The O'Brien memories

Stories My Mum told me and my memories of her.
by Mick (Michael John) MacInante, 1996

My mother was a great story teller, this trait I'm told came from her grandmother (Sarah O'Brien -nee McCann, I think), who, when my Mum was a little girl, also was a great story teller. Her grandmother was so small that her favourite story telling setting was her fire place, she sat right in the fireplace next to the hearth. Many of her stories were about the "little people" in Ireland, apparently she genuinely believed in the existence of the little people.

Mum (Molly), second surviving child of Edgar Thomas O'Brien (1879-1945) and Mary Jane nee Murray (1887-1953), often told of her childhood living in country NSW. She was born in Manila, lived for some years in Armidale, then spent most of her childhood in Quirindi. She met Dad at Moree who was on his first teaching appointment. Mum was living at, and working as Moree's (assistant?) Town Clark. Their first child died at birth in Moree. They then moved to Wollongong and built our home at 5 Greenacre Rd, My older sister, Molly Ann and I were born in Wollongong.

I can remember as a small boy going on a very long steam train trip with Mum to visit Nana O'Brien (Mum's mother) in Quirindi. I can remember walking from the station in the dark of night on pebbled footpaths to Nana's house, 87 Hill Street. She lived alone in what seemed to me a big old house, it had a veranda which started as a front veranda, extended right down one side of the house and finished as a back veranda - it seemed enormous to me then. [I've since found the house when passing through Quirindi, it's a small house typical of that era.] The young man who lived next door played the piano for hours every night, but he only played the one classical tune called The Sabre Dance. I've since heard it played by orchestras, but it never stirs me as much as the young man who lived next to Nana's did.

In Mum's stories about her father, Edgar, he worked in the sheep industry, he was a wool classer and apparently prosperous. He must have been a caring father as in one of Mum's stories she talked about being very ill as a little girl (rheumatic fever I think). During a long time of convalescence when she was too weak to play around with other kids, her father would sit for hours with her on his knee on the veranda singing and telling her stories.

There were six children in Mum's family:

• Kathleen (Aunty Kate) 1908 - 1960
  Mary Veronica (Molly, Mum) 1902 - 1970
  Margaret (Aunty Marge) 1911 - 1987
  Francis (Uncle Frank) 1913 - 1975
  Thomas (Uncle Tom) 1916- 1942
  Dorithy (Aunty Dossie) 1918 - 1986
  

The older children were charged with looking after the little ones. Mum's charge was Tom. She must have formed a close bond with him as she would often cry when she talked about him, especially his last few day and being killed by the Japanese in New Guinea in WWII.

Edgar was in good health until they had a car accident. Mum was in the car, probably most of the family too. They were ascending the Murrurundi Range, in those days they had to travelled up steep hills backwards so that petrol could flow from the tank to the carburettor. They collided with another car coming down the mountain, they rolled over the side of the mountain until stopped by a tree stump on which Mum saw an apparition of Mary. Although no one was fatally injured, Edgar never returned to full health.

Returning to my childhood memories of Nana O'Brien's Quirindi house; as well as the veranda onto which the bedrooms had a door - that impressed me because you could get into a bedroom two ways; via the veranda or the hallway, a few other features of the house left a big impression in my mind; There was a big fuel stove, it was always burning wood and keeping steam spurting from a big black kettle. The light switches were on the ceiling and had cords dangling down from them to pull the light on or off. At the back of the house was a long steep stairway leading from the veranda down to a laundry detached from, but close to, the house. Outside the laundry was a water tank fed by the guttering of the house. Inside the laundry was a fuel fired washing "copper" and a free standing bath, it had little feet on the bottom of it. Having a bath was an ordeal: First water had to be bucketed from the water tank into the copper, wood had to be chopped to make a fire under the copper to heat the water, when the water was hot enough it was bucketed from the copper into the bath.
The last I can remember of Nana's house is all her furniture spread over the yard and being auctioned. I sensed Mum's and Nana's sadness during that procedure. Nana then came to live with us at Wollongong in a bedroom and sitting room specially built onto our home for her. Nana did bring a few items of furniture to Wollongong including her favourite chair which we kids loved to play banks with because it's back resembles the old style teller security grills.

