The Obedient Daughter

She wasn’t given a middle name. She wasn’t allowed to cut her hair. And she wasn’t allowed to go to university. She is my Grandmother. “I wasn’t disadvantaged,” my slender Grandmother said, as I sat, feeling guilty, as her hands intertwined with one another.

She wasn’t given a middle name. I have two. She wasn’t allowed to cut her hair. I have a bob. She wasn’t allowed to go to university. I am studying a double degree. Lois Saundercock and I grew up in different eras.

Lois Drummond nee Saundercock

Lois Drummond

In 1938, Lois Saundercock was born. Lois Saundercock… Short and humble. “The girls in my family weren’t given middle names. But when the boys were born, they were granted two names, in case they needed their initials to go into business,” she said, as I coughed on guilt. My three given names now seem pompous. Who do I think I am? Royalty? How pretentious! “I was the only girl I my class without a second name,” she told me through bursts of laughter. “So I gave myself a middle name… Lois Lorraine Saundercock. I though it was so beautiful.”

Lois’ father, Henry Saundercock was a strict, religious man. He sought literal meaning from The Bible. Lois wasn’t allowed to cut her hair until high school, as hair was seen as ones “crowning glory.” “So my poor Mum, who had seven children,” said Lois,  “had to plait the hair of three girls six days a week,” laughs Lois. “It was so long, it touched my bottom. Even though Mum tried to be gentle, her calloused hands still tore at my scalp. I wanted nothing more than to wear it down, but Dad wouldn’t let me.”

Henry Saundercock
Lois' father, and my great grandfather

My brother, Hugh Tatham and Henry Saundercock

As I peer back through my tender memories of Grandma, I can only ever see her with short hair. I couldn’t imagine having hair that long. Me? I’ve had a bob from the age of three.

My mother, father, brother and I grew up in a four-bedroom house. Space was a luxury. We even have a swimming pool. The Saundercocks, however, lived in a two-bedroom house. For a family of seven children, space was tight.

At the age of 10, Lois was recommended to Parramatta High School, one of Sydney’s first selective schools. “When the schools inspector was at our primary school he looked at my results and my IQ test”, she said. “He thought my parents had got mixed up and meant to put the numbers the other way around. He was wrong. I was smart.” After being accepted, she got her teeth into learning, studying science, mathematics, literature, French and Latin. 

Five years later my grandmother was the dux of Parramatta High School. Her gender made this a rare success. Her high academic achievement, won her a Commonwealth Scholarship and a university bursary that would pay for tuition and textbooks. Despite an offer of tremendous financial assistance, a tertiary education was against her father’s rules. “My father wouldn’t let me go to university. He thought that it wasn’t sensible to spend money on girls going to university, as they were just going to marry, and stop work. He didn’t’ believe that girls deserved a university education, and that was it. That was his final decision,” she said. “One day the English Master from Parramatta High came to our house, and asked to speak to my father”, she said. “My father spoke to him on the front drive – we were poor and Mum would have been embarrassed to bring him into the house. He told my father that he owed it to the world to let me use the brains God had given me, or words to that effect. My father, and I, thought he had a bit of a hide to say that when he didn’t seem to be a church-going man himself. I can laugh now!” I’m not laughing, I think, as I sit inundated with assessments from my dual degree.

After graduating from high school, Lois’ parents sent her on a girl’s Christian camp. Councilors spoke to her about vocationally fulfilling her duty to God. “We were told to follow the talents granted to us, as it would please God.” However, this did nothing but upset her. “I can’t”, cried Lois to the councilors. “I’m not allowed to! After admitting my inability, the councilors shared with me the Bible verse that stated that children must obey their parents. So eventually I accepted that. God was calling on me to follow my fathers orders.” 

 “I was disappointed that I couldn’t go to university,” she said, eventually drawing upon her emotions. My Grandmother was unwilling to cast a negative light on her father, something I still find hard to understand. “I was disappointed, but I understood. Somehow, after sometime, I understood,” Lois remarked, as I stared into her deep-green eyes. I don’t understand, Grandma. And I doubt I ever will.

Instead of university, Lois’ father decided she should go to Metropolitan Business College for six months. She was taught Summerhayes Shorterhand, in aid of her future career as a secretary. Before too long, Lois’ talents were recognized once again. “The principal of the college in Sydney came to my parents’ home and sat in our humble kitchen and asked my parents if I could stay at college till the end of the year, for no fees, to do classes in the mornings and work in the college office in the afternoons for 5 pounds a week. He told us that court reporting had just opened to women, that there was no age barrier and there was a flat rate of pay of about 20 pounds a week – that was high pay.”

By the age of 17 Lois was employed as a court reporter in North Sydney, earning an adult wage higher than that of a nurse. Her shorthand exceeded 230 words a minute, making her the fastest court reporter in Australia. “My hands would ache,” she said. “It was a very intense job. I used to finish, and burst out in tears.”

Despite her job success, Lois was still held in the tight grasp of her father’s strict rules. For her first three years of employment, Lois was forced to give her pay to her father, with only receiving five pounds of pocket money in return. Without even commenting on how she felt, she said, “I owed it to my family. Mum did have seven kids, and I was the eldest. I needed to help.”

She was denied a tertiary education, denied self-expression, denied a middle name, and yet she felt obliged to help her family. I have nothing but respect for my grandmother. Just as the Bible says in Proverbs 31:26: “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”

My four grandparents and I

Hugh Tatham (my brother) and Lois Drummond

Edward and Lois Drummond, and I, at my Debutante Ball

Edward and Lois Drummond