Looking back on Dion family's 100-plus years in the Illawarra

Tai, the director of Gallery 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, is curating an exhibition about the Dion family, which opens at the Wollongong Art Gallery on December 1.

Called On The Move, it looks at the history of the Dion family in the Illawarra from 1907 when members first settled in Fairy Meadow.

From there they became market gardeners, set up their eponymous bus company in 1923 and invested in real estate - the building on the corner of Keira and Smith streets still bears their name.

Tom Dion was reportedly so into property developing, there is a story that he was keen on buying a property only to be told by his solicitor that it wasn't possible - because he already owned it.

From the 1900s, the family would gradually become pillars of the community - due in no small part to their bus company and their old-school customer focus.

This included waiving fares for passengers during the Depression and coal-mining strikes, waiting for people at their usual bus stop if they were running late and even dropping people's groceries off at their door.

It meant the buses often didn't keep to the timetable, but people didn't mind. They appreciated the extra effort and attention and welcomed them into the city.

This resulted in Illawarra residents holding fond memories of Dion's buses, which Tai found a little unusual for a public transport business.

"Usually with transport it's like 'oh yeah, late again' or it's not running or it didn't turn up," she said.

"But everyone's story about the Dion's buses is a warm one. Everyone I would speak to would say 'oh yeah, they ran my school buses' or 'whenever my grandmother was late they would always wait for her', or 'they would deliver things for us when we didn't have any money'.

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"Everyone would have a story and that was really quite refreshing."

For Tai, the way the city has taken the family to its heart tells a story about Wollongong.

"Wollongong was very progressive in the fact that this family from a migrant background so early on became entrenched in the making of the contemporary and modern place," she said.

"It's quite celebratory in the fact that the family is so well loved and continue to play a part in the everyday life of the Illawarra."

The exhibition was a long time coming - Wollongong Art Gallery director John Monteleone first had the idea seven years ago.

"One of the things that regional galleries do is tell stories that are important or relevant to our region, to our community," Monteleone said.

"The Dion family has been an important

part of the Illawarra community for a long time, for over 100 years.

"It's a sort of migration story about the changing face of the Illawarra over time and of a family's contribution. So there's all sorts of interesting things to know about the family and how it's relevant to us as a community."

The reason the exhibition didn't go ahead seven years ago was the size of the family archive; Monteleone felt going through it would be a "really daunting job", so it got put on the backburner.

It moved back onto the front burner last year when Monteleone bumped into current Dion's Bus Service manager Les Dion, who was keen for the exhibition to happen.

So Monteleone got the help of Tai to trawl through it all.

"I went to the house seven years ago when we were first talking about this exhibition and there was so much material," he said.

"They've got photographs from the very earliest days of the family coming to the Illawarra, so they've kept a fantastic photographic archive.

"They were also market gardeners here and had a convenience store at the top of Keira Street. A lot of stuff that came out of those early businesses still exist, so they've got old cash registers, they've got bus tokens from the '20s and '30s."

The exhibition also features works from artists Naomi Segal, Matt Chun and Pia Johnson, who were inspired by items they found in those archives.

Like almost everyone else in Wollongong, Monteleone has his own Dion story.

"I remember getting on the bus and someone didn't have the right money to get on and they said 'don't worry, get on. You can pay us next time'.

"It's that sense of being a part of the community, which I think in many ways doesn't exist any more."

Les Dion is now the manager of the family's buses. While he spent school holidays helping out, he officially started in the business in 1986.

He remembered the year because it was when he got his licence so he could drive the buses. These days he spends his time behind a desk rather than a steering wheel.

Dion said his father and other family members enjoyed the interaction with the public on the buses so much they found it hard to give it up.

"That's why they did it for so long, it's why they enjoyed it so much," he said.

"When it comes down to family members retiring, they retired a very late age - in particular my dad retired at 85.

"It was very, very hard for them to let it go and when family members did let it go it was a significant shift in their lives."

Those community connections the family built up over a century and the fondness the family received in return is something Dion feels proud about.

"When people come and tap you on the shoulder and say, 'Are you a Dion?' and then they proceed to tell you their experience on the bus or when they say 'my grandmother used to tell me the story about the Dions', you can hold your head up high and just be so proud of the family and what they did for Wollongong and the region."

On The Move: The Dion Family opens on December 1 (the same date the bus company started back in 1923) at Wollongong Art Gallery.