Above: Henry Bishop, Olive's father, who spent his last years living with the Oakley family at Mulwala.

Because Olive's husband was away so much of the time, it was she who raised her sons and ran the household, as well as caring for her father Henry who sold 'Fairmount' and moved to Mulwala in the early years of his daughter's marriage.Henry was not a man who liked to be idle, and up until his death in 1918 he was the local agent for the NSW Savings Bank. He worked from home, which was appropriate as the Oakley home was formerly the Commercial Bank. I have his lovely old sloping desk from which he worked, and under the lid are many of his old notebooks containing pages and pages of investments and the prices of the many products he had sold over the years.
Olive's husband Harry owned a travelling drapery business with a man named Faulding, and with two large covered wagons they travelled to settlements- farms and stations- from Mulwala to beyond Deniliquin and throughout the Riverina.This was in the early 1900s, when these distant farms were still very isolated.
It was probably for this reason that when Olive was due to have her first baby in March of 1908, she went back to Melbourne for her delivery.Harry Gordon Oakley was born at 27 Murray Street, Prahran on Monday, March 16, 1908. He was delivered by Dr. Morrison with assistance from Nurse Fagden. When Olive registered her son's birth on April 15, she stated that she was 39 years old and had been born in Ballarat. The baby's father, Harry Meabry Oakley, was a 45 year old commercial traveller from Shropshire, England.
Before her first child had turned one, Olive fell pregnant with her second. This time she stayed at home for her delivery, and Norman Meabry Oakley was born in their Melbourne Street Mulwala residence on November 15, 1909.Olive was to turn 41 the following month, and Norman was her last child.
The boys attended the local Mulwala Primary School. Gordon for his secondary schooling crossed the Murray and attended Yarrawonga High School, but Norman won a scholarship to Albury High School. This required him to board with a local Albury lady, and Olive missed him dreadfully. I have some letters that she wrote to Norman while he was away, and will reproduce them in the following blog.