By KATH GANNAWAY
HEALESVILLE was like most other towns around Australia in 1915, with almost everyone stepping up to support the war effort.
Age was no barrier, as the Ross triplets found.
The girls, Mena, Gwendoline Parker and Jean, were born on 25 March, 1915, and before you could say “watch the dicky bird” they were doing their bit, charming passers-by who were happy to buy a photo of the cute threesome to help our soldiers overseas.
Gwendoline’s daughter, Annette (Heritage) Hill, has delightful memories of the girls who went to school at Healesville State School and grew into beautiful young women, married and raised their own families.
The girls were born in a house in Nicholson Street, in the ‘CBD’ of a town that was barely 50 years old.
The house was around where Main Street Quality Butchers is now, and their parents, Lachlan and Madge Ross were expecting two, not three!
“They had to borrow a neighbour’s clothes basket when triplets arrived, and someone made them a pram, which is in one of the photos,” Annette said.
“The girls were placed in the pram, on show in the main street, and photos were sold for sixpence to raise money for the war effort.
“They were gorgeous, dressed in Broderie Anglaise petticoats and dresses which were boiled in a copper outside and cold starched and ironed dry,” said Annette retelling stories handed down through the family.
The stories paint a vivid picture of hard times in the lead-up to the war, and during the war.
“Lachlan was a saddler whose shop was part of what is now the Yarra Valley Clinic waiting room,” she said.
“Business owners could wait years to be paid with their families being provided with whatever they needed, and that’s how they came by the pram.”
Mena married Bill Marshall and they had two children, Jean married Ern Hogg and they also had two children.
Gwendoline Parker married Frank Heritage and their three children were Annette and brothers Robert (Robbie) and Keith.
Among the many stories of the triplets is another connection with the war.
“Mena’s name was Mena Mary and she was named after the camp that Nanna Ross’s brother was stationed at while serving in Egypt,” Annette explained.
“When he found out he was not impressed. It was a hellhole.”
The Ross triplets were undoubtedly the town’s littlest heroes when it came to the war effort, and that’s a nice thing to reflect upon in such a doubly-special centenary year.