After Nana settled in at home in Wollongong, Mum returned to the work force. In those days a "working Mum" was very unusual and I sensed lots of disapproving vibes, it was probably the first time in my life that I learnt how other people's judgements can have an influence on our lives.
My (primary) school was only a 5 minute bike ride from home so I came home often at lunch time and Nana would have a fresh blackberry jam sandwich and a glass of Milo waiting for me. Mum made delicious blackberry jam from the bushes that grew in the horse and cow paddocks just over the road from our house. I was fascinated when Nana would sit in the sun in our back yard and let her hair down, it reached right down to her bottom. She'd carefully brush it then tightly plat it and form it into a bun on the back of her head. That was the only hair style that I can remember her ever having.{ Aunty Kate had a similar hair style too }
Nana became ill, she suffered several heart attacks, she looked very sick. Mum and Aunty Kate, who lived alone in Wollongong, took turns sitting all through the night with Nana. One night Nana died and the following day Aunty Kate took me into Nana's room to see her in her coffin. She looked so peaceful and very happy. I'm most grateful for being given that wonderful experience at that time in my life.

When I was about ten I remember going off to school and giving Mum a good by kiss. It was the morning of her mastectomy operation. I was scared that I'd never see Mum alive again. Although she survived the operation, she was never again the very active women I knew as a little boy. As well as being a great story teller, Mum was very articulate and knowledgeable and at the ready to take on any task. I think that if Mum were living today she would be a top executive or politician. Mum and Dad had dreams of me obtaining the Leaving Certificate like my big sister Mol (Mollie Ann) but I let them down. At age fifteen I reckoned I knew all that was worth knowing and left school and started work as an apprentice Radio Mechanic. I had been mad about radio for a year or two and I'd built crystal sets from bits and pieces I was given by Popper Macinante from his home at 51 Forest Road Hurstville.

One day when I arrived home from work (1959) I was handed a 9 months old baby girl to nurse, she was to be my little sister, Maree, after I'd been nursing her for a few minutes Mum began laughing, after a few moments I learnt why when I felt a warm liquid running down my leg. I don't think I appreciated Mum's sense of humour.

Mum was very fond of Mol's (my sister Molly Ann) children and she eagerly waited for my (and Kath's) children to come along. I can remember Mum being very upset when I told her our pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Mum died before we received our first adopted child. Mum's ashes are at the Wollongong crematorium.

A few reflection about Mum's brothers and sisters:

Aunty Kate never married, lived at a Wollongong hotel, was a tripple certificated nurse and worked as a dental sister (i.e., when we had to go to the dentist she administered the needle!). Aunty Kate is buried in the same grave as Nana in the West Dapto cemetery. {Edgar O'Brien is buried in the Quirindi cemetery}

Uncle Frank was a big chubby warm man, I can remember him with a plaster cast over all his torso. He was injured when a vehicle he was in was blown up in WWII. I can remember when he came down to visit us at Wollongong with his new wife, Aunty Val. They separated a few years later and did not have any children.{Uncle Frank is buried in the North Rocks cemetery}

Aunty Marge was bright and chirpy, Kath and I kept in contact with her till she died as she lived not far from us at Northmead. I remember when she came down to Wollongong when I was about 12 for a few days holiday, she had a bad fall and we visited her for weeks in the Wollongong hospital. Aunty Marge was the last survivor of the O'Brien family. Her husband, Uncle Les, was a great story teller too. He worked for the railways and he used to tell stories of his early days working as a signalman on the Ligthow Zig Zag railway. {Aunty Marge and Uncle Les are buried in the Pinegrove Lawn Cemetery}

Uncle Tom died before I was born, Mum told me he was in an army camp set up somewhere near our Wollongong home before his regiment was sent to fight in New Ginnie. He died on the Kakoda Trail.

Aunty Dossie (and Uncle Kevin) I can vaguely remember lived at Bondi. I can remember when they moved to Canberra. I can remember travelling down to Canberra in our little Renault (750 cc), the Hume Highway then was unsealed in parts and got very boggy when it rained, those trips were very nail biting experiences. They lived at Yarralumlia, not in the GG's lodge but in a new house in Drummond Row. I can remember being perplexed when Aunty Dossie pointed to a nearby landscape and declared "that it is Lake Burley Griffin"! I was fascinated by Uncle Kevin's old car. I was extremely embarrassed when Uncle Kevin told his friend I knew all about radios, he probably got that idea because I'd strung up wires all over his back yard for an aerial for my crystal set. I was very surprised when somehow I fixed his friend's radio and even more delighted when rewarded with a big box of chocolates.

Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP)