Janette Octoman

Janette Hannum Octoman (1879-1971), farmer's wife, was born on 14 November 1979 at Tumby Bay, South Australia, eldest daughter of Jessie and Caleb Provis, a farmer. Largely educated by her grandfather, a schoolmaster who lived with the family, she married Charles Machon Octoman, also a farmer, in April 1903 and lived most of her life in the same area of Eyre Peninsula, apart from seven years in Adelaide during the education of her four sons.

Janette Octoman's involvement in public life began after she returned from Adelaide in 1927. She became a justice of the peace and began to take an active interest in politics. A member of a policy forming committee of the Liberal Union for the 1927 election, during a 'pact' with the Country Party which led to the defeat of Labor, she was elected to the state executive of the merged Liberal and Country League in 1932. She first stood for endorsement for the seat of Flinders in 1937 but lost to a local farmer.

Octoman was a founder member of the Tumby Bay branch of the Country Women's Association in 1933, and the first president of the Eyre Peninsula Division. The Octoman Group was named in her honour. She represented the South Australian CWA on the executive committee of the Associated Country Women of the World, and at the Jubilee conference of the International Council of Women in Edinburgh in 1938. Concerned to ensure that women had a voice in Parliament, Octoman returned to Australia determined to resume her battle for party endorsement. As a member of the CWA and the National Council of Women, and through her court work as a justice of the peace, she was known for her efforts to improve education, transport and postal services on Eyre Peninsula and to help women and children. During the war she also threw her energies into the Red Cross, the Fighting Forces Comforts Fund, the Wheatgrowers' Protection Association and the Mothers and Babies' Health Association. A well-known local personality, she stood for party endorsement in 1939, 1940, and 1944 at the state level, and in 1943 for the Senate. Despite her abilities and perseverance, she was never able to win selection. Her final attempt to enter parliament, in 1944, was as an unendorsed Liberal. This too failed.

Following her husband's death in 1949 Janette Octoman served as state president of the South Australian CWA from 1949-52 and 1955-56. During her first term of office she set out to visit all 236 branches in the state, a formidable undertaking, particularly for a woman in her seventies. She promoted the establishment of seaside holiday cottages at Port Lincoln and Tumby Bay, the first of which she opened in 1955. Periodic three day homemakers schools were held at her suggestion from 1957. In 1954 she was made an honorary life member of the CWA and was also awarded the MBE.

She was a skilled needlewoman and a keen gardener and cook, winning prizes at the Adelaide Royal Shows where she sometimes had as many as 150 entries. At the suggestion of the Cockaleechie branch of the CWA, an avenue of native trees was planted from Lipson township to her former home. She died on 23 October 1971 in Adelaide.

Philippa Fletcher

Heather Parker The First Fifty Years: Golden Jubilee History of the South Australian Country Women's Association 1979.