Koroit
Infant Jesus Catholic Church, Koroit
06 11 24 15:56 Filed in: Jim
Jono and I were on a journey to view our new camper in South Australia, Murray Bridge. Our first stop, for a few days was Wye River, on Victoria's South West coast. That day, when we ended up at in the Infant Jesus Catholic Church, began in Wye River and the rest of the drive took us through very varied landscapes.
We began with the limestone stacks around Port Campbell and then into the primeval rainforest to Cape Otway lighthouse station.
We were on our way to Penola in the Coonawarra wine region. Google maps devised a very interesting route that took us on minor roads cross country… so interesting, varying from poor dairy, in marginal swampy land, to the red gum studded grassy plains of the western district squatters.
We passed the remnants of the volcanic eruptions; the swamps and billabongs, once much more extensive; and wide river valleys, carved out over the millennia. We marvelled at the extent of the Phragmites australis. (wetland grasses) We wondered what this entire landscape was like, prior to white settlement.
Thinking of the past and the history of the area, I was quite in the mood to reminisce about Dad as a boy, travelling to Warrnambool, especially as Google maps was taking us through Koroit where he was born. “I’ll take a photo for Margaret, let’s find the Catholic Church.” I thought.
The Catholic real estate occupies a large area of high ground in Koroit. The substantial bluestone church is typical of the area. As we drove up, we noticed the nearly rebuilt St Patrick’s Primary School directly opposite. Dad went there.
We turned and went through the church gates to the front door, and I imagined Dad and his family walking up the worn bluestone steps to Mass on Sundays. Very substantial grounds with beautiful large trees surround the church, and behind it is a large gracious building, also set in a large garden. This was the presbytery where the priests lived. It had a separate impressive driveway, flanked by large gates, and a long tree lined drive.
While I was wandering around here, Jono had chatted to the young couple painting the fence. He told her our story and she immediately offered to get the key so that we could go inside.
The door she unlocked was at the back of the church, and was where the priests would have entered the church to robe up. It sent a bit of a shiver down my spine as I thought of the stories of abuse etc. We entered the church, and, immediately in front of us, was the baptismal font where Dad would have been baptised.
Quite amazing! It is a beautiful interior, especially the wooden ceiling and the stained glass windows.
The Catholic iconography was very present in the small side chapels, and the stations of the cross.
I sat in the pews and thought about our family sitting there: a respectable and important family. As the young doctor in the town, Hugh and Grace were building their family and their life here, in this very Catholic and Irish community.
As I was walking down the aisle, I thought of Dad as a small impressionable boy, drinking in all that gruesome imagery of Catholicism, made all the more fearsome in this somber shadowed interior.
We thanked Nicky for opening the church, and discovered that she was a Protestant girl who, as she said, was so in love that she converted, and was baptised and married in that church. Different times and a different story. She also told us that people said that in the past, there were so many priests and nuns here. This is also evident in the large presbytery and convent. The convent is a beautiful, gracious building, also set in a very large garden. It even has a separate chapel.
The convent would have supplied the teachers for St Patrick’s where Dad attended primary school. The school has been rebuilt and still has a thriving enrolment.
As I was looking through our photographs, I came across the one of me in the pews looking very comfortable. The thought flicked through my mind that, in another era, the title of “President of the Catholic Women’s Guild” would have been a definite option.
We began with the limestone stacks around Port Campbell and then into the primeval rainforest to Cape Otway lighthouse station.
We were on our way to Penola in the Coonawarra wine region. Google maps devised a very interesting route that took us on minor roads cross country… so interesting, varying from poor dairy, in marginal swampy land, to the red gum studded grassy plains of the western district squatters.
We passed the remnants of the volcanic eruptions; the swamps and billabongs, once much more extensive; and wide river valleys, carved out over the millennia. We marvelled at the extent of the Phragmites australis. (wetland grasses) We wondered what this entire landscape was like, prior to white settlement.
Thinking of the past and the history of the area, I was quite in the mood to reminisce about Dad as a boy, travelling to Warrnambool, especially as Google maps was taking us through Koroit where he was born. “I’ll take a photo for Margaret, let’s find the Catholic Church.” I thought.
The Catholic real estate occupies a large area of high ground in Koroit. The substantial bluestone church is typical of the area. As we drove up, we noticed the nearly rebuilt St Patrick’s Primary School directly opposite. Dad went there.
We turned and went through the church gates to the front door, and I imagined Dad and his family walking up the worn bluestone steps to Mass on Sundays. Very substantial grounds with beautiful large trees surround the church, and behind it is a large gracious building, also set in a large garden. This was the presbytery where the priests lived. It had a separate impressive driveway, flanked by large gates, and a long tree lined drive.
While I was wandering around here, Jono had chatted to the young couple painting the fence. He told her our story and she immediately offered to get the key so that we could go inside.
The door she unlocked was at the back of the church, and was where the priests would have entered the church to robe up. It sent a bit of a shiver down my spine as I thought of the stories of abuse etc. We entered the church, and, immediately in front of us, was the baptismal font where Dad would have been baptised.
