Robin Mary Scobie neé Strom

Tribute

Robin Mary Scobie, formerly of Holbrook,

will be farewelled by her family and friends with a graveside celebration at

the Holbrook Cemetery on Wednesday, 5 November 2025 at 2pm,

followed by afternoon tea at the Holbrook Club at 3pm.

All Robin’s friends are invited to attend and if unable to, the event will be livestreamed via the link below

https://realtimeproduction.co/funeral-service-of-robin-mary-scobie/

THE ROBIN MARY SCOBIE STORY

Robin Mary Strom was born in Molong, NSW, on Sunday, 17 Jul 1932 to George and Dorothy Strom who were married the previous year. Her siblings followed: Geoff, Graham and Susan. The family farm was called Springvale, Manildra. Tragically, her Dad died through electrocution on New Year’s Eve, 1942, at the age of 37. Mum was only 10 at the time.

She attended Manildra Public School before finishing her high schooling at the Presbyterian Ladies College at Croydon in Sydney in 1947 and 1948. She studied at Wagga Wagga Teacher’s College from 1949 to 1951 where my 5^th class teacher at Holbrook, Ian Harpley, was a colleague.

However, it was an incident in late1951 that was to define the course of her life. Her Mum, Dorothy, had continued to run the farm for almost a decade, with help from her kids and her farm worker, Alan Gosper. Geoff and Mum had both left the farm at this stage and Dorothy had sold the property but was having regrets about the sale. On Tuesday, 4 Dec 1951, Dorothy called her two children, Graham and Susan, and invited them to take some pink medicine on a spoon. The substance was a rabbit poison, Strychnine. Dorothy and Graham both died from the incident but Susan didn’t like the taste of the medicine, spat it out, and is here today to celebrate the long life of her sister and has given me permission to relate this story to you.

Mum had already committed to her first year of teaching at Nyngan Public School in northwest NSW and bravely honoured that obligation. As it would be normal practice for a new teacher to stay at their first school for a number of years, Mum was given special permission to relocate to Holbrook in 1953 to be closer to her sister, Susan, who had moved to Yackandandah following the death of her mother. Susan was now in the care of her Aunty Ivy and Uncle Richard Stockdale, who was the Anglican Minister at Yackandandah. Brothers, without the death of our grandmother, we would not be here today.

So began a 70 year association with Holbrook for Mum, and Susan still lives just down the road from Yackandandah at Osborne’s Flat. Dad had moved to the Holbrook area on St Patrick’s Day, 1952, to help a mate at Talmalmo with bushfire recovery. Mum and Dad met at a dance at the Holbrook Hall in 1953, were engaged the same year and were married by Uncle Richard at Yackandandah on Saturday, 20 Feb 1954. I was able to celebrate Mum’s 70^th wedding anniversary with her at her home at Banksia Lodge in Broulee in February last year.

Mum and Dad hooked up a tiny caravan to the Holden Ute and set out on their honeymoon down the Clyde Mountain and I would like to believe, being the first born just 9 months and 13 days after the wedding, that I may well have been conceived in the Eurobodalla Shire where I have lived for the past 44 years. They returned via Brown Mountain and the Snowy Mountains Highway, visiting Yarrangobilly Caves along the way.

The first home Mum and Dad shared was on Kildrummie just on the edge of Holbrook, on the Jingellic Road and it was to that happy setting that I was brought after my birth at Holbrook Hospital on 3 Dec 1954. However, Dad was keen to move up the ladder and he was soon promoted to overseer at Table Top Station, just north of Albury. However, in an early sign of her independence Mum politely declined to live in the shearer’s quarters that were offered while a new home was being constructed on the property. Instead, she took me to live with her grandmother, Ada Paddison, at Sans Souci in Sydney and we stayed there for some months.

Although I have no memory of that interlude, one of my first recollections in life indicated our Mum’s practical nature. We had moved into our new home on Table Top Station but it was situated in a sea of mud – hardly ideal for a home-maker who now had 4 kids under 5 being Dunc born on ANZAC Day 1957, closely followed by twins Jim and Rob. On this particular day, I stepped off the plank that went from the back door to the garden gate and got stuck in the mud in my gumboots. With 3 of my young brothers to deal with in the house, Mum wasn’t about to venture out to rescue me so she called out from the kitchen window for me to get out of my boots and get back in the house!

By 1959 Mum was transported to the huge homestead at Woomargama Station owned by the Fairburn family. David Fairburn was Federal Minister for Aviation under Menzies and the person mentioned in the naming of Fairburn Air Force Base at Canberra. Woomargama was where I started school before we moved once again to Burnley on the Billabong Creek and my brothers and I enrolled at Holbrook Central School. Well do I remember the day when I was 11 that my youngest brother, Stu, was born in 1966 while we were living at Burnley and I split my thumb with a tomahawk cutting kindling and still have a ridge on my thumb-nail to prove it.

By 1967 we were living in the rammed earth home on the only farm that Mum and Dad owned during their marriage, Braeside at Little Billabong, but the timing wasn’t good as I remember when I was13 seeing all our sheep buried in a hole in the ground due to a severe drought. That farm had to be sold and Mum and Dad were a decade paying off the debt.

The family moved to Mount Annan on the Jingellic Road, owned by Ken and Lydia Crawford, and had some stability for 15 years before this property was also sold and Mum and Dad moved to King Street in Holbrook. Mum had returned to her profession of teaching at Holbrook Central School when Stu started kindy in 1970. Mum and Dad downsized to Kala Court in Frampton Street in 2016 and it was from this address that Dad died in September, 2019. Mum continued living there on her own until she visited Stu and I at Christmas 2022 and unfortunately had a fall which led to a hip replacement at Bega Hospital on New Year’s Eve, the same night of the year that her Dad had died exactly 80 years earlier.

As a result of that accident, Mum was advised to move into care and we were fortunate that there was a vacancy at Banksia Lodge in Broulee, in the same street that Stu lives in. This allowed Stu and I to both visit Mum on a weekly basis, along with Rob, Dunc and Jim when they could, and it was also where she had her final fall on Friday, 17 Oct which led to her second hip operation at Bega Hospital. Michelle and I last visited her on Saturday, 25 Oct at Bateman’s Bay Hospital where we witnessed her doing some imaginary embroidery. She passed away at 10.30pm on Tuesday, 28 Oct at Banksia Lodge.

In her final 3 years, Mum suffered increasing dementia and was often frustrated with her inability to express the thoughts that still formed in her fertile brain. However, she still recognised her sons and thanks to all my brothers for the visits they made to Mum over this time to keep that recognition alive. Windows of clarity still opened from time to time and she certainly still knew how to sing “You Are My Sunshine”!

Apart from being a beautiful wife, Mum, grand-mum and great-grand-mum, over her 70 years in Holbrook, Robin Scobie contributed to countless community organisations and events such the RSL Auxiliary on ANZAC Day, Grimwood’s Store, the miniature train, the Hospital Board, Holbrook Happenings, Probus, Mahjong and many more. In addition, countless kids passed through her classes at Holbrook Central School and, no doubt gained from Mum’s integrity, energy and intelligence.

Robin Mary Scobie encountered many obstacles in her life and rose above all of them and the fruit of her endeavours is evident in the family you see here today.