Judy Sutherland was born Hendrina Johana Engelmunda Maria in Holland in 1940 and moved to Australia at 16 years of age because her father relocated for work.

Ms Sutherland said the journey from Holland to Melbourne took five weeks by boat and upon arrival, passengers could only get off the ship if they had relatives in Australia to pick them up.

Ms Sutherland said they contacted her boyfriend’s sister Mien who lived in Mount Gambier.

“So Mien and my boyfriend Chris were there to meet us,” she said.

“I thought I’d said goodbye to Chris, so imagine my surprise when Mien and my boyfriend met at the dock.

“He’d flown to Australia [from Holland] while I was on the ship,” she said.

“There was six of us and two of them in an old FJ Holden, four great big suitcases full of clothes and whatever mum packed and we all fit in the car.

“To travel from Melbourne to Mount Gambier was a long trip.

“Oh my goodness, we had never travelled more than 20km to go to see my aunty before!

“We moved in with Mien and her husband with her family and six of us, it was a squeeze but we managed.

“We stayed there for maybe 3-4 weeks and then dad found a house not far from where he worked … in a town factory cutting Mount Gambier stone.”

Ms Sutherland quickly gained employment in a dry cleaners located in Mount Gambier’s main street, despite not being able to speak any English.

“Luckily the lady that was running the dry-cleaning shop needed help so I got a job, but I could talk to her because she talked my language,” she said.

Ms Sutherland married her first husband Chris when she was 19 and the pair had daughters Mary-Anne and Karen.

“When I was going to Australia on the ship I said goodbye to him in Holland, that’s what I thought, but he was waiting in Melbourne,” she said.

Unfortunately the marriage did not work out and Chris returned to Holland.

Mrs Sutherland said she met her second husband, Russell, of which she bears her last name and had two sons Neil and Robert.

She described Russell as a ‘lovely man’.

Mr Sutherland passed away 11 years ago after a long health battle.

“He had five daughters and I had two so between us we had seven girls and then I gave birth to a son,” she said.

“My mum said that he nearly broke the door down to go and tell her that he had a boy.

“Everybody loved him.”

Even though Ms Sutherland came to Australia unable to speak English, she and her family made a life for themselves in the beautiful town of Mount Gambier.

She said it was very difficult in the beginning, adapting to a new culture and leaving behind everything she loved.