But their bad luck continued when in 1912 one of the children accidently set fire to the house destroying everything. On his return journey he would bring back mail and supplies for his neighbors and so their house became an unofficial post office. Slowly Edwin Beale rebuilt the house, working long hours and continuing to work his farm while also using a horse and cart to take produce down to Moe for the local farmers. They had been in the area since 1903 and had finished building a small house when fire ripped through the district, destroying their home in 1906. He became the spokesperson for the progress association and wrote numerous letters to the local shire regarding civic matters for the little community. If you travel up that way today, you will come across Ballantynes Road, named after Conrad’s parents. Albert Adolphus was obviously a well educated and liked man. By 1915 they had built a small house and had cleared enough land to support themselves.

When the Ballantynes took up a selection in Fumina in 1909 they had two children, Irena and Conrad. In 1892 he married a dutch girl by the name of Wilhelmena Rieke. In the newspaper reports, Conrad is referred to as a half- caste aboriginal which is incorrect – his dark skin would have come from his father’s African/Carribean blood lines. Albert Adolphus arrived in Australia as a crewman on board the Sophocles in 1888. Vincent, a small island nation located in the Carribean. Conrad’s father was a well liked and respected man by the name of Albert Adolphus Ballantyne. Both Conrad’s family and the Beale family were amongst the first non-indigenous settlers in the area. The man wanted in connection with the shootings was a neighbor and friend called Conrad Vincent Ballantyne. This area is so isolated that it took nearly 24 hours to get a message through and arrange a car to take the injured women down the mountain to Warragul Hospital to seek medical help. The women were in the residence connected to the post office when the gunman entered and shot them with a borrowed gun. On the evening of Friday the 25th of February 1921, a young man armed with a shotgun broke into the local post office in Fumina and shot the postmistress and her young step-daughter, Amy and Edith Beale. Some of the background, particularly personal impressions, has come from his article. Alan Beale wrote a wonderful article from family reminiscences about what he called the Fumina Incident. I cannot take credit for much of the background in this article, I found the bare bones while trolling through court cases but it was on that the story gained it’s human touch. It takes a particular breed of people to live and flourish in these environs and that is what this story is all about, some very remarkable people. The bush in this part of Gippsland can be cruel – numerous bushfires have wiped out the settlement and in winter the snows can cover the ground. There is a small isolated community set high in the hills near Mt.

Richard finch ethnicity