Our khaki heroes

World War One generated a large number of patriotic songs. Some of the themes reflected in the lyrics of this genre of music are emotional and personal sacrifices, recruitment and anti-conscription.

These songs were often performed at fundraising concerts, recruitment drives and around the piano at home.

Read about performances of this song in The Advertiser 29 January 1916 and 10 April 1916.

Adelaide Elizabeth Paton Primrose was born in Glenelg 22 March.1877. She attended St Mary’s College in Franklin St where she was successful music student. At St Francis Xavier Cathedral, 12 February 1907, she married Laurence John Francis Gatzemeyer, and in 1911, while residing at of 15 Clara St. Norwood, their son Geoffrey Primrose Anthony Gatzemeyer. Laurence became Inspector for the Metropolitan County Board, before his academic posting at the Adelaide School of Mines. Her Australian Idylls and other poems. A collection of verse and sketches and then Dainty little maiden were published in Adelaide in 1900s.

During the Great War, practical patriot Adelaide joined the Exhibition Sewing Circle and edited The Red Cross and Belgium fete book. She wrote The Dardenelles, a song published in 1915. Laurence became a Federal Health Officer and they lived in Melbourne. Her marching song The Wattle and the Rose provided funds for the Wattle Day patriotic project in 1915. Her song Our Khaki Heroes was published in 1916, when she returned to her Norwood home, from where she wrote My Pal in 1918. During the war Adelaide’s poems were included in the anthology Violet verses, and her short story was published and advertised in The Southern Cross newspaper.

In May 1921 with Queenie Primrose, Adelaide became editor and proprietor of Pam magazine until July 1929. A founder of the Largs Bay Orphanage, Adelaide wrote a play about its supporter Mr. Martin. She wrote the songs My Dream Home in 1928 and Counting the Hours with Felix Edward Lehman 1929. She moved again to Melbourne where she wrote the song Johnnie in 1930. Laurence died there in 1932. Adelaide Gatzemeyer died suddenly, at her Malvern, SA, home on 2 November 1944. She was buried at West Terrace. Cemetery.

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