In the last newsletter, it was announced that Mrs Colleen Oglethorpe of Cheltenham died recently. It reminded me of this series of photos from the 1970 Annual, featuring four families of five girls all at Kilbreda at once! Colleen, and her husband Bruce, were staunch supporters of the school. When Bruce completed his stint as President of the Parents and Friends in 1980, one of his final duties was handing over the first school bus to then Principal, Sr Rosemary Joyce. Colleen once gave me her daughter Melinda’s uniform for the archives. It was Melinda’s uniform in Prep and is the tiniest uniform I have here. Melinda began school here in 1970, but somehow ended up in my class at OLA a few years later before finishing her secondary schooling here and then coming back to work in the office for a few years. Her daughter, Ally Van Veneendaal, was a student here until 2010.

Also shown are the Waterman, James and Robinson families. Notably, Bernadette Robinson is known around Melbourne as a cabaret singer who often tours singing the songs of Judy Garland, Edith Piaf and great singers of that ilk. Her “Songs for Nobodies” tour included Piaf and Garland as well as Maria Callas, Patsy Cline and Billie Holiday.

Mary Anne Waterman became known to many of us as Kylie Mole on the Comedy Company in the 1980s. Mary Anne Fahey, as she is now known, also appears in “The Sounds of Aus“, which I show each year in English Language when we study Australian English.

Whilst all these families had five daughters at Kilbreda at that one time, the Oglethorpes ended up with six daughters as past pupils when their youngest, Laura, enrolled. Sr Veronica Joyce, who lives opposite Kilbreda in Commercial Road, was one of seven Joyce sisters, all still living, who attended Kilbreda from the 1940s to the 1960s. Patricia Joyce was College Captain in 1951, Aileen in 1954 and Rosemary Joyce was not only Kilbreda Principal but leader of the Victorian Brigidine Sisters.

The Kellys of Parkdale who include Bernadette Woods, the grandmother of Jaime McCabe, along with her six sisters Pat, Leonie (my grade 3&5 teacher), Genevieve, Loretta, Tracey and Annemarie (Mrs Harrison of St Brigid’s Mordialloc), also had seven. Only one family can claim a greater number of daughters to have attended Kilbreda. That family happens to be the Kellys of Kingston Road Heatherton, whose eight daughters Anne, Clare, Michelle, Kerrin (Mrs Smith, mother of Julia and Lily), Angela, Susan, Margaret (Mrs Heenan, mother of Sarah and Chloe) and Deborah, all came here in the 1970s and 80s. The most notable among their eight daughters to have attended being Kerrin, who was Lourdes Vice-Captain in 1982 and was also lucky enough to marry Mr Kilbreda himself!

Damian Smith
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