The ‘Great Australian Dream’ conjures a picture of a home of one’s own, suburban security, a three-bedroom brick veneer, trimmed lawns and backyard barbeques. This collectively held aspiration for home ownership gained traction in media and literature from the 1960s.
In light of all the volatility going on in the world, I find myself pining for wise, age-old, counsel. I need to chat to someone who has been through it all and there would be no one better qualified for that conversation than my great grandfather, John Sheehy Meagher.
“You can replace a partner, but you can never replace a mother”.
These words cut through the haze shrouding my existence. I was walking towards the gates of the Immaculate Conception Church, Hawthorn with a pastoral worker. Her words were spoken kindly, even maternally; it was followed with a genuinely concerned, “take care of yourself”. But the sentence, ‘you can never replace a mother’ seared my heart, and forewarned me of the pain ahead. Spoken by someone who knew deeply, the grief of losing a mother.
Francis Richard Meagher, a 25 year old medical practitioner at St Vincent’s Hospital, enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Corps on 25 January 1918.
Leo Carden Meagher, a 26 year old solicitor, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 8th November 1915.
How are you coping with your isolation?
I started working from home on Tuesday 24th March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. I am not in quarantine or self-isolation, just socially – more precisely physically – distancing from public spaces by staying at home.
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Old skeletons are highly sought after in the family historian’s closet. When I picture the closet of my recent ancestors, it is full of men’s suits, white lab coats and leather brogues. But if I think of the dark wooden closets of the Meagher women, there is barely a coat hanger to leave a clue about the women they were or the life they led. Their stories, aspirations and laments are hidden, unacknowledged or neglected, and I’ve spent years scrounging around for any loose thread I can find that might tell me of their histories. This is common for women across the ages and something that Women’s History Month seeks to address. Read more
As a child, I would rummage through my mother’s sewing basket. It was a bright orange plastic box with a removable tray divided into little compartments. I was always curious about the contents collected over time. On one occasion, I asked my mother about a strip of beautiful beading sitting in the tray. She told me it was from her wedding dress, made by her mother. Years later, the memory of the beading was recalled sharply when a saleswoman suggested I could add embellishments to the shoulder straps of a wedding dress I was trying on. Tears stung as I thought of this beautiful, silent nod to my mother, whose absence was going to be keenly felt at my wedding just eight months after she died.
My dear Liffer,
We are in the middle of what promises to be a very severe influenza outbreak…
On 12 February 1919, my grandfather’s sister, Mary Meagher wrote to her brother Frank, a doctor stationed in France, about an influenza outbreak in Melbourne. It was to become known colloquially as the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919, and it was a tragic postscript to the devastation of the First World War.
When was the last time you did a jigsaw puzzle? The family archive in my spare room is the ultimate games room to me. Boxes upon boxes of various pieces waiting to be put together to create a new understanding of my family's collective history.
What Will Be looks back at people, places and travel and uncovers stories hidden in diaries, letters, and photos. It pieces together obvious clues and obscure details; reveals the personalities of people we used to know and those we could not have known; and re-tells the stories that have been forgotten or hidden. Tell me your thoughts and put a piece or two in the puzzle while you're at it.
