His life an inspiration

By Kath Gannaway
“NELS stayed behind to fight the fire.”
As family, friends and colleagues, recounted the fortunate life of Nelson Smith on the morning of 7 February this year, little did they know that the family’s experience at their farm in Old Healesville Road during the 1962 bushfires would be relived by just hours later by so many – including his own family.
As the ’62 fires swept through their property, and with his wife Nancy and daughters Kay and Mary-Ann riding their terrified horses to safety in Healesville under a hail of burning embers, Nelson fought and saved the house.
Over the next three years the family worked to replace every burnt-out fence post on the farm, each post with a chainsaw and axe by Nelson.
The story is just one of many beautifully recounted, heart-warming, funny and inspirational reflections on Nelson Smith’s 83 years as a boy, man, husband and father, and as a member of the Healesville community.
Alfred Nelson Smith was delivered by nurse Townsend at the Old Healesville Hospital on 23 March 1925, one of Charles and Hanna Smith’s eight children.
His father was a gun timber worker in the Rubicon region and his mother ran a boarding house in Rubicon before the family moved to Healesville.
Nelson’s storytelling, relayed with such detail, and humour, ensured a beautiful legacy for his family, and as a snapshot of life in his times.
He painted a picture of a happy country boyhood, attending Healesville State School and St Brigid’s. Respect, manners and a strong work ethic were everyday lessons at home, along with pillow fights, farting competitions and shenanigans with his siblings.
Nelson left school at 13 and at 15 joined his father and two brothers cutting timber at Murrindindi. He told of life in the bush, 4am out of bed, mornings so cold his hands would be frozen tight on the chains on the timber trucks, onion and dripping sandwiches and six days a week of hard work for nine shillings and sixpence.
Trees more than three hundred feet high with enormous girths were felled with axes and crosscut saws.
A heart murmur from a run-in with Diptheria as a four-year-old ruled him out of the war, but with three brothers – two taken prisoners of war, and one in New Guinea – he felt the pain of war.
He was just 17 when he met the love of his life, Nancy McKenzie at the Yarra Glen Dance. Their courtship was a happy time, filled with dancing, walking, pranks and, for Nancy, an only child, enjoying being part of a big family.
They announced their engagement on Nancy’s 21st birthday, at the Glen dance and married at Yarra Glen Presbyterian Church on 5 October 1946. Dancing was a life-long shared passion.
The couple, by now parents of Kay, bought the mail run which serviced Narbethong and Marysville with mail, ice and groceries. It was long hours and hard work but Nelson loved the contact he made with people.
Following a road crash on The Spur he was unable to continue that venture and went to work for Nancy’s father at McKenzie’s Tourist Services.
The family grew with the arrival of two more daughters, Mary-Anne and Mandy.
Nancy took over the business in 1981 and she and Nelson worked as a team to run the business. By 1999 they had built the fleet up to 34 Mercedes coaches. When the business was sold in 2006 it was on the condition that the McKenzie’s name be kept.
The Royal Melbourne Show, with Nancy and the girls competing in horse events and Nelson in the woodchopping became a highlight of family life from 1946 to 1998.
Nelson won many prizes at local shows and the Melbourne Royal, even competing in the over 60s competition, and judged for more than 30 years. His skill as an axe sharpener was legendary. An axe was never perfect until he could shave the hairs off his arm. Baling hay was another family affair. Most years well over a thousand bales would stand stacked at the end of the season with blisters and aching backs testifying to the achievement.
The Yarra Glen dances too were something the family enjoyed together.
The retelling of so many “Nels” anecdotes filled the funeral home with laughter.
Nelson was a dedicated family man, adored by his daughters and enjoying a close relationship with his sons-in-law Jim, Ray and David. He was “Pop” to six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren to whom he was not only a loving and supporting grandfather but a man they could admire for his values and approach to life.
Nancy died in 2005 with Nelson by her side. Life was never the same without his soul-mate. Nelson died on 29 January, 2009 aged 83, and was buried with Nancy, at Healesville Cemetery on 7 February. He is sadly missed by his family, friends and the Healesville community.
With barely time to grieve, family members made their way to the farm on Black Saturday afternoon to defend the property again against the fires, and take the horses to safety.
For his family there is comfort in the knowledge that their darling dad and ‘Pop’ was spared the sadness of Black Saturday.