A scattering of farmhouses in Truganina once formed the backbone of the now rapidly growing suburb where the local progress association was formed 90 years ago.
Newcomers may not realise it, but times back then were tough.
Truganina Progress Association spokeswoman Wendy Bitans said it took years to get simple things such as a telephone connection to the area and the service of a daily mail from “distant” Werribee.
She said some things had not changed since the association was formed in 1923. “We still need better roads,” she said.
The association will celebrate its 90th anniversary with a ‘Back to Truganina’ reunion on Sunday, October 20.
Mrs Bitans’ ancestors moved to Truganina in the 1850s, finding a hard land where farmers faced dry conditions under the area’s “rain shadow”.
“It was dreadfully hard. You only have to see how many are buried in the Truganina cemetery to appreciate it,” she said. The area was named after Truganini, considered to be the last full-blood Aboriginal woman in Tasmania and who was believed to have been rescued by a passerby who brought her to the area in the 1800s, Mrs Bitans said.
She said many newcomers didn’t know how to pronounce the suburb’s name.
“It is Truga-nine-a, not Truga-neena, which sounds Italian.”
Mrs Bitans said some residents could recall the “Truga dances” held in the Mechanics Institute Hall until it burnt down in the 1969 bushfires that also destroyed 45 houses, a school and many local records.
“The hall had a floor with springs underneath, making it a better dance-floor. It was used from the early 1900s in the days when people rode their horses there,” she said.
The reunion will be held at the Air Raid Precaution Hall on the corner of Dohertys and Woods roads, from 1pm.
» Details: 9394 1107.
