News
14 April, 2021
History in the making, as Ron and Peggy see it
As president of the Woodford Historical Society, Ron Trim has a deeply ingrained interest in the history of the Woodford area.
His parents ran a convenience store and post office in Villeneuve, and also had a dairy farm at Neurum.
As it turned out, dairy farming proved to be a huge part of Ron’s life while it was also significant for his wife Peggy, after they tied the knot in 1956.Ron recalled that the farm used to be a cream supplier before it progressed to milk supplies.
“Timber, cattle and cream used to go by train,” Ron said.
“It used to go right through the middle of our farm.”
Having become involved in educating young farmers via the Queensland Junior Farmers’ Organisation, Ron also supported the Woodford Show Society and school P&C.
“We wanted to start preserving the history of the district. The history of the people and the district itself (interested me),” Ron said.
Ron deemed that the closure of the milk factory was a turning point in Woodford, and that “we all moaned and groaned when we lost the milk factory”.
Ron also remembered “the Forestry ceased taking on staff”, and that the train service stopped in 1964.
It subsequently felt like “there was no work for anybody”, as Ron described.
Ron considered the supermarkets made a huge difference in the area, especially IGA and Woolworths.
Asked if she was also interested in history, Peggy said: “I have to be.”
“It’s amazing to think of the changes that have taken place in our lifetime,” Peggy said.
“It was all a farming area when I was a kid.
“The importance of dairy farming, milk supply and what have you, has decreased (since then).
“It’s become much more urbanised.”
Peggy deemed that when deregulation was introduced in 2000, this had a huge impact on farming.
With Caboolture having started a historical society many years earlier while Kilcoy had more recently started something similar, Ron found support from a number of locals in the late 1990s to form the Woodford Historical Society.
Carol O'Brien was the original secretary before Donna Grigor took on the role.
The Woodford Historical Society put together a number of publications, including 1841 - 2000: “Milestones” from Durundur to Woodford.
Peggy, who also worked as a secretary with the Rural Fire Brigade for many years, said: “We haven’t just collected artefacts. We’ve collected family histories as well.”
Peggy said a lot of people were interested to find out about their ancestors, and that some people were “moved to tears” to discover their family history after unsuccessfully searching for it.
With the Caboolture West region set to expand considerably in the next 10 to 20 years, Ron and Peggy anticipated more chapters would be added to Woodford’s rich history.
