The Herman Rieck Letters and The Wallace Patrick Campbell Papers

This collection of letters and papers is in my possession because my wife Janice Lynette Campbell was the daughter of Wallace Campbell and the grandaughter of Dalmahoy and Margaret Campbell. Wallace Campbell died on 31 March 1959 and these papers had been kept in a small desk in his office at their Korora home. The desk and its undisturbed contents were subsequently moved by Janice's mother to at least four other houses before her last years in a nursing home. It was then brought to The Knoll and placed in the stair hall, where it stayed until I moved the desk and its contents to my villa in Coffs Harbour after leaving the Knoll in 2018. I remembered seeing the desk in the Korora house and one examining its contents here at my villa much later, I realised that most of the contents were as her father had left them. And I hope this small piece of history might add to the collection at Coffs Harbour Museum to join with Herman Rieck's cattle brand that I passed on to the Museum previously.

I don't have a detailed knowledge of the Campbells family background but Dal Campbell was a farmer and a gold fossicker, and by some circumstance of which I know little, was able to take possession of the northern part of Herman Rieck's property at Korora. I have been told that Rieck was a planter who had been engaged somewhere in the Pacific, perhaps in the Samoan Islands. He had arrived in Coffs Harbour in 1886 it seems and selected land at Korora. The land was situated north from Pine Brush Creek, just part Hayes Creek to the south of Chalky Headland, sometimes called White Bluff. Rieck had sought title of this land to the high tide mark hoping to be able to grow coconuts as in the islands. This is the property where the first bananas were grown in this area south of the Clarence River and it states in W P Campbell's letter to the Coffs Harbour Advocate, that Herman Rieck had procured the suckers from Fiji about the year 1890 and planted them on his property.

Apparently the Campbells had obtained possession of the property by a "Life Lease Agreement" with the Riecks who returned to Germany just before the start of World War 1 and it was this lease agreement that the Campbells had now asked to be cancelled. Rieck agreed to the fee of £100 and gave instructions of some terms and to whom and where the money was to be paid. All of this is described in Rieck's letter of 11 October 1920. A previous letter written in 1919 refers to conditions in Germany at that time. The two letters were gathered up by Janices [sic] father Wallace from a collection of letters and paperwork that had existed in one of the storerooms behind the Campbell house that had been originally built by and lived in by Herman and Fanny Rieck who called the property "Pine Grange". In recent times it is known as Sapphire Pines.

The Campbells continued to grow bananas, some small crops and kept a few cows. Dalmohoy and Margaret had four children, two girls and two boys and they went [to] school at Korora. The eldest Ivy actually married Claude Ongley who had been a teacher at Korora. Alma, her sister married Lew Saywell. Wallace married Norma Palmer whose family had leased a banana plantation on Old Coast Road not far from the Campbells. The Palmers later moved to West Korora and developed a large plantation there. Wallace took over the lease of the Old Coast Road plantation and developed and expanded it. He eventually was able to buy that property and built a new house there in 1945-46. Cecil the youngest son married at a similar time to Wallace, a lady named Joan and took over the Campbell property continuing to grow bananas and small crops. It was when Cecil started talking about selling the property (there was interest growing in this beach front land) that Wallace retrieved the Rieck letters and other papers. It seems to me the common sense thing to do is pass this small archive over to the Coffs Harbour Museum with my best wishes.

(Written by Robert Hunter, 2 July 2021)

Letter from Fanny Rieck, Deisenhofen, Bavaria, Germany, addressed to 'Mrs Campbell and all kind friends in Australia!', 7 September 1919. Includes instructions from H. Rieck to send the letter to Miss E. Doberer, Grafton. Two pages with ruled lines, handwritten on both sides.

The letter includes the Riecks' experiences as prisoners-of-war, the hardships of rationing and the cost of living, poor conditions in post-war Germany and homesickness for Coffs Harbour.