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Showing posts from January, 2023

Our family home - 69 Rayleigh Street, Wallangarra

 I've always known the story about my parents getting a loan for their first home in Wallangarra, Queensland. Dad had an appointment at the Commonwealth Bank in Stanthorpe. Everything went smoothly until the bank manager asked him where he intended to build his house. The answer - Wallangarra - was not the right one. Apparently the only correct answer was Stanthorpe. My father's response was to go to the teller and withdraw all his money and take it across the road to the National Bank. When he was telling the builder that the Commonwealth Bank wouldn't lend him the money, Mr Pierpoint replied that he would build the house and my parents could pay him back. He said that our families were related. Pierpoint's uncle Samuel had married my father's great great aunt, Emma Hooton in 1881, almost 80 years previously. And this is what happened. Mr Pierpoint would come to Wallangarra every month to collect the repayments.  69 Rayleigh Street, Wallangarra, 1957 69 Rayleigh St