Betty May NISSEN, (daughter of Hans Johannes Trules NISSEN and Florence Harriet SWARZES /MATTHEWS) born 27 August 1928 in Wickham, NSW – their only child born in a hospital. Betty was the youngest of the fifty-four grandchildren of Hans and Christina. She went to school at Gosford Primary and Gosford High. She was 12 when her father died, and moved to Sydney with her mother early the next year when she was 13. She never returned to school, a matter she now regrets. After a time living with her mother in Sydney she got a job in a dress shop. She changed the date on her identity card and joined the Land Army at the age of 15 after her mother re-married (in 1943). She came back to her mother after three months then joined the Railways as a sandwich maker. She did not enjoy that and eventually rejoined the regular Land Army and worked in Griffith, NSW.
After the war she worked as a seamstress. She met Keith Claymore ROHDE from Adelaide and after he was demobbed from the Air Force, having served with the occupation forces in Japan, they married on 20 January 1949 in Paddington, NSW. Keith worked first for an aviation company then moved to the Commonwealth Bank. Eventually he achieved a high position with the Reserve Bank. After time in Sydney where Terrence was born, they moved to Adelaide and here Christopher and Robyn were born. After retirement they moved to Perth where they still (2007) live. Their three children also live in Perth and they have eight grand-children and four great-grand children.
