>> Go Back - page - >> List of Entriess
During the period 1929–36 an estimated 50 Traeger pedal sets were successfully operating, including a few
portable models which Traeger designed for the use of patrol padres and travellers on the road. In the second half of
the 1930s, radio telephony was a further major breakthrough. Morse keyboards were no longer necessary and two-
way voice conversations became the regular mode of communication. In 1935–36 Traeger built the Flying Doctor
Radio Bases at Port Hedland and Wyndham. In 1939 John Flynn transferred the Cloncurry network to the newly
created national organisation which came to be known as the Royal Flying Doctor Service and Alfred Traeger
continued to have contractual arrangements for the supply of transceivers to the various bases of the service until
he retired in 1975. The Alice Springs Base, 8US, was officially opened on 10 April 1939, and the first School of the
Air in Australia was transmitting from Alice Springs on 20 September 1950. On both of these historic occasions,
public tribute was paid to Traeger as the ‘wireless wizard’ whose inventive genius had given a voice to the silent
bush.
Alfred Traeger married Olga Emilie Schodde in the Flinders Street Lutheran Church, Adelaide, on 11 September- There were two daughters of this marriage—Pauline Elizabeth and Anne Catherine. His first wife having
died, he later married Joyce Edna Mibus, a widow with two daughters, Suzanna Joylene and Glenda Ruth,
on 2 August 1956 in the Colonel Light Gardens Lutheran Church. One son, Michael John, was born of this
marriage.
Traeger was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1944. He died in his home at
Kadonga Avenue, Rosslyn Park, Adelaide from cancer on 31 July 1980 and was quietly buried in the Centennial
Park Cemetery on 1 August 1980.
‘Traeger Park’ is a permanent and worthy memorial on the Gap Highway leading into Alice Springs.
J Behr, Radio History of the Royal Flying Doctor Service 1929–1982; W S McPheat, John Flynn, 1963; Australian Inland Mission Records,
MS 5574 NLA, Boxes 161–162–163, 199, 200, including series of historic photographs.
J FRED McKAY, Vol 1.
TRAN, MY-VAN (1947– ), lecturer, scholar and community worker, was born on 8 August 1947 in Saigon,
Vietnam, the daughter of Tran Van Huc, a school director, and Nguyen Thi Marie. An excellent student,
she graduated with the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Saigon, Master of Arts in
History from Duke University in the United States (where she studied on a Fulbright award), Diploma in Teaching
English as a Second Language from the University of Papua New Guinea and Doctor of Philosophy in Asian
Civilisation from the Australian National University in Canberra. Unable to return to Saigon after its capture by
the Communists in 1975, she became an Australian citizen the following year. In 1978, she married in Darwin
Frederick Douglas Robins, a British economist whom she had first met when he was working as a diplomat in
Saigon. They later had one son, Douglas Tran Robins.
My-Van arrived in Darwin at the end of 1977 as Lecturer in History at the Darwin Community College (between
1984 and 1988 the Darwin Institute of Technology and after then part of the Northern Territory University), which
she was offered and accepted. She was later promoted to Senior Lecturer. Between 1978 and 1988, she taught
American and Southeast Asian history. She played an important role in the development of a Bachelor of Arts
course and did much to promote teaching and research in Southeast Asian studies through a range of Southeast
Asian subjects she both introduced and taught. These included ‘short courses’ for public servants and public
lectures.
She came to Darwin at a time when many Vietnamese ‘boat people’ were also arriving in the city. Almost
immediately, she helped Department of Immigration officials as an interviewer and interpreter and she acted in this
capacity for the arrival of 32 boats. My-Van provided much needed help to the refugees with some of their varied
social needs. At considerable personal expense and in the face of bureaucratic obstacles, she was able organise
the settlement in Darwin of her mother and her brothers, sisters, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews.
A few departed Vietnam as boat people while the others she sponsored to leave Vietnam legally. Some members
of the extended family later left to live in other parts of Australia but those who stayed settled down well into
Darwin’s multicultural society.
It was hardly surprising that My-Van should undertake research on the Darwin Vietnamese. Her work resulted
in two pioneering monographs, The Long Journey: Australia’s First Boat People (1981) and, with Richard Nelson,
A Report on the Settlement of Indochinese Refugees in Darwin, The Northern Territory (1982). The first study
was based on innovative oral history interviews while the second assembled much useful statistical information.
She also wrote Indochinese Folktales (1982), which was republished in 1987 in both English and Vietnamese and
as a Chinese version in China in 1990, and many academic articles, including some for the first volume of the
Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography.
Actively involved in community affairs, My-Van served on many councils and committees concerned with
ethnic affairs and international relations. These included the important National Population Council, which she was
invited to join by the Commonwealth Minister for Immigration, and the Council of the Northern Territory Branch
of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the Northern Territory Settlement Council and the Northern
Territory Council of the National Authority for the Accreditation of Translators and Interpreters.
My-Van, Fred and, later Douglas, lived for much of their time in Darwin in a comfortable home in Wulagi.
They had a large circle of friends from a wide cross section of the Darwin community and an active social life.
An excellent cook, particularly of Asian food, My-Van organised many enjoyable dinner parties. She and Fred
were also very keen travellers and visited different parts of Australia and the world.