THE autumn of 1946 was one Vera Adams never forgot.
It was the start of a love affair with the Steels Creek district to which she remained faithful all her life.
Having been raised in the drought-stricken Mallee, Vera had come to teach at the tiny Dixon’s Creek Primary School.
Describing her first encounter with Steels Creek during a Sunday afternoon walk, Vera, in her memoir, Steels Creek: A Social History 1946-1995, paints a colourful picture of “intensely green fields, the splash of autumn colour in a small grove of persimmon trees on the facing slope, the soft olive green of the nearer tree-covered hills, and the deep dark blue of the distant mountains”.
“I had never seen anything like it,” she wrote.
Vera Adams spent the next almost 60 years of her life in the place that had so besotted her way back then.
Vera met the fifth of Steels Creek’s six Adams brothers, Ronald, not long after her Sunday walk.
They were married on Christmas Day, 1947.
Stephen, their first son, was just 14 and their second son, Denis, was 12 when Ron died in an accident in 1963.
Despite their great loss, the family stayed on at Steels Creek where Vera’s extraordinary career as a rural primary teacher was well established.
As a resident and teacher, Vera made many contributions to life in Steels Creek.
Undoubtedly her greatest gift to the community was in the classroom.
She was sole teacher at the tiny school from 1955 to 1973 and as such was an integral part of the lives of not only the children but of the whole community.
Her writings reveal a strong, sensitive and intelligent woman who valued and enjoyed the children in her care.
She writes of excursions to the Olympic Games, annual beach picnics, combined school sports day and trips to the Royal Melbourne Show and of the challenges of teaching in a small, often poor, community.
“Eighteen years is a long time to spend in one work place,” she wrote.
“Apart from my personal tragedy, they were very rewarding years.
“Part of the population was transient, but there were several families where every child passed from prep through to grade six.”
The school community was like an extended family, she said.
“One mother told me, ‘please be careful what you say to our children. If Mrs Adams said it, then it must be true’. I value that memory more than the possible promotions that I didn’t gain,” she wrote.
Vera’s vivid recollections of warm interpretation of the people, places and activities of Steels Creek over almost half a century are a lasting gift to the community which loved, respected and cherished her.
Vera Adams died on 25 February, 2006. She was 86 years old.
A celebration of Vera Adam’s life will be held at her old school, now the Steels Creek Community Centre, on Sunday, 7 May at 2pm.
– Kath Gannaway
