Golda Ellis

Lieutenant Oliver Neall and his wife, Golda (née Ellis), 1943, AWM P04243.001

When the Second World War broke out Golda Ellis volunteered for the Murray Bridge chapter of the Adelaide Cheer-Up Society. The society provided meals for the hundreds of servicemen who passed through the town, whether on their way to war or coming home from the front. Golda enjoyed meeting the young men, and loved to collect colour patches from them. She wasn’t allowed to put them on the outside of her uniform, so she sewed them to the inside of her blue woolen cape.

Colour patches collected by Golda and sewn into her blue woolen cape, AWM REL32369

In September 1943 Lieutenant Oliver “Ozzie” Neall, was returning home to Casterton, Victoria, excited to see his family for the first time since he had left to fight in the Middle East two years earlier. Ozzie had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for bravery during the battle of Tobruk in Libya.

Before reaching home, Ozzie went to Murray Bridge to visit the Ellises, who were friends of his parents. They asked him to call their daughter – Golda – in for tea. He found her scrubbing the bathroom floor. She looked up at him and smiled, and by the time Ozzie left, Golda had another new patch for her cape: the ribbon from Ozzie’s DCM. Golda and Ozzie were married five months later, in October 1943.

Activities

Why might organisations such as the Cheer-Up Society have been so important for Australian men and women?
What are some other ways women contributed to the war effort? You might like to research organisations such as the Australian Women’s Army Service, or find out more about official war artists such as Nora Heysen.