The Australian Woman

In 1944, Sydney, Australia was in dire straits. The country had survived the throes of the Great Depression in the 1930s when unemployment reached over 30% and men fled poverty in the cities to pursue menial jobs in agricultural work.Even though they lived in the Blue Mountains, times were difficult in Helen's family as well. After the death of her father, her mother Fiona supported her children, Helen and three older brothers, as a dressmaker until the boys were drafted into the army.Helen was a wild child, an unchaperoned teenager who loved to drink, smoke, party, and carouse ... a siren of seduction with a mother who seemed oblivious to her behavior.Consumed with her own beauty, she pored over stories from Hollywood and emulated the hair styles and make-up of the stars as she primped and posed before her mirror, a mirror that reflected, "You are the fairest of them all."Unfettered by a mother who might be expected to set boundaries on her behavior, Helen was pregnant at age 16 by a man several years older than herself, a man she'd seduced, then didn't want, but was forced to marry in the Catholic Church. Another baby soon followed, and Helen plunged into a life of disappointment, frustration, and desperation as she sought a way out of her dysfunctional family.When WW II brought American GIs to Australia, Helen met the love of her life while working as a waitress at the Seagull caf . Her intent was to start a new life in America with her lover no matter who she abandoned.The love letters she wrote to him came to light many years after his death. The letters are authentic, the story is fiction.