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dye and tan goat and bullock hides for mats to cover the ant bed floors, make jams and preserves from the fruit
berries and melons, and make Bovril and soap.
Tyranny of distance and lack of supplies taught Mrs Bohning to become the family boot maker—including
soles and heels for the ringers’ boots; Esther bought rolls of canvas from which she made waterbags on her hand
sewing machine, both small and large vanderah water bags.
Mrs Bohning’s daughter Edith stated ‘in our spare time, Mum and we girls helped with the cattle mustering
droving and yarding’.
Esther’s riding did not stop when her shoes wore out. ‘She would be seen galloping after cattle, with her feet in
the stirrups clad in shoes made from five folds of hessian, sewn with packing needle and thread.’ Although having
little formal education, Esther imparted what knowledge she had to her children in irregular classes, which were
held after all station chores were completed. Esther valued the help and loyalty of her native companions.
As with all pioneer women, loneliness, especially for female company, was one of the heavy crosses to bear
and so the annual gathering at the overland telegraph station, Tennant Creek, of all women from surrounding
stations was a time for exchanging recipes, gossip and knowledge of medical treatment.
After the famous drove of 1929, when John Bohning lifted a mob of cattle to Alice Springs to be railed south
for sale, the first cattle on the newly completed Alice Springs (then Stuart) railway, Esther and daughter Elsie,
who had acted as ringers on the drove, travelled to Adelaide with the cattle, much to the consternation of the
passengers and crew who dubbed them ‘the petticoat drovers’. No cattle were lost on the trip.
The girls married; Edie in 1930, Elsie in 1932. The rigours of station life were taking their toll of Esther’s
health, and by 1938 the Bohnings were planning the sale of the property. This occurred when Vesteys bought
Helen Springs Station in 1943. Mr and Mrs Bohning moved to Tennant Creek for approximately three years, then
retired to Alice Springs, where Esther’s frail figure could be seen, stepping out smartly. She died and was buried
there in 1952.
H Tuxworth, The Story of Helen Springs, 1988.
H TUXWORTH, Vol 1.BORELLA, ALBERT (BERT) CHALMERS (1881–1968), farmer and soldier, was born on 7 August 1881 at
Borung, Victoria, the only son of Annie, nee Chalmers and Louis Borella’s three children. His Scottish mother was
living at Mt Rowan and his father, born at Hobart Town, was living at Mt Talbot when they married at Ballarat on
11 February 1879. Annie died of scarlet fever in 1885 and Louis had five more children by a second marriage.
Educated at Borung and Wychitella state schools, Albert farmed in this district and at Moama, New South Wales.
He joined a local company of the Victorian Rangers for 18 months. On 25 April 1910 he joined the Metropolitan
Fire Brigade in Melbourne as fireman and driver of a six-horse team, but resigned on 17 January 1913 when he
and his two mates, Ronald Parker and Albert Lewis, applied for Sections 2 and 3, Hundred of Berinka. The Federal
Government, on 21 December 1912, had offered perpetual agricultural leases in the newly opened Hundred of
Hawkshaw and the proposed Hundred of Berinka, County of Malmesbury, in the Northern Territory, 160 kilometres
southwest of Darwin on the Daly River.
Borella and his mates worked on the Daly River demonstration farm for three months before being allotted
Section 3, Hundred of Berinka, on 12 April. This section was situated on the west bank of the Daly River, comprising
jungle, swamp, and well-grassed land with scattered trees. Subsequently, Albert Lewis left the partnership and
became a guard at the Fannie Bay Gaol.
Following surveyors’ reports on the flooding of some sections, the Land Classification Board, on 2 May 1913,
offered Section 4, Hundred of Berinka, in place of Section 3 to Borella and Parker, who wrote that it was not
suitable and applied for part of Sections 3 and 10, Hundred of Hawkshaw, on the opposite side of the river.
On 30 May the Board decided that part of Sections 3 and 10 should be subdivided and offered as miscellaneous
leases to Borella and Parker and another dissatisfied settler, Davis. This was rescinded on 2 June, and Borella and
Parker were then granted a grazing licence of Section 9, Hundred of Hawkshaw, on 14 June 1913. It was further
back from the river and contained some jungle, well-grassed open gum forest, and flats scattered with gum and
pandanus. Section 9 was to be advertised open for selection as a Class I cultivation farm ‘at the earliest possible
date’, under conditions similar to those applying to the earlier Daly land opening.
On 30 August Section 3, Hundred of Berinka, was revoked and Section 9, Hundred of Hawkshaw, allotted in
its stead ‘without advertisement’ to Borella and Parker who worked on the demonstration farm for a further five
months. Ronald Parker withdrew from the lesseeship on 28 November 1913 and, subsequently, a form of Lease
57 was made out to Albert Borella for 566 acres (230 hectares) in Section 9, Hundred of Hawkshaw, giving the
date of commencement as 10 April 1913. Apparently, the title of Lease 57 was never issued, although Section 9,
under Lease 57, was entered in the Lands Department Register of Miscellaneous and Agricultural Leases as a
cultivation farm under the names of Albert Borella and Ronald Parker on 5 July 1913.
In January 1914 Borella advised the Board that the recent floods had submerged his section and asked for
a portion of Section 10 to ensure his having cultivatable land. He was granted 50 acres (20 hectares) of higher
ground from this section and, helped by Aboriginal boys, he built ‘one of the best houses on the Daly’, paying for
provisions from his savings. He ringbarked the trees, sank and timbered a nine-metre well, cut 2 000 posts and
erected three kilometres of fencing. The government had agreed to supply materials, stock and implements, as
required, at 4 per cent per annum interest. Borella waited five months before receiving a horse—but no plough.
On 1 May 1914 he signed an unregistered memorandum of mortgage over his leasehold with the Advances
to Settlers Board for 125 already lent to him and for 190 in future loans, and secured the advance with a bill of