Jennie Entel was born on her parents farm at Lacrosse, Washington, U.S.A. in
the year of 1893. Her parents were, John and Adeline Entel.
Her father, John Entel, was a tyrant of a man, he had stolen his seven young
children from his wife Adeline and he brought his children to Australia
leaving Adeline stranded, alone and with no means of support.
Jennie told her story to a reporter from the 'Henty Observer', it went to
print on- Friday 20th of February 1959.
This is Jennies story..
He stood over them with a Stockwhip.
There are people living in our midst who can tell stories - true stories, of
their lives which have the ring of the novel about them, yet are stranger
than fiction. Here in Henty there is such a person. Her's surely is the
saddest, most poignant of any story which could be told. It is an
unbelievable tale of brutality, of the kidnapping from a mother of a family
of seven children and their forced passage over thousands of miles of ocean
to a new land.
It is the tale of seven children cowering before a brute of a man, who stood
over them with a stockwhip in hand and did not hesitate to use it. Until an
Australian warned him of the consequences of that continued behaviour of
that sort in this country.
One of the actors in this true story was Mrs Jennie Holder, of South Street
Henty. She was one of the seven children in this unbelievably tragic
occurrence. Today she and her husband live happily in their unpretentious,
but neat and tidy home. They haven't much money, they are pensioners, but
they are inseparable and they find their common interest in love of home and
in fighting for a better deal for pensioners.
In Germany.
The story starts in Germany, the Germany many years before the turn of the
century. John Entel, then aged 14, and two sisters decided to flee the
country and seek their fortunes in America. Visions of being absorbed into
the German Army may have hastened a decision to quit the Fatherland.
But Entel's sisters both died within 12 months. He was left alone in vast
America, then in the throes of development on an unprecedented scale.
He was allotted a 640 acre farm for nothing, provided he worked it in the
way laid down by the Government.
He must have succeeded because he was later able to sell the farm and seek a
larger property. He was quite a well to do farmer. In the meantime he had
married at the age of 21. His wife's name was Addie.
It was in 1907 that Addie and John Entel and their family, ranging from two
year old Evalina to 15 year old Frances, sold their farm in Lacrosse,
Washington, and went to Oregon. They planned to buy another ranch near
Eugene.
The children remained in Portland while the parents went on to Eugene. Entel
later went back to Portland to get the children, then he wrote his wife
instructing her to go on to California, where, he said, he would meet her
there with the children.
Planned Beforehand
He did nothing of the kind, instead, and the plan must have been carefully
worked out beforehand, he booked passages on the 'Sonoma' for himself and
the seven children and set sail for New Zealand.
Not a thing about this was known by his wife, or was to be known by her for
many years. Stranded and penniless, she found work which supported her while
she sought vainly to trace her husband, but husband and children had
vanished completely.
Surely what had happened to Addie Entel was the saddest, cruellest blow that
could ever happen to any woman. In 1912 she divorced Entel and remarried,
taking the name of Hart.
First Tidings
It was 38 years later that Addie Hart had tidings of her long lost children.
Five years previously she had sought help from the Catholic Truth Society
and for five years that organisation worked quietly, but tenaciously.
Then one day Addie Hart was called before the Vicar-General of the Oregon
Archdiocese. He told her that the Society had located her youngest daughter,
Evalina. She was then Sister Mary Cletus. Since 1921 Evalina had been in
the Convert of the Sisters of Charity in Brisbane, where she had been
deposited by her father.
All this time Evalina, and the other children too, believed that their
mother was dead. They had been told that by Entel. The Vicar-General also
told Addie that Emmie (Amy) was dead. She had died at Morven.
Her two sons, she was told, had married sisters and were living in the
Argentine. Two other daughters, Frances, of Wagga Wagga, and Jennie (Mrs
R.J. Holder, of Henty had married brothers. Three grandsons were at that
time in the Australian Forces.
Traced
This news was conveyed to the woman who had suffered so much, in 1945. Her
family had been traced, never, said a contemporary account in an American
Newspaper, had there been a Mother's Day celebration quite the same as was
held that day.
Not that Mrs Hart had any of her children there. None of them was physically
present with her, there was only a bundle of letters written by them in the
months immediately before from the far corners of the earth. But they were
precious documents. They pieced together the lives of seven children
kidnapped by their father way back in 1907.
One of the daughters, Lena, was living on the same Continent as her mother.
She was living in Idaho. But although the closest, she was the only one from
whom Addie had not received any direct word.
Horror of Father
Mrs Holder speaks of her father with horror. He was the brutal type who
strutted around with a stockwhip, which he used savagely and often on his
children, even at their tender age. In the states they lived on an isolated
farm and there Entel was a law unto himself, and nobody interfered.
When Entel and his seven children reached New Zealand, he decided to go on
to Australia. Thus it was that the family came to live in this region, no
doubt because of the substantial proportion of people of German stock. Entel
acquired a wine salon, cum-boarding house, cum-mixed farm, now demolished,
and situated 27 miles out of Wagga, between Book Book and Kyeamba Stations.
