Family of tragedy and valor

• From Victor Times, 1975 

• By Gregor Arch Grosvenor

 For more than 100 years members of the Rumbelow family have been battling with the seas on the South Coast. Nobody has kept a list of the countless times somebody has owed his life to the timely action by the family in the shadow of the Bluff.  But relentlessly, the seas have claimed its victims from the family's ranks.

The original Rumbelows settled beside the Bluff in 1855 in the early whaling days.

Geoffrey Malen Rumbelow, who lost his life trying to rescue his boat from stormy seas at Yilki on Friday, was the fifth member of the family lost at sea.  Geoffrey’s grandfather, the second Malen Rumbelow, died in his fishing boat at the Outer Grounds, 14 miles off Yilki, in 1905 leaving his wife Susan with eight young children.

The third Malen, Stanley Malen Rumbelow, who was only 10 days old when his father died, is the only surviving member of that family. He still carries on the family tradition, fishing. His wife has a shop near the scene of Fridays tragedy.

David Malen Rumbelow, the third son of the second Malen Rumbelow, was drowned in the Waitpinga wreck in 1932 with cousin Walter Rumbelow.

David’s brother, the late Lionel Rumbelow, struggled ashore in the darkness to the Honeyman home near the Waitpinga River after the boat Ferret had broken in two in the heavy seas.

The three were returning from Kangaroo Island with a load of fish for the Christmas market. David’ son David was born three months after his father’s death. Lionel had previously been honoured by the Royal Humane Society for rescuing a man from the reef just off Yilki, in swirling seas.

Another cousin, Samuel Rumbelow, was drowned at Port Elliot in 1920. He was the proprietor of a charabanc service carrying Victor Harbor visitors to local beauty spots. A girl passenger who was trying to take a photograph slipped off a rock into the sea. Samuel saved her, but lost his life in the attempt.

For years the widow of Malen 2nd Rumbelow conducted the Oceanview guest house, which still stands on a corner of Giles street and Tabernacle Road, Yilki. She was of a pioneer stock. Her father Charles Pearsons established a rowing boat hire service between Hindmarsh bridge and his home a mile or two up the Hindmarsh River.

Geoffrey Rumbelow’s father, Charles Rumbelow died when Geoffrey was three years old. Geoffrey, in the true Rumbelow tradition, had taken part in community affairs.  As a member of the Victor Harbor Rotary Club, he played a leading hand in the rehabilitation of the old Tabernacle Cemetery near Yilki a few years ago.