After a lifetime of devotion to each other and decades separating their newly married selves from their ageing bodies and minds, one thing remains evident between Mary and Frank Ruigrok: their love is pure and deep, a love that transcends distance and life’s challenges. Journalist Mikayla van Loon was privileged to get a peek at their love story.
Seventy years ago, a young Mary, 25, and a young Frank, 26, married just one day before they boarded a ship and sailed for Australia, leaving behind their homeland, Holland, in search of a better life.
It was 6 October 1955, 10 years since World War II ended, and life in the Netherlands was somewhat bleak for families and young couples.
Mary was from Heemstede, and Frank was from Hillegom, both regions known for tulip bulb growing.
The pair met some years earlier at a birthday party. Frank, completing his two years of national service in Indonesia at 19 years old, with his high school friend Matthew, who had formed a bond with a female pen pal during his time, said they were lucky to “come home alive”.
Little did the two know that the pen pal was in fact Mary’s sister, Anne.
Returning home to Holland, a party was thrown and games were played. Frank and Mary were paired for a particular quiz, and afterwards Frank offered to walk Mary home.
“We were the last two left over. We didn’t know each other, so we got talking,” Frank said.
The next day, a Sunday afternoon, Frank took Mary out on a date and that was the beginning of their love story and a lifetime together.
“Things just went on from there. Never looked back anymore,” Frank said.
Between meeting and marriage, Frank worked at the bulb fields. Having left school at 14, after his work day, he’d attend night school to study horticulture.
“The bulb fields, it was blinking hard work and the pay was meagre,” he said.
“It has improved a lot because a few years after we left, the unions started getting involved. If we had still been there, I probably wouldn’t even have thought about going overseas.”
Waiting to marry because of the influx of couples who had all decided the same, they’re day finally arrived just 24 hours before they were to board a ship.
Deciding to leave Holland was a choice Frank said they “never regretted”.
They embarked on the Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt cargo ship, which had been converted to a passenger ship with bunk beds three high. Men and women were separated to sleep, and during the day, you had to be up on deck.
The multi-week trip docked first in Perth and then Melbourne, where Frank and Mary disembarked, before it continued on to Sydney.
When asked what it was like moving to Australia in their mid-20s, Frank said “it was an adventure”.
The most challenging part, Frank said, was learning the language, especially pronunciation, even for simple words like lettuce.
With two of Frank’s brothers already in Melbourne, they provided sponsorship and a place to live for the first few weeks.
Unfortunately, Frank’s horticulture studies weren’t recognised in Australia, so he had to find work wherever he could.
This came at the Dunlop rubber factory in Bayswater, Frank said it paid well enough for the young couple to rent a house in The Basin for four years. They welcomed their first child, Fred, there.
Mary remembers climbing the many steps to the front door, the house on a slope, leaving the pram at the bottom, remarking how “I was fit then”.
Saving enough money, through hard work and compensation, to buy their own house, the family moved to a two-room house in Bayswater North, with a creek running out the back and an apple orchard surrounding them.
“The harder you worked, the more you earned,” Frank said.
This would become the family home, but as Lynette and Andrew arrived, the two-room house wasn’t quite big enough, and so, Frank set about extending the house with more rooms.
Working at Dunlops for about 10 years, Frank said in the early days he didn’t have a car, so he would ride his push bike to and from work, but as a Dutchy, he was used to that.
Moving on to another rubber factory, Frank said he worked there for many years, too, but sadly, it caught fire and the whole place burned down.
Family life was simple. The neighbourhood in Bayswater North became the Ruigroks’ adopted family. Children from the street would line up their shoes at the front door and all crowd in front of the television.
Frank grew every fruit and vegetable possible in the backyard, giving Mary much to make jams and preserves with.
“Dad had the whole backyard filled with vegetables and fruit trees,” Lynette said.
“Mum was the most amazing cook, and she could turn her hand to anything.”
They kept animals, enjoyed nature and had family time. Their lives were so full with what they had created for themselves, they never wanted for anything else, nor did the desire to return to Holland ever come.
“We couldn’t afford it with a grown family, and it was expensive. And then by the time we could afford it, both of our parents had died, so the pull wasn’t there anymore,” Frank said.
When Andrew went to school, Mary picked up a Monday shift at the Croydon Market, at a cafe. Frank picked up extra work as a school cleaner and later a bread delivery driver.
Mary volunteered for St Vincent de Paul’s in Ringwood for 20 plus years, while Frank was on the committee of the Dutch Club for 30 years.
Both of them, being very community-minded, also delivered Meals on Wheels together for many years.
Saving their dollars to buy a caravan, Frank and Mary travelled all around Australia, often escaping Melbourne’s winter for Queensland, their favourite place being Maroochydore.
“There was a caravan park there and it was very good, so when we left, we booked it for the next year,” Frank said.
“We used to walk everywhere when we went on holiday. We made sure that there was a bush nearby or something where we could walk.”
With so many years spent together, by each other’s side, when Mary was diagnosed with dementia, Frank took it upon himself to care for her.
But earlier this year, Mary had a fall and damaged her hip. In March, she moved into MiCare in Kilsyth. Frank still lives independently at their family home.
Lynette said it’s one of the most challenging things they’ve had to deal with, being separated from each other.
“That’s the really hard thing, they both miss each other,” she said.
“I wish we were together,” Mary said.
Frank is able to visit three times a week, but is unable to drive himself any more; he relies on his family to take him.
Growing up, Lynette said, her parents’ relationship modelled to the children what love and devotion were, that they embodied something special.
“Mum and dad were always so happy together, they always walked hand in hand. They were always so good together,” she said.
The couple celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary surrounded by friends and family on Sunday 5 October.
