The Coraki cake and sweet shop, 1954
Our family lived in the small town of Coraki (opposite the Catholic church, school, and convent) before we moved to live in Inverell in 1954.
Link to Coraki, https://coraki.town/history link below for the history of Coraki, NSW.
Dad (Albert Ascoli, 1912-2001) worked my maternal
grandparent’s dairy farm which was situated just out of town on the Casino
Road. Albert had built a new dairy and was improving the farm.
See: Family Charts Patrick Gooley and Lenora Lulham family chart (my maternal grandparents).
Mum (Babe Gooley, 1906-1993) decided she could help the family finances by starting a shop from our home. Albert built a shop counter (through to one of the front rooms) so customers could order and collect their goods from the veranda. Babe catered for the school students, their parents and teachers, and any passing customers. It was the school tuckshop and the local cake and sweet shop. Babe recalled later that she also provided a lot of free scones and cakes to the nuns and priest for all their meetings. We also had lots of relatives visiting.
I remember so many beautiful home cooked treats in that
shop: sausage rolls, scones, sandwiches, butterfly cakes, lamingtons, lemon
cheese tarts, apple pies and turnovers, mushroom tarts (sweet caramel), biscuits,
toffees, marshmallows, etc. I knew little about my mother’s hard work and
organisation behind the shop.
I spent a lot of time on that veranda, resting, watching,
and helping my mother with that little shop as I recovered from Rheumatic Fever.
She nursed and helped me learn many things that were incorporated into our
everyday activities: maths from counting the tuckshop lunch monies; a love of reading
and writing stories; observing the weather; drawing and painting; observing and
communicating with the “customers”; and enjoying the variety of life around me.
I don’t remember going to a primary school until aged seven years when we moved
to Inverell.
Before my veranda days, I had spent a few weeks in the
Coraki Hospital. The indigenous children were segregated from the “children’s
ward”. Many of us children were on “complete bed rest” but this didn’t stop us
from getting together to play whenever opportunity knocked i.e., when our
“supervisory” nurses left the room for their long supper at night-time. In our
child’s night world there was no black and white. Just kids together.
Link to Coraki Hospital
My mother discharged me from the hospital the day Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip drove through Coraki from Woodburn to Lismore. This was a big event for a small town and a big event for me.
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Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip, Mayor Ray Granger and Mrs Granger, Lismore, 1954 www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=508733907285580&set=pcb.508789267280044 |
From the side of the road I waved at a car driving through Coraki on a wet day and saw no one. Many children were assembled from the small rural towns surrounding Lismore to welcome the Queen.
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Children assembled for Queen Elizabeth II visit Lismore, 1954 www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=508733940618910&set=pcb.508789267280044 |
After that Royal visit there was major flooding of the Richmond River with lives lost, and many farms and homes destroyed. Our home in Coraki was safe but the waters came up to the back veranda and we saw many animals (including snakes) escaping from the flood.
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Coraki Flood, 1954 https://www.facebook.com/groups/505841739803055/permalink/1828159654237917/ Good Days in and around Casino, Facebook. accessed 18 May 2023 |
My mother recalled later how those last years in Coraki were difficult ones for the family with lack of money and family tensions with the farm management. All I remember is a joyful family and that last Coraki Christmas, Santa delivered a canoe for my brother and a child’s table and chairs set for me. Presents, of course, made by Albert.
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| Cousins (Barbara, Robert, Kay and Ken) at the Coraki farm. Abt 1954 |
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| Cousins (Judy and Barbara) at Coraki farm. Millet in the cart ready for brooms. Abt 1955 |
Babe and Albert had busy lives in the five homes they lived in the Richmond River District in the 1940s-1950s. Babe’s little shop was a sweet memory from those years.
RECIPES
Babe's Marshmallows
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons gelatine, 1 cup cold water, 4 cups of sugar, 1 and half cups hot water, flavouring e.g. vanilla or rose water, shredded coconut (roasted in the oven).
Method:
Soak gelatine in cold water.
Slowly bring sugar and hot water to the boil. Add soaked gelatine. Boil 20 minutes.
Pour mixture into a large mixing bowl. Cool and add flavouring.
Beat cooled mixture in an electric mixer until mixture thickens. Beat well.
Prepare a square cake tin by wetting all the inside surfaces. Pour mixture into tray. Place in fridge.
When mixture is set and cold, use a wetted knife to cut into squares and toss squares in toasted coconut.
Other toppings is a mixture of icing sugar and cornflour (mixed together). Toppings prevent marshmallows from sticking together.
LAMINGTONS
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| Lamingtons The Australian Women's Weekly, Cakes and Slices Cookbook, pp 62-63 |
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| Confectionery Caramels, toffees, caramel creams etc. The Australian Women's Weekly, Celebration cookbook, pp 71-73 |
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