Spring Vale
Isaac St
Peakhurst 19.8.35

Dear Friends,

Your welcome letter to hand.

I am pleased to know that you and yours are recovered from the flu. Frank was a couple of days in bed and all the family had a light attack. Yours truly has escaped so far. There has been three deaths near us and at the present time there is one very serious case. A friend, Ada Hopkins, sends me papers occasionally and I have noticed the death rate is high. All the old generation are passed over Jordan. None are left, and there are only a few of the second generation to which I belong left, and the third generation, to which you belong, has been thinned out also. Such is life. The old must die and the [may]. 55 was the oldest that passed away in this locality, and the sick neighbours’ age is forty one.

I have been observing the weather reports in The [Queanbeyan] Age and only 2 points fell in May. This month had a blank in 1902[i], and April had 10 points. I thank you for the rainfall reports and regret the fact that there are no reports available of the years you mention. In fact no record was kept at Ginninderra or Gungahlin after Mr. Davis left the place in 1878. Harcourt and Crace had gauges but kept no record. From 1881 to the end of July 1886 all were on the dry side - about a quarter crops in 1881, good crops in 1882-3, and poor and lean crops in 1885. I had the best in the district that year, the threshing machine proved this, and Don Murty a good second. Your grandfather Teddy Smith built his last stack in the harvest of 1884 and 5. Great rain fell in February 1885 and his stack got wet and wet stacks was the rule throughout the district, and the stacks were pulled down all over the district.  Every one at Majura and Gundaroo. I called at Hugh Read's and assisted him in pulling down two big stacks and when I told him our stacks were dry he would not believe me, so he came up and took the long ladder out of the shed and could find no leak in the stacks. “He did not have the rain we had” was his remark. “Well…” was John’s reply “why was that fence swept away?”

The break in the drought of 1888 was a most remarkable one[ii]. It started with thunder which continued for more than thirty hours and about ten inches fell that December. Wheat and oats sown by me after June the 20^th never came up until December. A week after the weather break the paddock was green and I harvested about 30 tons of hay in January and February. I witnessed nothing like it before or since and the vibration caused by the thunder stopped the clock in my house three times that December[iii] 1888, and chaff in 1889 was at the figure of £12-10 per ton. The river was at its lowest point during my time in July 1886 – you could walk across the middle of the lime kiln hole and it would not wet your knees, and there was not a drop of water between it and [Mud] Bank, which is a half mile distant, and it was about the same in 1908. On this occasion there was a small pool between these two water holes. This was in March 1908 and the river was very low in 1877 also. Also in 1866, January that year.

Now a few words about Fallick and Sons. Every article I sent to that paper I sent 1/4 in stamps for spare copies, and about every second occasion I would have to write to call their attention to the fact that the papers did not come to hand, and the climax came as follows: Talking here to a neighbour about Canberra he expressed a wish to read Gale’s History[iv], and your gift to me is at or among my library at Rangaweeta. I won’t lend it, so I sent a letter to Fallick and Sons asking them if they had a copy and if so to forward it without delay and I would forward the price and postage as soon as it came to hand. The reply was a few copies of Gale’s History (this was in The [Queanbeyan] Age) on sale at this office price 7/6 postage sixpence. That filled me up with Fallick and Sons and I returned the next copy. I had about a half dozen more notes to send I will put them in my history of my life[v].

So I will draw to a close and all well.

I hope to see you all again at Xmas. God Bless you all.

Your sincere friend,
Samuel Shumack

Here is a conundrum I gave a business man at Singleton. “What are the three greatest blessings in life?” He gave it up as he said “What I think a great blessing you may not. I cannot answer that riddle. What are they?” [I said]  “Good health, a good life partner, wife or husband, and good neighbours”.  "Quite correct", was his reply.

I had ideal neighbours at Canberra during my 50 odd years there. There were only two I could put a black mark against, and so far not one at Hebden deserve a black mark.

Sam

The wettest month at Weetangera was January, 9 inches 77 pts. At Rangaweeta 13 inches 81 pts and 53 inches 60 points for the year. The yearly average is eight inches higher than the Weetangera average