Father Frank and great grand-daughter Scarlett
My father Frank Buxton, who died on October 1, aged 96, was a cheerful character whose sense of humour reflected a certain Britishness. He was born in Sheffield, England, on October 22, 1918, however, when he was a two-year-old tot, his parents Emily and Harry Buxton brought him to South Australia on board the SS Beltana with his babe-in-arms brother Lesley. Dad’s British auntie had lived to 100 years, and as the years added up and Frank had no great disease diagnosed, we half expected him also to get a telegram from the queen.
However, his vital organs simply wore out and as my siblings and I sat with him during his last few dying days, we agreed that we had never heard him complain, even though his was a difficult life of a small businessman with a large family. Even though he was born with a lazy eye and in later life he went blind through glaucoma. Even though his hearing faded by the time he was 90. Dad would claim he was a lucky man, that I was his “sweet daughter”.
It was because of that lazy eye that Dad met our mum, Florrie Fiegert, because he failed his medical for military service in World War II. Florrie lived on a farm in the Mallee near Loxton and when she went to Renmark to pick apricots with the Women’s Land Army, she met Frank. We grew up with the romantic story – how dad was working on the adjoining fruit block owned by his married sister Lilian. One day on the local bus for the workers, he caught sight of “a gorgeous black-haired beauty” and enquired of his sister who it might be. Soon a ladder, borrowed from the neighbours was returned and dad met mum. He wooed Florrie by letter, the “city slicker” initially frightened by the draught-horses on the Fiegert farm. He would travel to Pata in his much-loved Nash with its gas producer and wartime blacked-out lights. He had to join the Lutheran Church to claim her heart, but they married at the Concordia Lutheran Church, Loxton, on July 10, 1943 – despite the warnings of his mates on the assembly line where he worked as a tool and jig maker on aircraft production. They thought he was mad joining a “German church” in wartime. However, dad became a stalwart leader at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church was a member of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association. Throughout his life, he sang gospel songs around the home.
I was the first-born of the union and mum took me home to their rented rooms attached to a dairy farm in Islington, across the railway line from my grandparents.
Mum and dad had four other children, my three brothers, Dallas, Andrew and Mark, and my sister Anne, born on my 16th birthday.
I had a good childhood with dad before he became consumed with his growing electrical contracting business. Each Friday night he took us youngsters to grandma’s place and then we would go to the Rowley Park speedway to get covered in dust. (Dad had had a wild youth before meeting our mum and raced motor bikes in “scrambles”, a dangerous sport racing across open country). Every Saturday afternoon we would go to the Central Market to buy the cheap vegies. But our big outing of the week was going to church.
Dad was a “sparkie” and had a few strategic “breaks of luck” to raise him up from his poor childhood. He had been very bright at Prospect Primary School, winning a scholarship to attend Adelaide Boys Technical High School. He completed an apprenticeship with Adelaide Electric Supply Company, now SA Power netowrks and after the war, he became a tutor at the electrical trade school. Soon my father went into business on his own as an electrical contractor. As dad’s business, Buxton Electrical Company Pty Ltd, burgeoned and his staff grew to sometimes 20 electrical tradesmen and apprentices, he became less emotionally engaged with his family. Our mum was a director of Frank Buxton Electrical Company, so ours was a very busy household as she handled school routines, new babies and the business.
My father was so proud of marrying Florrie, his business, his Church leadersip and the two houses he built for his growing family at 137 Galway Avenue Broadview. He and mum built the first humble cottage on the big corner block after the war in the barter system of the SA Home Buiilders Association. Dad told me he took five years to pay back all his subbies with electrical services.
When I was about 8 years old, dad built the big freestone home in front of the cottage, facing Galway Avenue and the cottage became his business workshop.
His life force, though, was his electrical contracting business, which he ran for more than 50 years. He was immensely proud of being “the bloke who wired Woomera” and he had seven electricians in Woomera with a site office and workshop there. He saw his legacy to the electrical industry to be the 17 apprentices he trained, including his own three sons.The business moved four times along Main North Road, but the workshop and retail store was at 109 Main North Road, Nailsworth for 18 years. The company handled diverse electrical jobs throughout South Australia from Kangaroo Island to Ceduna to Bordertown. He was a kind boss as he managed a large work force on difficult jobs such as lighthouses, supermarkets and multi-storey buildings. He became renowned in the electrical industry and “wired Target” at Sefton Plaza. He held the maintenance contract for all the northern metro Woolworths stores.
When our mother became ill, dad closed the business, which had been transferred back to the little cottage a few years beforehand. When mum died in 1997, dad met a Renmark lady, Elizabeth Schloithe and when she proposed to him on Valentine’s Day soon after they met, dad accepted. We were very shocked, particularly as I had bought Galway Avenue, my childhood home to live with my dad, who was 81 years old. Instead, in August 2000, he married and moved to Renmark. He acquired three adult step-children. Dad was married to Elizabeth for 10 years and became her carer until she died. For the last five years of his life, dad lived in nursing homes – at Renmark and for the past three years at Glynde Lutheran nursing home where his sense of humour became legendary.
He always claimed to be 105 and that he travelled to Sheffield to get his birth certificate to prove it. Yet he died three weeks short of his 97th birthday. Our dad was a true gentle man, who leaves behind his five adult children, in-laws, 13 grand-children and 13 great grandchildren.
Dad and me on his 94th birthday
womens lives | nadine 15/11/2015 | 
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