Project Description
His parents had migrated to Australia in 1909. George believes his father, Delphin (perhaps Dolfu or Delfin) Espinos, came from Barcelona and George has no knowledge of his Spanish family.
Delphin was in his late teens when he came to Yoongarillup with the Ral family and helped them develop their farm. He also worked elsewhere before marrying the Ral’s daughter, Remediu.
Delphin then purchased approximately 170 acres of his own land and began farming. George describes the working lives of the Spanish immigrants. Growing grapes and producing wine was an integral part of Yoongarillup’s Spanish community.
Making the wine was traditional (stomping on the grapes in a vat). Ultimately most of the vines were removed and the family focused on cattle.
Delphin and Remediu went on to raise seven children and George was the second born. Delphin farmed as well as taking on other local work until he tragically died on Christmas Day, 1925, as the result of injuries sustained in an accident loading timber on the Busselton Jetty.
Remediu remarried within 12 months and, with Manuel Mas, she had a further five children.
George left home at 14 years of age and worked on a farm at Ruabon. Then he moved on to Jimmy Mitchell’s (eventually to become Premier, be knighted and appointed Governor of Western Australia) farm at Donnybrook.
With the help of his wife, Winnie (Gaines), whom he met while he was working at the Argyle Timber Mill, between Donnybrook and Boyanup, and married in Busselton in 1939, he established a successful dairy farm at Yoongarillup. They raised two boys, Keith and Trevor, and two girls, Rhonda and Judy, before retiring to live in Busselton in 1980 when Trevor took over the farm. George took up golf and they travelled.