History

EVA de Jong-Duldig is a person of diverging interests, many of which were inherited from her parents. Eva’s father Karl was an eminent sculptor as well as a sportsman, and from him she took his sporting prowess (he played international soccer for Hakoah Wien in the 1920s and was later one of Austria’s top tennis players). Her mother Slawa, who invented the modern foldable umbrella in 1929, often formed a bedrock in the family’s sometimes fraught journey from Vienna to Australia.

Pat Palmer rises to greet me as I enter her comfortable, spacious room at Camberwell Green. The dresser is crowded with family photos and, as she tells me, despite her 93 years and a recent stroke she has no intention of shuffling off this mortal coil yet; she has too much still to experience.

Two years before she died in 1984 for a history assignment I interviewed my mother Iris from the perspective of a ‘Melbourne teenager during World War II’. I was often surprised by her comments about life at the time.

Leslie Gordon Knight, DSO (7 March 1921 – 16 September 1943) was a Royal Australian Air Force pilot who served with the RAF’s Bomber Command during World War II. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1943 for taking part in Operation Chastise while flying with 617 Squadron.

William Burrell and his wife Francis (née Turner) were among the earliest settlers in Burwood. William, a blacksmith and farrier, conducted his business in Toorak Road. Of their eight children, Doug, Jim, and Wilfred served during WWI. Born in 1891, Doug was the first to enlist and joined the 1st Signal Corps Australian Light Horse, arriving in Egypt for further training before going on to Anzac Cove on 12 May 1915.