Grandmother’s last act of heroism to save tot in Cyclone Tracy
A HYSTERICAL Rosemary Butler searched frantically for her two-year-old boy among the rubble of her disintegrated home in Moil.
Cyclone Tracy
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cyclone Tracy. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A HYSTERICAL Rosemary Butler searched frantically for her two-year-old boy among the rubble of her disintegrated home in Moil.
The lifeless body of her mother, Louisa Butler, was propped up against an outside wall of the bathroom.
The 63-year-old Louisa had been babysitting her two-year-old grandson, Roger, on the eve of Christmas, 1974. All around, Tracy had left raw destruction.
The roof of Rosemary’s home was missing. Someone’s refrigerator lay near her mother’s body.
In the moment that Tracy’s destructive winds shattered the face of Darwin, Louisa had placed Roger in a garbage bin that was later found on the street containing a healthy but bewildered little boy.
Similar tragic and triumphant tales have marked Darwin headlines since that Christmas Eve, t hat night, Darwin was to change forever.
“The wind was howling and the noise was like a stampede in Africa,” Rosemary recalled.
She had gone to join friends for drinks in Rapid Creek and took refuge for the night, making her way to Moil as light broke over the turmoil.
“There was destruction everywhere,” Rosemary said.
When she finally reached her street and saw the impact of Tracy, she began running towards her home.
“I was hysterical and started screaming for my mum and my son,” Rosemary recalled.
After finding Roger, Rosemary was given a sedative and while she slept, her mother’s body was taken away. It took two days searching Darwin to later find her mother’s body at the Casuarina post office. She was buried at the McMillan’s Rd cemetery, wrapped in just a blanket due to a lack of coffins.
Rosemary died last year but in a 1999 interview said: “Now, I get depressed as we get closer to Christmas. I don’t like the wind and the rain at this time of the year – it brings back too many bad memories.”
Her sister Di Butler wanted the story to be told one last time – in memory of her sister.
‘Couldn’t take our spirit’: He lost everything in Tracy, but Paul stepped up
Hunkered in a bathroom under the stairs, holding his family tight as the storm raged on – Paul Boyce thought he was going to die during the cyclone, but he went on to play a key role in the recovery. This is his story.
Tears, chaos, smuggled booze: What it was like reporting Cyclone Tracy
On Christmas morning, 1974, Melbourne Herald report Alistair Smith was dispatched to cover Cyclone Tracy. Smith provided his first-hand recollections to this masthead to mark the cyclone’s 50th anniversary.