Vocations

The Archives collection contains a couple of pages from The Angelus, a parish publication of St Patrick’s Mentone. The edition for June 1941 contains a list of vocations from the parish and even some predating the parish. Incidentally, the first two, sisters Brigid and Margaret Hallinan, became Sacre Coeur Sisters and were cousins of my great grandmother. Predating them, but, not included in the list for some reason, was another relative, my great grandfather’s aunt, Sr Mary of St Bernard Kelly, a Good Shepherd sister who, according to family legend, lit the first fire at the Oakleigh Convent on the corner of Dandenong and Warrigal Roads.

Many priests and brothers are mentioned, and many sisters from different congregations, including many Kilbreda girls, a few of whom I will elaborate on. Our first vocation was Sr Genevieve Sheedy, a talented musician and daughter of a prominent local family, who was one of our foundation pupils in 1904. Finishing in 1906 were Dorothy McGinniss and Bedelia Quinn. Dorothy becoming a Sacre Coeur sister and Bedilia Mother Joseph, a Brigidine who spent much of her life in Echuca. Two students on the 1908 roll, Brigid Bourke and Katie Nihill, became Kilbreda legends, Mother Margaret Mary and Mother Winifride, who was on staff here from 1937 until her death, which occurred in what is now the staff area, in 1967. Students of the time recall filing past her coffin in the Chapel to pay their respects.

Other Brigidines from the early days, Tress Rourke and Katie Scott 1911, later Mothers Benedict and Bonaventure, Alice Farley 1917, who was known to many locally as Mother Theophane and Kath Mathiesson 1923 as Mother Clement. Mary Imelda Hynes 1924 became Mother Camillus and Sister Marie Therese Sullivan who was known at Kilbreda as Florence, finished in 1921. Nora Whiting completed her studies at the Brigidine Convent Mentone, as it was known to all these women, in 1925, and went on to enter the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Sisters as Sr Inez. Others from the early days to join that congregation included Annie Finnegan 1931, (Sr Wenceslaus and Mary O’Keefe 1935, Sr Denise). The list from the 1930s includes 1934 College Captain Moya Allman (Sr Roch), Winifred Mahony, Alice Holzer and Phyllis Lawrence (Mothers Clement, Madeleine and Xaveria of the Josephites).

Betty Harney, niece of Sr Joseph Quinn completed her schooling here in 1929, entered as Mother Fidelis, but changed back to Elizabeth. Rounding out the list from the early days, my former colleague Madge Brown 1928, who, as Mother Mercedes, was on staff for 39 years.

Damian Smith

Archives