayed from a radio in the residence director’s office through loudspeakers on the verandahs of the men’s and women’s residences.³

During her business studies course, Olive completed six classes before lunch and worked at the Sanitarium Health Food Company factory in the afternoon to help support the huge wartime demand for Weet-Bix.

Coming from a poor family, Olive made her own clothes but did not have the means to make a hat. A hat was required to attend church, so she agonised over finding a suitable one in Newcastle. A white straw hat with small brim trimmed with twisted tulle fitted her budget. Unfortunately, on the first day she wore it to church, Olive was pulled up by the eagle-eyed women’s residence director who noted the unacceptable flowers entwined in the tulle. Olive spent much time removing them but could never bring her modest hat back to its former glory.

Despite hardships, challenges and the comparative strictness, Olive made lifelong friends and experienced the blessing Avondale offered. She and husband Harold have financially supported Avondale through the decades. You will find their names on pavers in the Alumni Heritage Walk on Avondale’s Lake Macquarie campus.—with Shirley Tarburton

References

1. Milton Hook, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora (Cooranbong, New South Wales: Avondale Academic Press, 1998), 183.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 182.