THE WAY WE WERE

FLASHBACK: Leanne Day sent in these photos for The Way We Were. The top photo (belonging to her father, Bill Lord) is of her great grandmother and great grandfather Tom and Caroline Clapperton who owned the Tarong Homestead (above left). The property comprises 630 acres of land bordered to the north by Cooyar Creek. The principal residence was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on October 21, 1992. The homestead is still in the hands of the Clappertons to this very day. Leanne’s grandmother Gwen Lord was one of Tom and Caroline Clapperton’s daughters. She and her husband Stan Lord lived in Toowoomba for many years, and their son Bill and his wife Dawn (Leanne’s parents) have lived in Toowoomba since 1971. Bill worked for the Department of Primary Industries both in Kingaroy and in Toowoomba managing the bull proving scheme (above right). He later started his own artificial insemination and pregnancy testing business on the Darling Downs until his eventual retirement. Tarong Homestead has many rare built elements including an 1840s slab hut, an 1859 slab kitchen and surviving wallpaper in six rooms probably dating from the late 19th century. There is a family cemetery on the property which continues to be used as the Clapperton family graveyard.