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.

The Sullivan family

On April 5^th 1874, Mary Ann Hannigan married James Edward Sullivan, at St Francis Catholic church, Melbourne – the same church where her parents had married. Sadly, her father, Thomas Hannigan, died on May 23rd, just a few weeks after the wedding.

James Sullivan was born in 1843 in Co. Cavan, Ireland, but his family moved to Scotland when he was one year old. James emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 21, and later to Australia. For most of his life in Australia, James worked as a ganger on the railways, and was known as the only Irish ganger with a Scots accent.

 Gangers on hand-operated trolleys. Safe rail travel depends on well maintained lines. Steel rails were fastened to wooden ‘sleepers’, supported on ballast – coarsely broken stones.

 The gangers travelled up and down the railway lines checking for loose fastenings, and replacing broken sleepers and warped rails.

 James and Mary Ann had seven children, five girls and two boys.

Their first child, Amelia, was born at Yan Yean, just north of Melbourne, in 1875. James couldn’t have been employed with the Railways then, as the line was not extended to Yan Yean until 1889. The family moved to the Western district, where the next four children were born, at Hamilton, Branxholme, and Condah. Then James worked on construction of the rail line from Murtoa to Warracknabeal, and they lived at Minyip, where their two sons were born.

It must have been hard to pack up furniture, bedding, clothes and kids, and move to another small town. It is said that on one occasion, set down beside an isolated railhead with no house ready for them to live in, Mary Ann sat down and wept. And who could blame her? A newcomer with another new home to set up in primitive circumstances, little money, no kith or kin apart from her own small family, and great isolation.

Mary Ann was able to earn some extra income by working as a crossing keeper, opening and shutting the gates at the level crossings.

Throughout their travels, the Sullivans remained strong in their Catholic faith, and when they finally settled in Ballarat the girls attended Loreto Convent. The family made their home at 801 Armstrong Street, Ballarat North, where they were to remain for many years. Their house (no longer there) was called “Cavan” in memory of James’s Irish origins. James died in Ballarat on the 6^th of December, 1918.

The Sullivan girls had beautiful names - Amelia Mary (Millie), Rose Ann, Agnes Elizabeth (Ag), Catherine Alicia (Kit), and Isabella Margaret (Belle). The boys were  James Edward (Jim) and William John (Will). Agnes was my grandmother, and I remember several of the others from my childhood – Auntie Rose, Auntie Kit, Uncle Jim and Uncle Will. It was Millie who wrote the letter to my mother, mentioned in this post.

 Some years ago a couple of glass photo negatives were discovered and developed. One shows Mary Ann, a little wizened lady in black, with her eldest daughter Millie and grand-daughter Molly. She had lived to see one of her sons, Jim, return safely from France in WW1, and she had nine grandchildren.

What changes she must have seen during her lifetime – from bullock train to steam train to motor car, from uncertain mail delivery to the telephone and radio, and from the wild country of her birthplace to the bustle of working-class South Yarra.

The other photo is of my grandmother, Agnes Sullivan, who married Patrick Maher. (Her sister Millie would marry Pat’s brother Michael a few years later). Both Millie and Ag were married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat.

When their father died, there wasn’t much money, and several of the girls went out to work – Ag was a teacher, and Kit trained as a tailoress. They had a busy social life too. Millie kept a diary for 12 months, (she had a bet with one of her sisters), and wrote of going to dances, parties, and visits to friends. They had no car, relying on the trams to get around, and sometimes walking home after the last tram had gone. This diary also records the birth of my mother, on a hot January day in 1908. 

The birth took place at the Sullivan family home, the temperature climbed to 105F, and wet sheets were hung around the room to combat the heat. The diary is now held by the Minyip Historical Society.

Jim Sullivan served in France during WW1, and was badly affected by mustard gas, but returned home safely. He later worked for the railways, and never married, sharing a house in South Yarra with his sister Kit. It was here that Mary Ann died in 1932, aged around 80.