Love into the Afterlife
Sometimes retirement is about looking after grandchildren, sometimes it is learning a new hobby, and sometimes it means taking care of a sister that you love more than your entire religion.
For, the Murphy girls, Pauline and Margaret, taking care of their sister, Mary, meant walking away from their holy vows as Sisters of the Catholic Church.
“…we left the convent; Mum was about 80 at the time. Dad had died in 1965. We came down in 1972. Mum was on her own, and Mary came down and she wasn’t well at all. So we decided, it was giving up a lot, it was our whole life we’d chosen, but we had to think of Mary…” said Margaret Murphy.
The three Murphy sisters all entered the Franciscan Missionary Order and Teachers’ College between the ages of 16 and 18.
From there each sister travelled all over Australia, and even internationally, teaching young children wherever they went, and they loved it with all their hearts according to Pauline Murphy.
“It really was a beautiful, I won’t say a good life, a beautiful life, a chosen life. And that’s what we wanted, and that’s what we got,” she said.
But it all came to a tragic end, when the eldest sister, Mary Murphy, became perilously ill while teaching in Silkwood, in the middle of the sugar cane farms in Queensland.
“Mary was always in and out of hospital, getting blood transfusions, she wasn’t well at all. She was sick a lot. She was sent to Silkwood, and that was the worst move she could ever have made… It ruined her health. She never picked up, she was very sick most of the time,” said Margaret Murphy.
For Pauline and Margaret, Mary’s failing health meant giving up their entire lives; it meant giving up the convent.
“We had to get dispensation because in the convent we took three vows. Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. And we had to get a release from whoever was in charge of religious orders,” said Margaret Murphy.
Years passed since Mary’s health scare in the 1970s, and all three girls returned to their beloved teaching, although outside of the convent.
“Mary had her own classroom and everything, and she had made beautiful pictures, she was very good with her hands; could do anything,” said Margaret Murphy.
The Murphy sisters continued to work with children even after they retired in 1989.
“We knew we didn’t just want to sit at home… We were maybe 60 I supposed. We still felt we wanted to do work with children. So we went to the Children’s hospital in Camperdown,” said Margaret Murphy.
Five days a week, from 10am to 5pm, the retired sisters taught, and soothed, and coddled their charges with all the love they could muster.
“We were volunteers, we weren’t paid…. We loved it though. We only left it, when they moved to Westmead,” said Margaret Murphy.
The rest of Pauline and Margaret’s retirement would be spent taking care of their ailing older sister, not that they ever resented Mary for even a second.
“She was wonderful to look after,” said Pauline Murphy.
But there were still darker times ahead for the sisters.
“The doctor said Mary was having a lot of falls, and we didn’t realise it at the time, but she was losing the use of her legs. And the doctors said… we’d have to put her into a nursing home, where she’ll be cared for. Well we hated it, I think we cried the whole night, the night before she was to go,” said Margaret Murphy.
“We wanted something lovely for her because she was leaving such a lovely home… I’m missing her more now than I ever missed her,” said Pauline Murphy.
Despite the pain it caused the two sisters, Mary moved to a nursing home in Cabramatta, but she didn’t let it dampen her spirits.
“…We were happy with Mary being there. Her singing though… when it came to Saint Patrick’s Day. Mary sang Danny Boy for them and the Last Rose of Summer… The nurses said it was absolutely beautiful; they couldn’t believe it… Mary always said she could stand next to Joan Sutherland and sing that too and she could’ve too. She had a magnificent singing voice,” said Margaret Murphy.
Unfortunately Mary Murphy passed away two years ago, leaving her two sisters to reminisce on the love they shared.
“We were very blessed to have all that time with her,” said Margaret Murphy.
Pauline Murphy still misses her sister dearly, but she never let Mary’s illness dull their retirement.
“We loved caring for her.”