Quite amazing! It is a beautiful interior, especially the wooden ceiling and the stained glass windows.
The Catholic iconography was very present in the small side chapels, and the stations of the cross.
I sat in the pews and thought about our family sitting there: a respectable and important family. As the young doctor in the town, Hugh and Grace were building their family and their life here, in this very Catholic and Irish community.
As I was walking down the aisle, I thought of Dad as a small impressionable boy, drinking in all that gruesome imagery of Catholicism, made all the more fearsome in this somber shadowed interior.
We thanked Nicky for opening the church, and discovered that she was a Protestant girl who, as she said, was so in love that she converted, and was baptised and married in that church. Different times and a different story. She also told us that people said that in the past, there were so many priests and nuns here. This is also evident in the large presbytery and convent. The convent is a beautiful, gracious building, also set in a very large garden. It even has a separate chapel.
The convent would have supplied the teachers for St Patrick’s where Dad attended primary school. The school has been rebuilt and still has a thriving enrolment.
As I was looking through our photographs, I came across the one of me in the pews looking very comfortable. The thought flicked through my mind that, in another era, the title of “President of the Catholic Women’s Guild” would have been a definite option.
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Jim's Schooling
16 09 15 13:38 Filed in: Jim
Our father, Jim, who died quite young, did not tell us much about his early life. We remember some of his stories, but we also rely on information about Jim's early life, as retold to us by our mother, Alice.
Jim in his Xavier uniform.
Stories of Jim’s childhood in Koroit have largely been lost, but he went to the Catholic Primary School there, and spoke of the strict nuns, his teachers, walking up and down between the rows of desks, wielding a ruler.
We can picture him, rushing home after school, calling to the family's protective Airedale dog. Often he was pursued by the non-Catholic kids and would call to them from the safety of the gate, “Proddy dogs, jump like frogs, in and out the water.”
Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict.
St Patricks Primary School, Koroit, today.
Burke Hall, Xavier Preparatory School, Kew.
In 1932, Jim was sent to boarding school in Kew. Initially he lived at Burke Hall, the junior school of Xavier College.
We have only snippets of information about these years. But it doesn’t take much imagination to picture his life.
Jim would have arrived at the big city school, aged just eleven, with the weight of family expectations to follow his father into a career in medicine. Jim had poor eyesight and his interests lay with practical skills.
To make matters worse, Jack, his older, more academically successful brother was already at the school, fulfilling parental expectations.
Alice used to say “Jim should have been sent to a tech school”. In his later years, Jim spoke with loathing of the Jesuit priests, known for their strict discipline and preference for academia. He must have hated the long hours of study in cold study halls.
Susan and Margaret remember a time during the annual camping holiday when, disgusted by the gluttony of toast eating competitions, Jim made them eat their toast as he had been taught to at Xavier, placing a lump of butter and a spoon of jam on the plate, and spreading each individual, carefully cut mouthful. His had been a very regulated life.
As an older student, he was particularly successful in the rowing team. His name is on an honour board at Xavier College, as “ the stroke” in the prestigious rowing eight. He participated in the “Head of the River” regatta, the oldest schoolboy rowing event in the world dating back to 1868.
Jim in his Xavier uniform.
Stories of Jim’s childhood in Koroit have largely been lost, but he went to the Catholic Primary School there, and spoke of the strict nuns, his teachers, walking up and down between the rows of desks, wielding a ruler.
We can picture him, rushing home after school, calling to the family's protective Airedale dog. Often he was pursued by the non-Catholic kids and would call to them from the safety of the gate, “Proddy dogs, jump like frogs, in and out the water.”
Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict.
St Patricks Primary School, Koroit, today.
Burke Hall, Xavier Preparatory School, Kew.
In 1932, Jim was sent to boarding school in Kew. Initially he lived at Burke Hall, the junior school of Xavier College.
We have only snippets of information about these years. But it doesn’t take much imagination to picture his life.
Jim would have arrived at the big city school, aged just eleven, with the weight of family expectations to follow his father into a career in medicine. Jim had poor eyesight and his interests lay with practical skills.
To make matters worse, Jack, his older, more academically successful brother was already at the school, fulfilling parental expectations.
Alice used to say “Jim should have been sent to a tech school”. In his later years, Jim spoke with loathing of the Jesuit priests, known for their strict discipline and preference for academia. He must have hated the long hours of study in cold study halls.
Susan and Margaret remember a time during the annual camping holiday when, disgusted by the gluttony of toast eating competitions, Jim made them eat their toast as he had been taught to at Xavier, placing a lump of butter and a spoon of jam on the plate, and spreading each individual, carefully cut mouthful. His had been a very regulated life.
As an older student, he was particularly successful in the rowing team. His name is on an honour board at Xavier College, as “ the stroke” in the prestigious rowing eight. He participated in the “Head of the River” regatta, the oldest schoolboy rowing event in the world dating back to 1868.
