From Des Klinge's memoirs
The Wodonga West State School No.1058, was built on land donated by JW Klinge.
It replaced an older school north of the railway lines.
Children were educated to Grade 6 level and when it closed in December 1949, the nine pupils, myself included, thereafter attending Wodonga State School.
Elmore bought the land back from the Education Department for a small reserve price and he and Norm demolished the school room with attached residence.
My family has few fond memories of Wodonga West School. During the Second World War, Noel and Max suffered ill-treatment because of our German ancestry, just as our father had experienced during the first.
Certain neighbours accused our family of signalling to Germans in the hills because our back light went on and off in the evenings. (Our toilet was outside).
Our parents had 70 fruit trees, several varieties of plums, apples, apricots, peaches, citrus and a small cherry, as well as grapes, around our house.
On arrival home from school, we would stuff ourselves with whatever fruit was in season, and still ate a big evening meal as well.
Much of the fruit was preserved by mum and her sister Alma Boyes in glass jars with Fowlers Preserving Kit, or made into jam.
We had damson plum jam sandwiches in our school lunches.
My brothers wrapped their sandwiches in newspaper, but I wrapped mine with the tissue paper in which bakery bread was wrapped.
It was a rare treat to be able to buy lunch at the shop. An ice cream in a cone was a penny for a small one or threepence halfpenny for the standard size.
Mr Hall, the Wodonga baker, had a horse-drawn bread cart with which he delivered bread twice weekly through Wodonga West until January 14, 1944.
One of my earliest recollections was my sitting on the gate post, not quite two years old, waiting for him to pass, hoping he would give me a meat pie.
His cart was painted reddish-brown, with lettering on the side.
The doors opened at the back to the delicious smell of fresh bread, buns and pies.
Note from Wodonga Historical Society: Unfortunately the 'e' seems to have dropped from the name Klinge in council signage. Attempts are being made to have it reinstated.
Visit the society's website for more stories and historical photographs.
