Cliff and Freda Baker (née Taylor) were the hosts of many social gatherings in Ulverstone and the Central Coast. They showed movie pictures at the Oddfellows Hall, the Crystal Theatre (now the RSL on King Edward Street), and in the old Town Hall in Reibey Street. The Crystal Theatre also housed a skating rink at one time and the Town Hall saw many concerts and balls. Cliff and Freda attended many of these events.
Winifred ‘Freda’ Taylor (1901–1956) was an adventurous soul. In 1928 she joined a hiking party up Black Bluff and was the first woman of the party to reach Lake Patrick. The hiking party had formed at her photographer father GP Taylor’s property. She was also very musical, with training in the piano. Sclif’he joined the Lyric Orchestra in the early 1920s where she met her future husband Clifton ‘ Baker (1898–1987). He had learned violin from the nuns at the Ulverstone Convent School, moving to Melbourne for a time to continue his studies. They played together on many occasions and would be the musical accompaniment for the silent movies in their movie theatres. Cliff partnered with Clem Counsel to run the Majestic Theatre in Devonport and the Vogue Theatre in Burnie. They also built the Star Theatre at Invermay, Launceston. They sold all the movie theatres to the newly formed Star Theatres Pty. Ltd. company in the 1940s.
Cliff and Freda married during the Great Depression and rented Ocean View, the boarding house near the Recreation Ground, for 25 years before purchasing it from Annie Lakin in 1942. It was very hard work. Freda cooked three meals a day, seven days a week for the permanent boarders and her young family. She washed linens in the old boiler in the separate laundry house. Infant John would be in an apple box at her feet on the weekends when she was the ticketmaster for the movie theatre. Later she homeschooled the children for a short time during the polio epidemic when the schools were shut.
Their daughter Betty — Ulverstone’s first Citizen of the Year — remembers community singing at the Crystal Theatre during the Second World War. It is where she learned to dance from Mrs Jimmy Brown (as she was known) who taught generations of children the classic dances for the many society balls held on the Central Coast. Betty herself taught for 28 years at Sacred Heart Catholic School and married Trawlwoolway man Cecil Smith in 1952. Betty remembers Freda as a social and convivial hardworking woman and Cliff as a quiet man dedicated to the recreational joy of the community.
The Bakers of Ocean View is one of the new stories on display in the Ulverstone Museum at Hive as part of the exhibition A Town is a Tapestry … and every persons story is a stitch. Hive is open 10am – 4pm, daily.
Image credits:
Clifton Baker and Freda Taylor Wedding. Freda was GP Taylor’s daughter. Picture is taken at Walhalla in Main Street, Ulverstone, 1929. Photograph by GP Taylor. Courtesy of Betty Smith.
Bottom: Members of the Lyric Orchestra including Cliff Baker (standing third from left), Vince Taylor with saxaphone (standing first from left), Bess Taylor with violin (seated), unknown others, 1930s. Courtesy of Betty Smith.
