It was love at first sight

Family means the world to Dallis Wilschefski. The former army major has five children, eight grandchildren and 10 greatgrandchildren. He’s also been married to Merryl Jensen for 70 years. As we celebrate national Grandparents Day today, Dallis looks back

ASTRAPPING young man of 22-years-old, Dallis Wilschefski had never met Merryl when he decided he would marry her.

Sitting on the lounge of his Bees Creek home this month, draped in gold satin threads, he reflects on the inevitable.

His heart was lost before he’d even said ‘hello’.

“A friend of mine told me there was a new girl in town and I said ‘oh yeah?’, and when I saw her, I said ‘oh yes’,” Dallis says.

“And then my mother sent me a photograph of Merryl, taken from the newspaper, when I was in New Guinea.”

He carried that clipping in his wallet while he was away, and continued to hold it close to his chest when he returned to an Australian hospital, suffering from malaria.

It’s unclear whether it was coincidence or fate, but when Dallis returned from World War II, Merryl was staying in his mother’s boarding house.

Pieces of the puzzle were quickly falling into place, and quickly.

Their first date involved a pound of prawns — which Merryl didn’t eat — a picnic in the park where everyone could see them and “would probably talk about them”, and a trip to the theatre.

The next morning Dallis arrived outside Merryl’s door with an engagement ring — and the rest is history.

“It was crazy and so romantic — mum couldn’t resist it,” a family scrapbook recounts.

“She reckons she didn’t say ‘yes’ as he never asked her to marry him, just assumed it.”

Dallis reckons there was a little bit of thought behind it.

“Merryl comes from very good Danish and Scottish stock, you couldn’t get much better than that,” he said.

DESPITE a short courtship, their engagement was a little longer.

It took time to get all of the family to Maryborough, Queensland, and the couple was finally married on November 9, 1946, in the St Paul’s Church of England.

Times were different in the 1940s.

There was no extravagant honeymoon to be had.

Instead, a week after the wedding, the pair moved to Mount Isa where Dallis could work in the mines.

While there, Merryl fell pregnant. With a baby on the way, they decided to move back to Maryborough.

Dallis joined the air force as a fitter and turner at Amberley, and in 1947 Merryl gave birth to their eldest child, Gary.

Tragically, the family fairytale was not yet to transpire, and Gary was taken away too soon.

“With our first son, I was given leave because ... Merryl lost Gary because she fell off the table at the hospital,” Dallis said.

“I rang the unit and they told me to take as much time as I wanted.”

Then, a twist of fate Dallis could’ve never imagined — his eldest son may have saved his own life.

“While I was home there for three days, I listened to the radio and an aircraft had crashed at Amberley and killed all on board. They were my mates who all went to Melbourne,” he grimly reflects.

“I was supposed to be on the course with them but I wasn’t because Gary had passed away.

“I just think that saved my life completely. I’ve lived with that all my life.”

The following year Dallis rejoined the army and the family moved to Brisbane, where their eldest daughter, Caroline, was born without problems.

The family dream had begun. Janet came next in 1951, followed by Adele in 1954.

THE Wilschefski clan was first posted to Darwin in December 1958, originally living in Stevens Tce before moving to East Point in 1961.

They had arrived in what would become the home they would one day retire to — they were on tropical time and loving it.

“When we first got there, we had to live in the officer’s mess for a couple of weeks while we waited for quarters,” Dallis said.

“We were the only family up on East Point. The kids used to have a lovely time down at the beach, and they’d have to walk down to the gate to get to school.”

The family made the most of their situation and took to the road for all sorts of adventures, travelling around the Top End.

“Merryl and I and the kids used to go bush a lot,” Dallis said.

“Those were the days before Kakadu came into being. It was there, of course, but it wasn’t organised the way it is now.

“We used to go bush quite a lot actually. And we lived in Larrakeyah in the days when it was really supreme; everyone wanted a posting there. “It was paradise.” During their first years in Darwin their youngest daughter, Bettina, was born.

Their next posting took the family back to Bulimba in Brisbane, where another son, Dallis, entered the world.

But the Territory had etched a place in Merryl and Dallis’s hearts and despite numerous moves and a multitude of houses, the frangipaniladen streets of the northern capital would end up being home.

JUST a decade after their youngest son’s birth the first grandchild appeared.

The Wilschefski unit was blooming, growing larger and more complete.

“Family is everything,” Dallis said.

“Family first and the rest of the world second. … I was always pleased to come home to my family.

“We’ve got eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. They’re not all here, of course, some are in Perth and some are in Sydney.”

Soon it was time for Dallis and Merryl to settle back in Darwin, and so the couple bought a property in Bees Creek. They rolled up their sleeves and built the house they currently live in.

For a while they became mango growers and processors, but a lack of labour and high fuel costs meant the business wasn’t sustainable.

In September 2012, Dallis cut down most of the mango trees in preparation for a less active retirement.

He was acheiving a long-fought dream; relaxing on the veranda with family, the pattering footfall of grandkids running upon the wooden boards, the birds and bulls grazing on the newly planted pangola.

Nowadays statistics show almost every second marriage ends in divorce — but Dallis said despite seven decades passing below he and his wife’s belts, it had not been hard to stay together.

“I can honestly say I’ve never had an argument with Merryl that was of any severity whatsoever,” he said.

“It all depends on how you resolve issues. As an army officer, I had a way to resolve problems. You’ve got to resolve it amicably and both be on the same level of being amicable.

“If one gives in all the time, that’s not going to last long.”

Merryl and Dallis are now both 93.

They continue to live in Bees Creek and will “until (they) go”.

Now, 70 years on from their first date, the couple spends their evenings watching television on the couch together.

And Merryl has finally developed a taste for prawns.