Margaret’s local legacy
• Scottsdale’s Margaret Lethborg looks back on an eventful life.
By Daisy Baker
October 28, 2020
Scottsdale’s Margaret Lethborg spent her early years in Lower Barrington, as the eldest of five children.
When she was five, her family moved to Sprent up behind Ulverstone, where her brothers still live today.
“At our original old house you had to drag the bath in once a week to have a bath and boil the water in a kerosene tin and then when we moved to Sprent we had a chip heater and a proper bathroom which was a big luxury,” she said.
For the first few years of her education Mrs Lethborg attended the Sprent state school, a tiny two teacher school.
When that closed down, she attended the new area school until grade seven before continuing on to Devonport High School.
“I had to board to go there and lived in three separate houses over the five years I boarded,” she said.
Throughout school and college, Mrs Lethborg worked her holidays in a country general store.
“In those days, general stores had everything. They would sell materials and cottons, sugar, all the vegetables and fruit,” she said.
“You would have to bag the sugar off because it wouldn’t come already packed in one kilo bags but in one big sugar bag.”
Mrs Lethborg said when she was growing up there were few career options open to women, including secretary, teacher or nurse.
She followed a long-standing ambition to become a teacher and trained for two years at teachers’ college to become a home arts teacher.
After graduating she moved to Scottsdale for work in 1960, where she found a fulfilling career and personal life.
She married Max Lethborg in 1961, a widower with three children, and together they had two children, Scott and Grant.
Mrs Lethborg said she took a break from teaching while she raised her sons but returned to the profession when they started school.
“I was at the high school to start with and then moved to primary school. I did about 30 years of remedial and relief work,” she said.
“I did enjoy it. You have your own group and see how they develop. You see those who need help and those who don’t.”
The Lethborgs had a farm on Minstone Road where they had a mixed farming operation running cattle and growing poppies, carrots, onions and lucerne, and Max also ran the butcher’s shop.
“There were lots more smaller farmers when we started out,” she recalled.
“We started with one farm and now we have three. Not big acreages but all those acreages would have supported a family.
“You need more land to make a living now that you once did.”
Mrs Lethborg finished up teaching in the early 90s to care for her husband during the last 18 months of his life.
In 1993 she took a job at 7SD where she worked for several years selling advertising, while saving up for an overseas trip she’d dreamed of.
“It was a much bigger radio station then, with someone broadcasting here and a secretary,” she said.
After going on two separate organised overseas trips to the British Isles and through Europe, Mrs Lethborg returned to Scottsdale and bought menswear store, Country Clothing.
“Country Clothing was different all together because you’re your own boss, you buy, you sell, you look after customers and so it was a completely different life from what I’d been doing previously,” she said.
“The hours were long because I did it on my own but I did enjoy it.
“Farm management is still part of my life – I’m in partnership with my son Grant. We added acreage and irrigation to the farm.”
Throughout her busy working and family life, there has been one constant – a shack at Ransons Beach where she and her family have spent many relaxing weekends fishing and kicking back.
“We built that in 1965, before anyone was out there,” she said.
“The Lands Department owned the land then but no one ever came out so we put a road in and built a shack there and it’s still there.
“It’s a family shack and it is a shack not a house,” she laughed.
After 11 years running Country Clothing, Mrs Lethborg sold up and retired.
Looking out at the rolling green hills from her Scottsdale home, Mrs Lethborg said she has ties to the North-East she cherishes.
“I think when you’ve got older some people say why don’t you go to where you family are, where you were originally. Well they’re all down the North-West Coast except one in Queensland,” she said.
“But I wouldn’t have any friends down there. Your friends are just as important as your family.
“They’re probably more important because they’re a similar age to you.”
She enjoys being part of the Bridport Probus Club and the North Eastern Horticultural Society, and spends her days gardening and with family and friends.
These days Mrs Lethborg is still in partnership with the farm with her son Grant, where they continue to run a similar operation just growing fewer crops than they previously did.
“I’m still interested in what goes on but I don’t have an active role anymore.”