Miss Elizabeth Killinger talks about her father's tannery on the Georges River, interviewed 1986

Miss Elizabeth Killinger was born in 1899 and was interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' Miss Killinger's family was of German extraction and she talks here about her father's tannery on Ritchie's Creek [now Brickmakers Creek] on Georges River, which he established in the very early twentieth century.
Transcript

INTERVIEWER: And what did your father do in Liverpool?

ELIZABETH: He was a tanner.

INTERVIEWER: Whereabouts was your father's tannery, can you tell me a bit about that?

ELIZABETH: Yes, it was it was on the Ritchie's Creek I think they called it. If you came out from Liverpool, if you walked along Moore Street and then across Flowerdale Road, the road ended. Then we had our own private – we called it a track but it was really a road – and our house was just inside, oh not inside, about halfway between the road, Flowerdale Road and the creek, and then the tannery was a bit up from the creek. He had to pick a good spot where the water was suitable and there was a big water hole there and the creek came down through from round Hoxton Park way and down. And it never went dry at all. We had a couple of very heavy droughts and there was always water, he always had water, 'cause there was no city water around us at that time. He saw the land, it was sold by auction and he bought fifteen acres.

INTERVIEWER: So whereabouts did he learn his trade?

ELIZABETH: He learnt his trade in Germany, with his uncle in Wartenberg.