07/06/2026
READING SECRETLY UNDER THE BEDCLOTHES: THE HUMBLE BEGINNINGS OF OUR FIRST STATE ARCHIVIST
This story is based on an interview with Mollie Frances Lukis, the first Western Australian State archivist and first female State archivist in Australia.
I'm known as Mollie Lukis. My full name is Meroula Frances Fellowes Lukis. I was born at Donnybrook in the South West, in 1911. We lived at Balingup which is 25 miles further south.
There was no doctor in Balingup. My mother, who was 42 when I was born, wasn't really expected to have another child. My youngest brother was eight and the rest of the family were considerably older. My sister was eighteen when I was born.
My mother went to Donnybrook where they had a doctor. There was also a midwife there with whom she was supposed to stay but she found the place was so dirty she couldn't bear it. The doctor suggested to move into the hotel. So I was actually born in the Railway Hotel in Donnybrook.
My eldest brother went away in 1914 to the war, my second brother went in 1916.
I do vaguely remember when he left because we had a dairy and I was told I'd have to learn to milk. They got a very small stool and a small bucket and I did learn to milk to help take his place. I milked all the time while we were at Balingup, morning and night, which was an awful burden for a child.
Whenever I grumbled about anything I can remember my mother saying, “You must think of the poor boys in the trenches.” I got very sick of hearing about the boys in the trenches.
But the thing that does stand out was when my mother was accidentally informed that my eldest brother, who was in the Australian Flying Corps, had been shot down over in Egypt and killed.
I can remember very vividly – I had been with her to the post office – how we opened the letter on the way home. So that was a devastating thing until we actually heard that it was wrong.
There was another letter from a friend in the mail which they hadn't opened. It was from a nurse over there. She talked about my brother's plane being taken up by someone else and shot down and how fortunate it was he wasn't in it.
My brothers were complete strangers to me. It was a very lonely life for me because I was like an only child. The brother who was eight years older was away at school. I milked. I had a pony. The pony and the cows and my cat, were all pets to me. I used to have long conversations with the cows and the pony [laughs].
I didn't go to school in the ordinary sense. We were fortunate there was another family farming out of Balingup. Miss Connie Major had been in the Education Department. She had been well-educated before they came out here. She was able to teach me French.
My mother arranged for me to have two hours three days a week which is what I started with. But I think that someone reported to the Education Department that I wasn't attending school.
An inspector came to see how I was getting on. However, he found that I was getting on very well with six hours a week. Well with undivided attention of course, it does make a difference.
But mainly I was a lonely child. I was a tremendous reader. My father was always a very keen reader, but my mother believed that you shouldn't read in the daytime, and that you shouldn't waste your time. I suppose in a consequence of that I used to read secretly in bed under the bedclothes and sometimes I think in the morning when I wasn't supposed to be doing so.
I read everything that was in the house. We had a complete set which I suppose had belonged to my mother, of the novels of Walter Scott. I read them all, I think by the time I was ten. I learned very quickly how to skip what was dull and it stood me in good stead when I was studying in later years.
I read all the classics that we had, Scott and Dickens. There were a lot of my brother's books. I read Coral Island, all Ballantyne's books, that sort of thing.
I read everything that was available to read, and then of course I had suitable girls' books I suppose of the time: L M Montgomery and The Wide, Wide World which I can remember my mother reading to me before I could read. I lay in bed weeping while she read me this sad story.
My father used to keep an eye out sometimes. I can remember there was a book called The Sheikh, and he found me reading that and that was removed very rapidly. I think it was probably pretty harmless [laughs].
For my leaving year, I went to school at St Mary's in West Perth. I did enjoy those years at St Mary’s and I made some very good friends who are still my friends to this day. I was very shy at first.
Things were still financially difficult. We were all affected by the Depression. However, I think my mother particularly felt that if I wanted to have an academic education I should. By that time we had sold the farm. You see there were no fees for the university in those days. It was fairly reasonable, I mean, apart from the actual living and fares and things like that.
I studied at the Crawley Campus and I majored in English, French and maths. During university, I was teaching at a small school in Mount Lawley.
STAY TUNED for Part Two where Mollie gets her job as the first Western Australian State archivist.
SOURCE –
[Interview with Mollie Lukis] / [interviewed by Erica Harvey)
Lukis, Mollie, 1911-2009.
Oral History | 1992.
Available online (Call number: OH2527)
