DOWN MEMORY LANE
 

Sister Anselm

Born County Monaghan, Ireland, 1910

Sister Anselm’s childhood in Ireland

I remember it was a very happy home but unfortunately my mother wasn’t very strong.

She died when she was thirty years old and left six children. The second eldest girl died shortly after my mother. We were going to the National School so when I was fourteen I asked my father could if I stay at home – it wasn’t compulsory to be in school at the time – so I stayed at home to look after my younger brothers and sisters. They were hard times but that was home and that was very important.

When I was eighteen, my sister who was younger than me had already gone to Australia to enter the convent and I wanted to be with her and I entered the convent when I was, I think twenty-six, and I was home three times in six years. It was very important, very wonderful thing to get back home again and the moment I was getting home, my sister died. That was a very, very sad thing. She was only thirty, she wasn’t very strong, and that was very sad for me, it was sad for the whole family. She died out here in Australia. My brother came out from Ireland once to see me. My sister had gone then; he was very sad about that but he couldn’t come before that. He stayed for six weeks and that was a wonderful time.

I looked after children for a long time - homeless children - we had a lot of those in St Vincent’s foundling home, that was part of the convent. They lived here until they were eighteen and then if they wanted to leave we got them a job. There were plenty of jobs for them and the only home they knew was here so they’d come back and see us, you know, remembering us. . A lot of them I looked after as babies will often come to see me. Some of them are married and have children of their own but they remember their time here.

I’m retired now and very happy living here (Catherine McAuley Centre) because lots of other sisters are here, quite a big number of sisters in fact and most of them are retired; I’ve known them for many years so we’re all very happy together in retirement and many of them are Irish like myself. We can do just as we please and there’s always little things happening.