Gwen Paxino Returns to Frankston South
– 24 February 2020 –
If you are familiar with Vasey RSL Care Frankston South (previously RSL Park), the name ‘Paxino’ will be ringing bells for you. A year ago, Gwen Paxino, now 95, the widow of Andrew Paxino, moved into our Frankston South home — but it was not the first time she had lived there. Bob Evans chatted to Gwen.
The first time she moved in, Gwen was aged 39, the mother of two boys and husband, Andy had just been appointed as Deputy Superintendent of what was then known as RSL Park. Andy had served as a bombardier in the 2/14 Regiment, enduring the Japanese bombing of Darwin, before seeing action at Kokoda and New Britain in New Guinea in World War II.
Sitting in the library, where she remembers playing the organ for church services back when it was a chapel, Gwen says she is glad to have moved back here having lived the past 20 years in the Long Island Retirement Village in Seaford, after Andrew died. She was not nearly so happy about the move to RSL Park in 1965.
Gwen met Andy when she was 16. He was two years older. She was studying music at Melbourne University, training to be a soprano. At the time, the focus of World War II for Australia was on Europe and the Middle East. Japan was engaged in China, having already invaded Manchuria. Singapore was an impregnable British redoubt. The Americans were neutral and safely anchored in Pearl Harbour.
Andy enlisted in August 1941. He was the son of a Greek father, Andreas, who had migrated to Australia as a teenage apprentice chef from Ithaca, and an Australian mother, Evangeline, who died when Andy was himself a teenager. Andreas had initially resisted giving permission for Andy to enlist, but as soon as he was old enough, he was in, Gwen tells me. She and Andy met at church before he enlisted, which she says was “a good thing”, but says she didn’t go overboard. At least not at first sight.
“I thought he was alright, but one night at a church dance he came through the door with his army slouch hat on and I thought: ‘Oh, beaut!’ And I don’t know what it was – maybe it was the slouch hat – but from that moment on I was madly in love.”
Madly in love, slouch hat or not, Gwen’s mother was not going to allow her daughter to get married before she was old enough. But midway through the war, when Andy was home on leave, Gwen’s mother relented. They were married and Andy returned to battle in New Guinea’s Finisterre Valley and then to New Britain.
While the war raged, Gwen worked as a secretary for the Australian importer of electrical goods and manufacturer of radios, A.G. Healing. Gwen’s mother had enrolled her daughter in secretarial studies and she learned shorthand and typing at Zerco’s Business College. She also sang opera and oratorios with the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust and the National Theatre. When she wasn’t singing opera, she would sing with various Melbourne church choirs.
At war’s end, Andy was de-mobbed and he and Gwen moved in with her parents. Her father was a builder and during the war, with her savings and his help she bought a block of land in North Balwyn. But it took them two years to complete the house due to the post-war housing regulations and the shortage of building materials.
Andy settled into a job as a sales representative for the bakers’ supplies company, Harrison San Miguel. He also maintained a close involvement with the RSL’s welfare programs. Gwen says he was always interested in helping people and was a member of the RSL’s State Council. “He organised several teams of men to go out to Heidelberg Repat to donate blood,” Gwen recalls.
Andy was also President of the North Balwyn RSL and oversaw their new clubroom, which was officially opened by Sir Dallas Brooks, Governor of Victoria.
His involvement with the RSL took a big step up in 1964 when Andy saw an ad for Deputy Superintendent at the RSL’s War Veterans Homes Trust at Frankston South (now Vasey RSL Care Frankston South). Gwen almost re-enacts the dialogue as she relates the story about how she first came to Frankston South:
“Andy read out the ad and said: ‘I think I’ll apply for that.’
“And I said: ‘Oh no.’
“And he said: ‘Oh, I’d like it.’
“And I said: ‘It’s a long way to travel.’
“And he said: ‘Oh, I think you might have to live there.’
“And I said: ‘Well, I’m not coming.’”
However, Gwen relented, eventually and said: “Alright, apply for it.” So, he did.
After the first interview, Gwen asked how it had gone, demonstrating with both hands raised for emphasis, how she was secretly crossing her fingers hoping the interview hadn’t gone well. “I didn’t want to come and live down here,” she says. “I don’t know how many interviews he had. It seemed to go on for ages. And then he came home from the ANZAC Day march and he told me he’d seen Bill (Sir William) Hall at the march. Bill told Andy that he had seen that he’d applied for the job.”
Gwen demonstrates again with a wink and click of her fingers. And, again, I thought: ‘Oh I hope he doesn’t get it.’ But he did get it.”
The way she tells it, Gwen seems to have still been hoping that they wouldn’t have to move to Frankston South from Kew, where they were living and she was teaching kindergarten. Gwen thought Frankston was a nice place for a holiday, but she didn’t want to live there.
“But, that’s the law of stories,” she says. “We were here. We arrived. But there was no house for us. So, then we had to work out where we were going to live. I thought we could buy a house on the Nepean Highway. There were some nice houses there, but – no – we had to live on the premises, so they offered to build a house for us.”
Being the daughter of a builder and someone who had bought and sold several blocks of land by this time, Gwen tried looking on the bright side, thinking that she’d be consulted on the sort of house they’d have built. “I thought: ‘That’s good, I’m going to have a say in the plans.’ But I didn’t have a say in the plans. And when I saw it, I thought: ‘I can’t live here, it’s too small.’ However, we moved in and I hated it. Twice I packed my cases to leave because I couldn’t stand it. But I stayed. And eventually I got used to it.”