He ruled his family harshly. For them it was a case of up at 4am to face the
hard tasks of the farm in those days, including harvesting and haymaking.
Entel stood over them with his whip. They were like so much cattle, surprise
it is that he allowed them some schooling. That at least was some respite
from his cruelty.
After school it was the same hard round for the children. And that was not
all. Travellers called at the boarding house round the clock. No matter what
time it was, Entel pulled his children out of bed to prepare hot meals,
which he sold at one shilling. Board also was one shilling for the night.
Died on visit
Entel died in 1927 whilst on a visit to Germany. Addie died some nine years
ago. He had one good trait in his character, black as it was. He was
scrupulously honest.
When at the age of 13, and Jennie announced, kidlike, that she was going to
marry Holder, her father stockwhipped her for her frankness. But six years
later she carried out her intention.
That is the heart rending story as told by Mrs Holder. At least her harsh
upbringing has taught her to be careful, to avoid waste. She will proudly
show the visitor the fruits of her enterprise. On the table in the lounge is
a miniature sportsground. There must be from two to three hundred pieces,
making up this unique exhibit. It was made up of tiny toys and other objects
which other people had discarded.
We waste nothing, said Mrs Holder. A lot of the furniture and furnishings
have been made by us, even the rugs on the floor and settees. Wool scraps
have featured largely in these items.
There is an aboriginal school made up entirely of match-boxes and cupboards
jammed tight with row upon row of birds, animals and other objects deftly
made from moulds and all gaily painted. There are light shades made from
milk tins. Nothing in the Holder household is wasted.
The Henty Observer, Friday 20th February 1959.
.............................
Reuben John Holder met Jennie Entel when he was boarding at her father's
wine saloon. It was while he was living there that he applied for his Crown
Lease at Morven. The shanty, south of Book Book on the Tumbarumba road,
doubled as a Cobb and Co inn and had a small farm attached. It was known as
'Sunny Springs'. It was here on a hot day in February 1914, that Reuben's
family and friends along with the Entel's gathered to witness the marriage
of Jennie and Reuben.
Reuben's 16 acre block of land at Morven was situated between his parents,
Henry and Eliza Holder's block and his brother, Albert Harold's block.
Reuben, with help from his brothers built a small house clad in ripple iron.
His older brother Ernest planted a row of pine trees on the western fence
line.
As these trees grew they gave the Holders small home welcome shade and cool
during the hot summer months.
Reuben and Jennie had five children they were Ted, Annie, Norman, and
Valentine, in April 1923 their youngest child Edna Rose died during a
difficult birth. With no time for a Catholic baptism Edna Rose was not
eligible for burial in consecrated ground. Little Edna Rose was laid to rest
later that day on their property at Morven, she was placed in a small grave
surrounded by a wrought iron fence under the cool wide spreading branches of
the pine trees that her uncle Ernest had planted years before.
Ted, Annie, Norman and Valentine all attended the Morven School.
Jennie was a tiger of a woman, but loved by all who knew her, her name was
pronounced with a German inflection as 'Jinny'. She was nicknamed 'Cussin
Jinny', not because she used bad language but she had the habit of saying,
I'll cussin well be there when I'm good and ready' or I'll cussin well do it
when I feel like it.
The Babington children loved to call into their aunty Jennie's house on the
way home from school, my mother, Judy Babington said her aunty Jennie made
the nicest American pancakes she had ever tasted.
Reuben and Jennie retired at Henty where they lived in South Street, right
across from the bowling green. Reuben passed away in 1960 and Jennie a few
years later, both Reuben and Jennie are buried in the Henty cemetery.
Jennie's sister Amy Catherine Entel was born in 1901, she was seven years
old when she arrived in Australia. Amy married Ernest Henry Holder (brother
to Reuben John Holder) in 1919. Ernest had a block of 9 acres at Morven. He
built a small cottage and he and Amy were living there when four of their
children were born by August 1930, Eliza Adeline Amy (Liza), Henry Charles,
Albert Harold and Sylvia Kathleen.
Amy suffered with severe arthritis, from a very young age. Ernest and Amy
struggled with their young family so in 1931 they sold their block of land
to Ernestine Wallace for sixty eight pounds and Ernest built their second
home which was connected to his parents Henry and Eliza's home by a twelve
foot breezeway.
The breezeway was covered by a long skillion roof which ran from Henry and
Eliza's mud brick cottage and over the new house, this formed an L. shaped
structure. Three water tanks stood on the western side which was shaded by
two kurrajong trees. Three more children were born, John Jacob, Evelyn Mary
Frances and James Francis (Jimmy). Sadly Evelyn died in 1935, she was only
23 months old.
By the 1940's Amy was almost bed ridden she was often in excruciating pain,
she would have Ernest carry her and seat her in front of the laundry tub.
Here she would toil away for hours before her husband carried her back to
bed. This amazing lady passed away in the mid 1940's after her arthritis had
turned septic, she was 48 years old. Amy was buried in the Culcairn
cemetery. Ernest died at Tumbarumba in 1959, he was 77 years old. He was
buried in the Tumbarumba cemetery.