North, Hazel

Hazel Margaret NORTH (nee McManus, previously Weir) was born on 23 April, 1913 in Victoria. Her father was Ernest, one of 13 children who had six stepbrothers. He was a farmer. Her mother was Balmer (nee Hellwege), of German descent, also born in Victoria. Her maternal grandfather, who died in 1916, had a business at Heathcote and supported many farmers during the Depression of 1914-16 and her grandmother, with whom they lived until 1915, had a boarding house in Wellington Mills. She sold it and moved to Bunbury to be near her sister Carrie who lived in Capel. The family joined Carrie and her husband, Aubrey Moore, who moved to Busselton in 1926 and ran a boarding house in Prince Street. The family ran the Sussex Boarding House from 1930 to 1942.

Hazel comments on the people she remembers and incidents that happened during her time working at the boarding house. After the war, her father bought a cordial factory in partnership with his brother which he ran from 1928 to 1952. From 1928 to 1933 Hazel took up a tailoring apprenticeship with G. R. Brown, in Perth then went to Mullewa for six months. After that she moved to Busselton.

Hazel talks about her many positions around Busselton and at Moffit’s in Geraldton where she made silks for jockeys. She became engaged to Jim Weir in April 1936 and they married in St Andrew’s Cathedral in Perth in 1938. They had two children, Peter James born 26 March 1939 and Kerry Mauree born 15 August 1942.

After the war her husband was offered a better job in South Australia so they moved there. They then bought the Post Office at Kirra in Queensland in December 1961 and a house in Currumbin. Jim left soon after – they sold Currumbin and split the proceeds.

She met Jack George but they were together only 15 weeks when he died and left her everything which enabled her to buy a home in 1979. She rekindled friendship with George North who visited her in Queensland and they were married on 16 September 1981.