General News
2 May, 2023
Historical Society welcomes Toy
Submitted by Lesley Stephan Warracknabeal and District Historical Society welcomed guest speaker Leon Toy to their recent meeting, who was pleased to be able to reminisce about his past in Warracknabeal with attendees. Leon’s grandfather came to...
Submitted by Lesley Stephan
Warracknabeal and District Historical Society welcomed guest speaker Leon Toy to their recent meeting, who was pleased to be able to reminisce about his past in Warracknabeal with attendees.
Leon’s grandfather came to Warracknabeal in the early 1900s during a time of famine in China, and gathered with other Chinese families to set up a market garden in various areas along the Yarriambiack Creek.
Leon’s father, Stan, along with his uncles, came to Warracknabeal in the late 1940s.
Leon himself was born in Hong Kong in 1949 and was reunited with his father in Warracknabeal, with two of his brothers, in 1962. His mother finally rejoined the family in 1965.
Leon said Warracknabeal was quite a “culture shock” after living in crowded Hong Kong.
Leon went to school at St Mary’s and Warracknabal Secondary College, and enjoyed his teenage years in Warracknabeal playing football and joining in community activities.
Leon worked in the family’s market garden - located where the Woodbine administration and swimming pool now stand - supplying locals with fresh vegetables and sending the surplus to Melbourne by train.
Leon left Warracknabeal in 1970 to live with other family members in Melbourne and learn the restaurant trade. He was mentored by another of Warracknabeal’s Chinese residents, Mrs Lorna Tong.
At 25 years of age, Leon established Toy’sGarden Restaurant in Horsham, which traded for almost 50 years, and spent years travelling extensively investigating food trends and menus, and adapting his own menu to reflect.
Leon has traced his family tree back 28 generations to the 1100s, and found they lived in Toy villiage, west of Canton.
Toy was home to approximately 40 houses which are now abandoned.
The Toy family has spread all over the world - particularly in America, Canada and Australia.
In more recent times there were three unrelated Chinese families in Warracknabeal - the Toy, the Poon Ming and the Fong Tong - however there were other, earlier, families - many of whom were buried in unmarked and unidentified graves at Warracknabeal Cemetery.