Bloodlines

Chapter 12: Wounded not conquered

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Maureen Clarke’s family history in re-imagining our ancestors’ lives.

It’s thanks entirely to Maureen’s work that we have at our fingertips the names, dates and locations that provide the basis of this story, together with copies of marriage certificates, property valuations, some photos, and in John O’Grady’s case, a copy of his last will and testament. But we know almost nothing of what Johanna and John thought and how they felt, other than what we can glean from the few brief memories passed to Maureen Clarke. 

In addition to the story about John’s horses drowning, Maureen recorded the following brief recollection about John: 

“He is said to have been very strict and he had one finger that was permanently stiff and could not be bent.”

For Johanna, there’s this: 

“There is a story told of Johanna and her duck. Apparently the duck sat on a clutch of eggs, very close to the railway line. The duck would not be moved so Johanna went down and made ‘the sign of the cross’ over each egg for safekeeping.” 

All sorts of things can be read into these glimpses of the past. Johanna’s story suggests that she was kind, that she did what she could to protect the living. She also believed in the power of Catholic symbols, and was pragmatic enough to hope that the sign of the cross – deployed most often to safeguard our mortal body -  might be good for something just as important: food. 

The fact that John had one finger that could not be bent embodies the observation that he was very strict, an unyielding Irishman who stuck to the old ways, come hell or high water.

But it’s the thought of John never getting over the accidental drowning of his horses that most resonates. This alerts us to a larger, unresolved grief.

We can imagine and might ourselves know the heartache of losing a child. God forbid we experience the cumulative grief that comes from losing several children in a short space of time. This was John and Johanna’s experience, and it was sadly common among their generation of working-class immigrants, just as it was among their parents, survivors of the Great Famine. If there were feelings of injustice and inter-generational trauma, how understandable that would be, given the deaths of so many innocents would not have occurred if clean water and decent food were available, if the English were less rapacious, if the Church was more generous, if mother nature was less indifferent, if their God was not so hard.

After losing their first-born in 1867, Johanna and John lost their second child, John, when he was nine-years-old. John had an accident while riding a horse and dray near the family’s home in Orange. He was taken to Sydney for treatment but died of gangrene of the leg and was buried a few days after Christmas 1877.

Two weeks after John died, Johanna and John lost their four-month-old baby, Timothy. He too died of dysentery, like his younger brother William. And then Johanna and John witnessed their last child, Honora, die of a terrible sickness barely a year after she was born in Willoughby in March 1885. Honora suffered from Marasmus, a disease unheard of now on Sydney’s North Shore:

Marasmus is a type of protein-energy malnutrition that can affect anyone but is mainly seen in children. You can get marasmus if you have a severe deficiency of nutrients like calories, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. ‌ It is more common in developing countries, like in some areas of Asia and Africa.[1]

Maureen Clarke provides the following information about the children of John and Johanna who made it into adulthood. Margaret, known as Maggie, never married, and she lived with her parents all her life. Maggie’s brother Patrick never married either: “He lived in the family home with his father and sister, and Paddy was known to like his drink. He was often heard singing on his way home, long before he could be seen. He is buried with Maggie at the Northern Suburbs Catholic Cemetery.” [2]

William, our great grandfather, was born on 1 October 1874 in Kelso near Bathurst, New South Wales. Mary Ellen and Timothy (the twins) came after William, and they were born in Orange in 1877. Mary lived to be 95-years-old. She married Richard Brooks in 1898 and lived in Crows Nest. Her twin brother, Timothy, died of dysentery at the age of 4 months.

In 1879, Johanna and John had a second set of twins, John and Timothy Edward. Neither of them married, although John, known as Jack, “had a long-time friendship with a lady named Maggie Taylor, who lived at the Gore Hill end of Reserve Road”.[3] 

Jack lived the later part of his life with his older brother William and William’s wife, Mary Jane, at their home in Saville Street, Gore Hill. He died on 5 July 1963 and is buried next to his brother Patrick and sister Maggie. Timothy Edward, Jack’s twin brother, died of tuberculosis at the Waterfall Sanitorium at the age of 44. He is buried next to his father John in the Gore Hill cemetery.

Johanna, known as Cissy, was Johanna and John’s tenth child, born in 1882. Cissy married Benjamin Jones and they had three daughters: Ellen, Hilda and Muriel. After her husband died, Cissy moved back into Johanna and John’s home in Naremburn and lived there until she died of cancer, aged 64. 

What would John and Johanna be feeling as their life drew to a close? There are no diaries to refer to, no letters, no personal items. Nevertheless, we know they made a go of it together and guided several children into adulthood. And they earned enough to eventually build their home at the other end of the world. They called this home Oola, after the village John grew up in. It stood behind a tall fence on a good-sized block of land at 64 Dalleys Road Naremburn, and it sheltered them well.  

Religious conviction probably helped sustain Johanna and John. I hope they laughed and sang, too. I hope they told stories about the olden days and celebrated on occasion with family and friends. It feels as if Johanna and John did the right thing. They backed themselves and weren’t afraid to work hard despite its uneven rewards. They respected each other and the laws of the land, and they raised their children accordingly. 

There must have been love between Johanna and John. And for their children. And their horses. With love comes hope, joy, endurance: things Johanna and John needed to survive the Great Famine, the voyage to an unknown new world, and the hardships and loss they endured when they got here. They prevailed, but not without cost. And perhaps this is what underwrites the family motto. Vulneratus non victus. Wounded not conquered.

Maureen Clarke records John and Johanna’s end of life details this way: “Johanna died after a short illness on 2 November 1900 and is buried in the old portion of the Gore Hill Catholic cemetery. John lived for many years with his son Patrick and daughter Margaret at Dalleys Road Naremburn. He died at his home on 19 May 1928 of a heart condition at the age of 87. He was buried on 21 May 1928 in the new portion of the Gore Hill Catholic cemetery with his son Timothy.” [4]

[1] What is Marasmus? Retrieved from WebMD on 2 May 2022. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-is-marasmus

[2] Maureen Clarke, op cit.

[3] Maureen Clarke, op cit.

[4] Maureen Clarke, op cit.