Several times during the interview Gwen says she can’t stand to be idle and hates sitting still. No doubt she brought that energy and enthusiasm to her time with Andy at RSL Park. Andy had been appointed Deputy Superintendent with the prospect of replacing the existing Superintendent of RSL Park, Frank Sewell. Known to everyone as Bluey, Frank Sewell served in the fledgling Australian Flying Corps in World War I and had been award the Distinguished Flying Cross for conspicuous bravery for shooting down three enemy planes and flying daring reconnaissance missions over enemy lines near Corbie in France, where the Red Baron came to grief.
Bluey’s citation reads: ‘Lieutenant Sewell has proved himself a cool and courageous Officer on many occasions. He has destroyed three enemy machines. On the 11th August, he rendered conspicuous service; flying for two hours under 200 feet altitude he established the locality of our line by actual recognition of our troops, bringing back a most valuable report. During the whole time he was subjected to heavy hostile machine gun fire.’
Just as Gwen Paxino was reluctant to go to Frankston South, Bluey Sewell was reluctant to leave, as much as the RSL may have thought it was time for him to retire. Gwen thinks it may have been four years before Andy finally succeeded Frank as Superintendent of RSL Park!
The RSL Park of Gwen’s recollections in the 20 years she and Andy were there is vastly different from what it is today. Then, the site occupied 55 acres and stretched down to the aptly named Sweetwater Creek which runs below Overport Road. In those days, what are now the machinery and maintenance sheds housed a pigs and ducks which generated a welcome source of income for the home. They were also a source of occasional pilfering by her two young sons, Russell and David, who were fond of scavenging uneaten Tip Top Bakery coffee scrolls and fruit buns intended for the pigs and ducks. The boys would sneak off down to the creek, build a small fire, and toast the sticky buns over it. If the boys were missing, Gwen would look to the creek to see if there was any telltale smoke from a small campfire.
Gwen remembers the rooms for the men in RSL Park, too. “They were very small and basic. A single bed, a small wardrobe, a chair and a heater. There were communal bathrooms and toilets. Where I am now, in Park Lodge, that was Cottage 1. The men living there were mostly officers from World War I. Most of them had suffered wounds and they were all pretty old,” she recalls.
She would often spend what little spare time she had visiting the older men, which upset Bluey Sewell, who’d reprimand her for “fraternising with the men”. Gwen says she was also reprimanded when she drove into Frankston to round up the younger World War II vets to make sure they got home safely from sessions at the pub.
One of the popular mid-60’s legacies, which Andy Paxino initiated, was the large lawn bowling green set below the main building of RSL Park. It is why the Paxino Wing of RSL Park is named after Andy. Gwen remembers fondly the bowling competitions. “There were no women here when I arrived. But when women started being taken in to RSL Park, we started a bowling comp for women. We had an excellent women’s pennant bowls teams. We also used to hold an annual open bowls day at the Park. I don’t know how many hundreds of people came. People would sit outside in the open air and gardens or on the balcony along with the Frankston City Band.”
And while all this was going on, Gwen was raising her two boys who’d enrolled at Frankston High School. As well as devoting herself to the welfare of the residents and supporting Andy in his role at RSL Park, Gwen would occasionally dust off her secretarial skills and fill in temporarily for a friend. And, quite like the recruitment process that Andy went through, this friend pointed out a job ad for a typing and shorthand teacher at the Dandenong Technical College and suggested she apply for it.
Again, Gwen replays the dialogue. “‘That’d do you,’ he said. I said: ‘I couldn’t teach typewriting.’ He said: ‘Of course you could.’ I said: ‘I wouldn’t have a clue where to start.’ Anyhow, he talked me into going for an interview.”
Despite her lack of teacher training, Gwen got the job and was told she was the best qualified candidate they’d interviewed. She says she got out her typing and shorthand books which she kept from her business studies classes at school, rang a few friends for advice, and started teaching typing and shorthand at the Dandenong Tech.
“After about four or five months I found out there was a commercial teachers association. So, I rang them up one day to get some advice about books and things: they suggested I go to teachers’ college and learn all about it. So, I applied for teachers’ college. What’s more – I got in. I ended up as a teacher for more than 20 years,” she laughs.
Five days a week, Gwen would drive from Frankston to Dandenong and back in her little Ford Prefect which she later traded in for a Morris Minor. Despite the travel and her workload, for as long as Andy was at RSL Park, she supported his work.
“Although I wasn’t on the payroll, I did a hell of a lot of work here. I don’t think it was expected of me, but I am not someone who can sit idle. I don’t think I ever sat down. I’d fill in here if anyone was off work. And Andy worked non-stop. We’d go to concerts at night. He would get the bus out and drive the men to concerts in Frankston and Dandenong. We didn’t have a little bus. It was a big bus. Full size. If there was anything on that was free to veterans we’d be there,” she laughs.
Like Bluey Sewell before him, Gwen says Andy was reluctant to retire from RSL Park when his time came. She finally persuaded him to move out of the too tiny house they’d lived in for 20 years and buy a larger place – not on the Nepean Highway, which she had wanted once – but nearby in Overport Road. Having been reluctant to move to the one-time holiday spot at the beginning, by then she says they’d made a new life in Frankston and all their friends were there.
It was only after Andy died, aged 75, that Gwen decided the house on Overport Road was too big for her alone and she moved to the Long Island retirement village, where she stayed until last year.
Gwen decided on the move back to RSL Park as a resident and not a side-arm of management when she realised she needed more attentive personal care and less independent living. But the choice of RSL Park wasn’t automatic. Gwen inspected six aged care homes before deciding that Vasey RSL Care Frankston South did provide the best care and facilities.
She now lives in the remodeled wing that she knew as Cottage 1 (now Park Lodge), while Andy is remembered by the Paxino Wing, further down the slope in the direction of Sweetwater Creek.