Ninety years on, the Mount Isa Branch of the Country Women’s Association can still proudly claim to be the oldest community service organisation in the city. For women living and raising families in the harsh environment of Mount Isa, circa 1920s, the loneliness and hardship was palpable. One indomitable pioneer woman, Mrs J Gray believed the CWA with its ethics and social support structure for women would be well placed to set up in the bedraggled and male dominated mining community.
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From the outset the determination of Mrs Gray and her friends to form a local CWA branch was fraught with difficulties, not least being the isolated distance and the less than enthusiastic guidance from the closest established CWA Branch in Cloncurry which sought to have Mount Isa opened as a sub-branch under their jurisdiction. But tenacity won the day for A Glendenning, V Holley and J Boyd as they and 17 other women became fully fledged foundation members of the Country Women’s Association, in May 1928. Those early years were generally known as the ‘making do’ materially and socially era; by having monthly meetings in member’s homes or occasionally at the boarding house run by Mrs Boyd the owner of Boyd’s Argent Hotel.
In 1931 the newly appointed manager of Mount Isa Mine, Julius Kruttschnitt, recognised a vital need for a community hall and one that would alleviate the association’s ad hoc meeting venues. In time, he donated a suitable miner’s cottage which was moved from Mineside to a site in Isa Street, that was designated by Cloncurry Shire Council, as a central location for the women to meet. This generous gift was given free of debt by the mine and following refurbishment it was opened to great fanfare by Mrs Marie Kruttschnitt, wife of the Manager of Mount Isa Mine. Through the decades, improvements have seen the original structure change and increase in size, the CWA Hall is still standing on its original site in Isa Street, today. Especially thankful for the new hall were 80 ‘Diggers’ who had been invited to celebrate the 16th anniversary of that fateful Gallipoli landing on April 25 1915, at a lunch catered by the CWA women.
This was the first of many catering functions members undertook over the ensuring 90 years albeit not all in the CWA Hall, but throughout the community. The Country Women’s Association Motto includes ‘service to country’ although in 1949 it was ‘service to literature’ that prompted the branch to offer its hall in a gesture of good will to the community. The hall had storage space for library books until the Mount Isa Library was built 8 years later in 1957. Over the years many visiting dignitaries have been warmly welcomed to the Mount Isa Branch of the Country Women’s Association. One very special person arrived in March 1953, the Countess of Albermark who was at that time, chairwoman of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes in England, Wales and Channel Islands.
The Countess had been invited to lay the foundation stone for the new CWA Mother’s Hostel. In her opening address, she read a letter from the Queen which was addressed … to the women of Australia. And while the Mount Isa Branch of the CWA gratefully accepted the miner’s cottage as a gift from Mount Isa Mine, its members were proud to acknowledge their new hostel had been built and paid for out of funds raised by its members with unprecedented community support.
The new hostel was opened in 1954, and immediately proved popular with women from Duchess, Dajarra, Urandangie and Camooweal and various outlying stations. In total 102 women and children and seven expectant mothers had availed themselves of the facility during the first year. The CWA Hall was the venue for many community meetings and events including the inaugural meeting of the newly chartered Rotary Club of Mount Isa in 1957. And new citizens were given an Aussie ‘cuppa and scone’ after their naturalisation ceremonies held in the hall.
In 1959, the retiring president, Alma Tadman, received a loud exclamation when she announced that Mount Isa CWA had achieved a total of 205 financial members. This number was exceeded in 1964 but dropped drastically in 1965 as a direct result of the mine ‘shut-out’ of miners which resulted in hundreds of families leaving town. Over the decades, as it is today, membership has generally risen and fallen along with the floating population of miners whose livelihood is dependent on the strength of the mining industry at any one time.
As the mining industry boomed in the early 70s so too did the Mount Isa branch of the CWA as it forged ahead in community assistance programs, fundraising targets and innovative social activities. One such social project was the very successful, the CWA Debutante Ball which was the brainwave of Jean Byrne, a CWA member and owner of a local fashion house, JayBees. The debutante ball was a true coming of age for the participants as they were guided through the various stages of deportment and dancing skills, taught by Mrs Byrne.
For gardening enthusiasts, the CWA hosted many gardening shows with the most popular being the Annual Chrysanthemum Show and Fete which was overseen by Elma Tadman.
And while cooking classes were always very popular as new recipes and cooking methods came into vogue, it was the formation of the CWA Choir and Drama Group that resulted in a stage being built in the Hall; all the better to stage amateur performances. For more than 90 years, the CWA has continued to entertain, educate, and support the women of Mount Isa.
Researched and written by Kim-Maree Burton www.kimmareeburton.com.
Photographs supplied by Mount Isa CWA Branch Archives, MIMAG and the Tadman Family Photo Album Information sourced from the archives of the Cloncurry Advocate, Mt Isa News, MIMAG, and Mount Isa CWA Branch Archives.
