Community & Business
10 April, 2025
75 years together at Muniganeen
It’s been 75 years this year since local couple Noel and Noela Luck began wedded life dismantling war planes in Oakey.
Noel, who is 97, and 94-years old Noela (nee Willis) both attended schools now long lost to the mists of time - Noel at Boodua and Noela at Muniganeen.
The pair met at a dance at the Boodua Hall - a location which has reduced in prominence since its days as a social hub (although the hall still hosts two well-attended events a year).
Working life for Noel started at Boodua Cheese Factory - renowned across the former British Empire for its produce, which was exhibited in London.
Noel remembers the cheese being sent to Toowoomba and beyond on the Kingsthorpe - Haden branch line, which has been defunct for decades, since the switch from the rail-dominated landscape of early 20th century Queensland, to the road system we see today.
After a two-year period of engagement, the pair married at Neil Street Methodist (now Uniting) Church in Toowoomba on January 21st 1950.
At the time, rationing was still in place, meaning the couple had to use coupons to buy the bridal wedding dress and groom’s suit.
The most unusual time of their marriage was their year in Oakey, where Noel was disassembling war planes.
Together with around ten other workers, he helped pull apart over 1000 planes at what was then known as RAAF Base Oakey (now Swartz Barracks Oakey Army Aviation Centre).
After this work was completed, Noel and Noela Luck returned home to the Muniganeen area east of Boodua, in the district where they were both raised.
They have produced four generations of descendants - you’ll probably know some of their relatives.
- Nick Geraghty, a great-nephew, is the president of Steaming Under the Southern Cross, the organising committee for the National Heritage Machinery Rally to be hosted at Farmfest later this year.
- The Weedon musical family who made up the Silver Star Dance Band. Nephew Les Weedon instigated the Maclagan Squeezebox Festival.
- Oldest son Errol is a regular cattle market reporter on ABC Radio’s Country Hour and has been a stalwart of the Goombungee-Haden Show Society for many years.
After their brief notable stint in Oakey, the pair dairy-farmed at Muniganeen for over four decades, in an area “where all the neighbours helped our community.”
Initially they lived in a house made from boxes which held aeroplane parts (now a shed on the property), before Noel’s relatives built the house they live in today.
They’ve lived through vast social changes and updates in machinery at the farm, but the Luck property at Muniganeen looks much the same as it did in 1950, well before the arrival of electricity in 1966.
In their spare time, Noela enjoys gardening while Noel has had a lifetime love of vehicles and engines.
Surprisingly, the couple did not celebrate their 75th milestone saying they are “too old for parties”.
When asked the secret to a happy marriage, Noel and Noela said “working together.”
“Noel would be outside working, and I’d take his lunch down and plough while he had a break,” Noela said when thinking of an example to sum up their relationship.
They have two children (Errol, born in 1951 and Warren, born in 1956), four grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
