BIO

Mort Easther was given barely 32 years to develop his talents before he was killed by a kick from a camel at T. P. Gourlay's Bon Bon Station, near Tarcoola in far west South Australia, on 10 August 1910. It was the second tragic family loss for Norwood couple Edwin and Rebecca Easther, whose younger son, Stanley, a brilliant university student, had died from an illness in 1899 at the age of 18.

Mort was born in Adelaide on 2 August 1878 during the first season of the Norwood Football Club.  He was an early public performer. A review in Quiz and the Lantern said that "Master Mort. Easther as Humpty Dumpty was extremely amusing" in a concert by the Lilliputians in connection with the Congregational Choral Society before a fashionable audience at the Glenelg Town Hall on 27 October 1892.

Mort attended Prince Alfred College, where he showed some talent in freehand drawing and earned a place on the University of Adelaide supplementary pass list.  In 1894 he was an emergency for the first Prince Alfred team in six years to go down to St Peter's in intercollegiate football, losing 10.10 to 6.14.

He tasted success in his three games with Norwood at the start of the 1902 season, enjoying a 13.9 to 3.3 thrashing of West Adelaide, helping his team survive by three points, 7.4 to 5.13, against a fast-finishing North Adelaide, and kicking a goal in the 10.12 to 5.9 defeat of Sturt. It is unclear why his senior football career ended at that point.

A swimmer and diver, Mort was secretary of the SA Amateur Swimming Association in 1900

Mort married Amy Charlotte Smith, who was to be a widow for 32 years until her death at Port Pirie in 1942. Their daughter, Jessie Georgina, married Walter Govan at Solomontown in 1932.

Bon Bon Station was bought by government in 2008 and is now a Bush Heritage Australia reserve 70 km by 30 km - roughly the size of Sydney.  A haven for native flora and fauna, it is managed in association with the traditional owners, the Antakirinja Matu - Yankunyjatjara people

P Robins August 2019