Community & Business
7 September, 2024
Celebrating a life of love
IT could be the screenplay for a classic Australian romance of a hard-working couple who overcame obstacles to build a life of lasting love, friendships and family.
Those three building blocks were evident at Gateway Hotel, Mareeba, on Sunday 11, when close to 100 guests gathered to celebrate the 68th wedding anniversary of Esther and Harry Grogan.
“It was a great day to be part of the celebration and see all of the family together,” eldest son Wayne said. “The Gateway closed the place down for us during the day.”
The couple, who also turned 90 this year, have a story that reflects
almost a century of Australia’s history. Read through old local news articles, or a tribute by Michael Musumeci on the Mareeba Historical Society facebook page, and there’s a sense of so many milestones for the region and the Grogans.
So how did a young Indigenous girl from Walcha in NSW meet and marry a young man from Kuranda in the 1950s, during a time of strict control of Indigenous peoples around the country?
Esther was born on May 14, 1934 to police tracker Lester Kim and Lulu Kim (nee Wright). She grew up helping her dad, a self-taught mechanic, builder and rabbit trapper. She left Armidale to find work in Sydney in the mid-1950s.
Young Harry was born at a Queensland mission just two months before, on March 19, 1934, to Harry Senior and Rosie Grogan (nee Maytown). His parents had met at Mona Mona Mission where Harry senior had worked, and Rosie had grown up, after being taken from Cannibal Creek (Kuku Yalanji Country) as a child.
Mona Mona opened in 1913 and was one of many throughout Australia, which housed Aboriginal children taken from their families. Any children born at the mission thereafter were automatically placed into single-sex dormitories. Mona Mona closed in 1962 and the majority of residents were forcibly removed to Palm Island or Woorabinda.
Young Harry was strong and fit, working many cattle stations around Chillagoe while at the Mission. By 20 he was deemed suitable for an exemption card under the Aborigines Protection Act, which meant he could travel freely (the Act was repealed in 1969 following the 1967 referendum).
He moved to Sydney to start a professional boxing career with his brother Clarence, also a boxer.
From August 1954 up to late September 1959, he had 24 bouts with 15 wins in total. He was undefeated in his first four bouts at the Sydney Stadium in front of record crowds. He made the front cover of ‘The Ring Magazine’ in October 1955, with the heading: “HARRY GROGAN, CAN HE MAKE IT”. By September 1957, he proved he could. Harry won the Australian Welterweight Title.
He had also won the heart of Esther.
Regularly passing each other on their way to and from work in Newtown, they were finally introduced by a cousin and began courting. They were married on August 4, 1956, at Armidale Presbyterian Church and lived in Sydney. Their son, Wayne, was born a year later - the same year Harry won the title.
In late 1958, the young family travelled up the east coast with the Sharman Boxing Troupe. Settling back in the north, Harry then supported his family by working on the railway, doing horse and cattle work, as well as timber cutting, while Esther raised their three children - Wayne, Cyril and Sharon - in between working seasonal jobs on tobacco farms and domestic cleaning.
The family bought their first home in Kuranda, before moving to Cairns and buying their next home. They then returned to the Tablelands, settling in their family home in Hodzic Road Mareeba. Nowadays, the couple share with their family at Rocky Top, Fichera Road, Mareeba.
In 1973, tragedy befell the family when 13-year-old son Cyril suffered a seizure and lost the ability to walk, talk or communicate. Esther refused to have him put in a nursing home and she cared for him throughout his life, until he passed in 2022.
Harry is still a living legend in the boxing community, making guest appearances at major bouts in Mareeba.
In an interview with The Express newspaper in August 2016, after the couple received a letter from the late Queen Elizabeth II congratulating them on their 60th wedding anniversary, Harry revealed the secret to a long and happy life was by helping each other and love.
“We just love each other,” he said simply. “Esther is everything to me.”
