This Anzac story is about a First World War mother from Cambooya (pictured above), Queensland, who fought to keep her son’s medals. I told a version of this story on radio 4WK.

In Toowoomba in 1884, nineteen-year-old Catherina Fett married George Gottfried Michael Proellocks in a union of Prussian and German descent. Catherina was not a lady to be trifled with because shortly after the marriage, she impressed upon her husband to complain to council about the state of the night soil near their Long Street Toowoomba home. The marriage was a fruitful one none the less and produced nine offspring including seven sons.

With the onset of the First World War in 1914, it was inevitable that one of the boys would join up, particularly with the pressure of anti-German sentiment that was growing across Australia.

At least ninety-one German place and district names in Australia were changed. South Australia made the most with sixty-nine changes. In Queensland there were around fourteen changes. Even King George V changed his name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.

Some places followed a patriotic theme, like the Darling Downs town of Bismarck. Bismarck was named after Otto von Bismarck who was the Prussian and German statesman known as the Iron Chancellor. But in 1916 it was renamed Maclagan after the British Army officer who was in command of the 4th Australian Division.

There was also one change which was a mistake. Zhaley was a small town north-west of Toowoomba. In 1915 amid the anti-German feeling, the name was changed to Kilbirnie. But as it turns out, Zahley wasn’t German at all, it was actually Lebanese 

Anyway, Catherina’s third son Johann or John Proellocks was a twenty-two year old drover and living at family home outside of Cambooya south of Toowoomba, when in 1915 he enlisted in the Australian army.

John joined the 4th Division’s 47th Battalion. After a few months in Egypt, he went to England where he spent most of the time in and out of hospital. He was at the front in France for only nineteen days when on the 27th of March 1918 his battalion advanced up the line prior to the Battle of Dernacourt.

There was not a mark on his body, but John was killed outright by concussion when a shell exploded nearby. Leonard Don, whose wife was living in Ipswich at the time, was wounded by the same shell but survived. Toowoomba’s Sergeant Edwin Millican was later awarded the Military Medal for bravery. He knew John well and afterwards wrote to John’s mother Catherina.

But that’s when everything started to go really weird. You see, although John’s belongings were sent to his next-of-kin, nothing arrived back home with his mother in Cambooya.

That’s because in 1918, John surreptitiously got married in England, and so his possessions were being sent to his apparent widow a Mrs A.M. Proellocks in Barker Street, Kensington, London. Presumably the proceeds of his will and life insurance went to her as well.

Meanwhile back in Cambooya, questions were being asked. John’s widow had written to his mother Catherina asking for money so that she could come to Australia. Catherina was keen to meet her daughter-in-law for the first time and so duly sent the money, but neither the money nor the woman were ever heard of again.

Officials at Australia House in London made enquiries into the character of the woman from Kensington, who by then was known as Mrs A.M. Webster. A police report said that the woman was living with a man who was not her husband. The base records office in Melbourne ordered that distribution of John’s memorial scroll, plaque, and medals, be stopped and returned to Australia.

Catherina engaged the Toowoomba firm of solicitors Wonderley & Hall, which by the way are still operating in Toowoomba today. She made a claim for her late son’s awards.

But it was too late, for some of the mementos at least. The memorial scroll and plaque had already gone to the shady widow. But shipment of the medals was stopped in time, and so John Proellocks’ British War Medal and Victory Medal found their way to his mother in Cambooya after all.

Catherina lived to also see the medals of a grandson who served with the Australian army in the Second World War in the Middle East and New Guinea.

She passed away in 1947 at the aged of eighty-two, and hopefully her son’s medals remain safe with her family who are still in the Toowoomba district today.

And let’s remember all our fallen this, and every, Anzac Day.

Catherina never did meet her daughter-in-law.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4WK.

Photo credits:
Cambooya war memorial 2022 – Harold Peacock IMG_1298A.
Otto von Bismarck – meer com.
John Daniel Proellocks – Australia’s Fighting Sons of the Empire page 382.
Barker Street Kensington SW10 London – Place buzz property.
Michael and Catherine Proellocks headstone, Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery – Australian Cemeteries Index.