Old Mango Trees near Otto's Pinch
The Peachester Postmistress and other stories
The Peachester Postmistress
Some of this information was gained from Brent Otto & Brenda Jesse (nee Otto), the grandchildren of Martha Sidney Rogers. This is an abridged version of the original story - The Peachester Post Mistress.
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In 1915 Martha Sidney Rogers became Peachester's first official Postmistress. She moved to Peachester shortly after the marriage of her daughter, Martha Lucy Rogers, to Hugo Ernest Otto in 1912.
​Martha Sidney Coventry married Jacob Reed Rogers in 1884 at Blackheath, Kent, England.
Shipping records show that in 1910 Martha, with her daughter Martha Lucy & son Stanley Reed, sailed from England aboard the "Orvieto" to Brisbane. Her eldest son, Charles, remained in England with his father.
Peachester pioneers, Gottlob Friedrich Otto and his wife, Auguste Ernestine, had by this time retired to Brisbane, building a home at the Newmarket turnoff on the corner of the main road to the general hospital. The Rogers family rented a home in the Windsor area, Stanley living there all his life. The two families became acquainted and a lasting friendship developed.
Martha Lucy Rogers, the only daughter of Jacob Rogers and Martha Coventry, married Hugo Ernest, the son of Gottlob Friedrich & Auguste Otto on 18th December 1912. Hugo was thirty-two years of age and working the Otto family farm while his wife, Martha, who was known as Maud, was twenty-seven years. Maud came to live on the Otto property, travelling back to Brisbane for the confinements of their two eldest children. Peachester's Nurse Hume delivered the younger four.
​Shortly after the marriage, Martha Sidney Rogers too had come to live in Peachester. In 1915 Martha Rogers became Peachester's first official Post Mistress conducting the Post Office duties in a house near the mill. At that time there were four houses in the Peach Tree village area. William Grigor had installed a telephone in the Mill in 1912 that was connected to the Beerwah Railway Exchange. This was a service greatly appreciated by those citizens living nearby. By 1916 the Peachester Mill had ceased operations but the small hamlet and the Post Office continued to function.
Peachester Post Office near Grigor's Mill
The war years had brought financial troubles to many in the district. Martha's son-in-law, Ernest Otto, and his brother, Bruno, worked a bullock team. They lost money in carting logs and had to sell up their wagon and team. Bruno found work sharefarming for John Yeo on River Road, Upper Peachester. His children, Edgar, Alvine, Marie, Harold and Veronica all attended the Crohamhurst School. Bruno then moved on to Kin Kin and later, Monto.
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It is indicative of the times that many families adopted or fostered children for a range of reasons. Martha Sidney Rogers was one such lady. Irene Mary Barnes was born in Brisbane on 18th June 1912. Her mother, Harriet Barnes, was involved in the hotel business and Martha Rogers fostered Irene at about five years of age and raised her as Rene Barnes. She attended Peachester School with the Otto children and her mother remained in touch to the extent that the Christmas festivities were celebrated always with Harriet Barnes present.
In 1922 a telephone exchange with nine subscribers was installed in Mrs Rogers Peachester hamlet Post Office. It was linked by trunk line to Caboolture. By 1924 the lower mill house, overgrown with lantana bush and ridden with termites, fell into ruins. Brent Otto spent a lot of time at the Post Office with his grandmother and he and the Tomlinson girls, Betty and Nancy, played here until it was deemed unsafe.
The road to Maleny in those days ran between the mill and the Post Office and in wet weather the ride up and down through the red mud of Peach Tree Hill was both slippery and difficult. Travel was made much easier when a road was built above the Post Office house. On entering Landsborough Shire Council in 1929, Duncan Macdonald was instrumental in having this road rerouted. The road was known to all as Peach Trees Lane but is seen on some maps today as Settlement Lane.
In 1928 when her mother became ill, Martha Lucy (Maud) Otto took over the duties of the Post Office, working too from the old mill house. Martha Sidney Rogers died in the Beerburrum Hospital on the 8th September 1930 and was buried in the Peachester Cemetery. She had lived nineteen years in Queensland. Near fourteen of those years had been spent as Peachester's Post Mistress. Working under difficulties from one of the old mill houses and on the outskirts of a growing township, she had supplied a vital need to a thankful community. Martha Rogers is remembered as a well spoken, well read, strong willed, hardworking woman.
After her death, Ernest Otto built a Post Office on land that he owned in the township and the old Post Office operation was relocated. A long gable roof was erected, the front part serving as the Post Office and the rear partitioned to allow for a kitchen and a wood stove. This remained when the home was built alongside. During this time the Otto's lived in the Walter Francis house behind Tom Dwyer's place. Their third child, Brent Otto, was fourteen years old and when his father commenced building a house beside the Post Office, Brent assisted him. The youngest Otto child, Brenda, was born in 1932 and began her education in 1936 under Joyce Russell, walking to school from the Francis dwelling. It was after this that the Otto family moved into the Post Office residence, Maud continuing the postal duties that her mother had initiated.
The Otto's sold their Post Office business to the Rennie Brothers and moved to Caloundra in 1942. Naming their home "Coventry" was a lasting reminder to the part Martha Sidney Rogers had played in their lives.
The story of Bruno Otto & his two wives
Ernst Bruno Otto & Jessie Satchell Spiers were married 13 June 1897. Their son, James Henry Treadwell was born 18 August 1897 followed by another son, Oscar Ernest born 30 July 1899.
Their marriage did not last as, on 19 September 1900 Bruno arrived home from his work as a bullocky to find his wife engaged in a romantic liaison with John Mannion. Following an altercation, he left and went to his parents' house. He returned the following day and took Oscar, who would have been one year old.
Doings in Divorce, Truth 4 April 1909
Sadly, Oscar died on 9 February 1905. The report on Oscar's death in The Chronicle says “The little fellow had been living with his grandparents … …”. (see report Bruno's page)
In December 1905 Bruno was travelling near Gladstone and went to a house to enquire the way. The woman who came to the door was his wife, Jessie. She had two children with her and confirmed they were John Mannion's children.
In 1909 Bruno took steps to obtain a divorce from Jessie and at the end of March 1909 a Justice of the Supreme Court granted a decree nisi to be moved absolute at the expiration of three months, being end of June 1909.
Divorce Action, Telegraph 31 March 1909
On 4 August 1909 Bruno married Martha Alvene Taege. They had ten children who survived into adulthood. As well as those ten children there was a miscarriage, a stillborn child and another child who died during her first year. Bruno died 28 April 1950 whilst Martha survived another thirty years, passing away on 7 June 1983.
Jessie married John Mannion on 15 August 1910 and they had seven children.
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