Ag and Pat

 My grandparents, Agnes Elizabeth Sullivan and Patrick Nicholas Maher, married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat, in Feb. 1907, Both were aged 27. They had probably known each other as children, for Pat was born and lived all his life at Minyip, and Ag had lived there as a child with her parents – her two younger brothers were born there.

According to my Aunt Eileen, they met again as adults when Pat had sheep agisted near Ballarat, and before long they were married. It’s a beautiful dress, isn’t it? Perhaps made by Ag’s sister Kit, who was a tailoress…

Pat had a farm just out of Minyip, and their house was called “Looranna”. A few years later, in 1911, Ag’s older sister Millie married Pat’s brother, Michael Maher, who had a farm just across the road.

(According to Mum, another Maher brother, Jack, was keen on Ag’s younger sister Belle, but she turned him down. Mum also thought Ag had been engaged to someone else before she married Pat.)

Ag and Pat had four children. The first was my mother, Annie Agnes Maher, born in Ballarat in 1908. Then came Eileen Mary, b. 1910, and Kathleen Theresa, b. 1911 – all born in Ballarat – apparently Ag went home for each birth. The youngest, John Patrick, was born at Minyip in 1912.

They had a happy marriage, by all accounts - when they were at home on the farm, Ag would always go everywhere with Pat, even just for a drive down the paddock in the buggy. She said her husband was more important, and household tasks could wait. 
Ag’s health was ‘delicate’ though no-one seems to know exactly what was wrong with her. She was apparently prone to bronchitis, (no antibiotics in those days) and it seems that all the coughing weakened her heart. Mum said she always had help in the house when her children were young.

Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why the children were all sent to boarding school at an early age. Mum was just six years old when she was sent to board with the Brigidine nuns at Wangaratta. Presumable this was chosen because Pat’s sister Anne (Sister Philomena) was there, and would keep an eye on the little girl.

At the time, many Catholic families sent their children away to school, because there were no Catholic schools in the smaller towns. Annie, understandably, hated it; she said she used to cry herself to sleep every night. A couple of years later she was joined at Wangaratta by her sister Eileen, and then the youngest sister Kathleen. Their brother Jack would in his turn be sent to St. Pat’s in Ballarat for his education. At least he had family in Ballarat, and could presumably go to them on weekends. The three little girls in Wangaratta weren’t so lucky – they only went home once a year, for the summer holidays.

Kathleen Maher

This arrangement intensified the tragedy when the youngest girl, Kathleen, died at boarding school, aged just nine. She apparently had Bright’s disease, which would now be called acute nephritis – inflammation of the kidneys. There was no treatment then, and by the time the nuns realised that she was very ill and contacted her parents, it was too late. Kathleen died in May, 1920, and is buried beside her parents at the Minyip Cemetery.

I have never been able to understand how any parents could send their children away like that, but I suppose it was considered normal then. It had a profound effect on my mother, who always found it hard to show affection – she was not a ‘huggy’ person.

The two older girls did not return to Wangaratta, finishing their schooling in Ballarat, where they boarded with their Grandmother Sulllivan, and Aunties Kit and Rose.

Ag’s health worsened, and Pat installed a share farmer and moved to Ballarat for five years, so she could escape the heat of the Minyip summers. Ag had a dreadful cough, and TB was suspected, but no doctor could ever find any trace of it. They must have gone back to Minyip, for Ag died there on the farm on October 17^th, 1927. 

Annie had already moved home to Minyip to look after her mother, and remained there to keep house for her father and brother Jack, while Eileen stayed in Ballarat.

The farm was eventually passed to Jack, and Pat divided his time between visits to various family members. I remember him staying with us at Lubeck, a quietly spoken man, with endless patience for small girls. Sometimes I would sit on Granddad’s knee and play with his pocket watch, and occasionally I was even allowed to help fill his pipe! The plug of tobacco was kept in a small tin, and Granddad would shave bits of tobacco off with his pocket knife, which then had to be carefully packed into the bowl of the pipe – “but not too firmly dear, or it won’t draw”… Pat died in 1949, while on a visit to his sister  Jane in Sydney.