Sister Agnes Fitzgerald: a pioneering spirit
Agnes FitzGerald was born in Mackay in 1867. She inherited from her father, a founder of the sugar industry in north Queensland and a distinguished member of parliament in Queensland, a fine sense of purpose.
In 1893 she entered the Sisters of Charity. Later she would be a pioneer of the first school of the Sisters in Queensland, St Finbarr’s at Ashgrove, leaving there in 1929. She was then appointed to St Vincent’s Hospital Toowoomba. But a young Sr Agnes went first to Katoomba.
The Sisters of Charity who lived in Katoomba and ministered in the Blue Mountains areas – including Leura and Blackheath - the latter not far distant from the Megalong Valley (thought to be from the local language meaning Valley Under the Rock and described as “a rural paradise of verdant pastures and pristine forests”) and) – came to know this region well.
The Sisters had arrived in 1902, establishing “a first-class boarding school” at Mount St Mary’s in Katoomba. From there, Sr Agnes Fitzgerald was missioned in that same year to visit the poor and the sick of The Gully, just outside of Katoomba. The Gully community had lived together in what is now called Garguree from at least 1894 until they were forcibly evicted by the local council during the building of the Catalina racetrack in 1957.
When Sr Agnes – known to the people of Gully community as “our little Sister” because of her diminutive size – arrived in the Mountains, she found access tricky – she often had to walk for miles and clamber over rough terrain to gain access to rudimentary homes with mud floors heated by log fires, often in bitterly cold conditions to get to people in need.
In the 1940s, Sr Agnes recorded her memories of the Gully and her interaction with the residents. Sr Agnes was called upon at all times of the day and night and in all sorts of weather for the visitations. Once, she was teaching music at Mt St Mary’s when she was told that a man was asking to see her. “Come down quickly, at once, on the instance” was the message relayed. She arrived as quickly as she could to discover she was needed to visit a mate of the visitor. The man – Mat Cooper – had become ill out in the bush at Nellie’s Glen, suffering from fevers, chills, and an inability to speak properly.
The group of men with him had remembered that they had a bottle of rum – half was dispensed to the sick man, while his friends then demolished the second half and carried him back to his mother up the mountain. Mat survived, and Sr Agnes was impressed that his friends had managed to carry him across the inhospitable topography about 15 kilometres up the mountain.
In another event Sr Agnes recalled, she was summoned by the Gully mid-wife, Mrs Alice Cooper, to a location far from the convent. The parish priest was away, and there was a baby who was dying in need of baptism. The mother refused to have her child baptised by a nun, given her husband was named for William Wentworth, and an Anglican. “I thought we had better follow the same religion,“ she explained. Her child survived the convulsions which saw the Sisters called, and the infant had been taken out for a walk when Sr Agnes and her companion Sister arrived.
Sisters in the Blue Mountains had already been practising the core elements of what we now know as the foundation of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform for decades. In this, the Sisters were educated by the local Indigenous Gundungarra and Dharug people of the of the Gully, a traditional summer camp with a constant flow of fresh water.
A special memorial to the Sisters of Charity and Sister Agnes is erected overlooking the Gully. The Gully is located off Gates Avenue, Katoomba, about 1.2 km from the station, just behind the Katoomba Aquatic Centre. If visiting the Blue Mountains this is certainly worth a visit.
“When opportunity presented, I approached our own Mother General, Mother Mary Edmund Daniel of the Sisters of Charity, on the matter, telling her of the refusal I had from Mother Mary Alban. Her answer was: ‘Sister, much as I see the need of a hospice, I have neither money nor Sisters at my disposal. It would be an impossible undertaking! Put it out of your mind.’ I accepted this decision for time being, but could not remain satisfied. The dream still haunted me and gave me no peace.
“One day, I was speaking to an ex-student, Mary Purcell (Mrs Mary King) whose mother, Mrs. Purcell, was very ill and was in and out of the General Hospital with serious attacks of illness.
“‘Mary, could you not do something about getting your husband and friends to sponsor a cottage for the dying, even a small one at the beginning, with plans for a large building later on? It seems to me a crying shame that your mother, a wonderful Catholic, someone who has lived and worked for the Church and has done so much for it and for our convent, should have to die in a public hospital, away from the Blessed Sacrament and from daily Mass and all that a good Catholic loves.’ Mary assured me she would see what could be done, but going away said quite brightly to me, ‘Don’t worry about Mum, she is good for another ten years yet.’ That night, or shortly after, Mrs Purcell was taken to the hospital for treatment and died soon afterwards.
“Mary rang up some time after to say that her brother Tom Purcell wished to leave Brisbane and settle elsewhere. He had a small farm of 34 acres and would give the Sisters the first offer to buy it, or part of it, at a reasonable price. The property was situated at Enoggera, Brisbane, convenient to the city and good doctors.
“To me, that seemed an answer to prayer. I wrote immediately to our new Mother General, Mother Mary Alphonsus O’Doherty, who was in Sydney at the time. I told her of the dream and all that had gone on between myself and Mother Mary Alban and Mother Mary Edmund. I asked her to send up to Brisbane a hospital Sister, experienced in what would be needed for a hospice, as there were only school Sisters in Brisbane.
“Next morning, after posting my letter the night before, one of my Sisters showed me The Courier-Mail morning paper in which was a paragraph stating that Archbishop Duhig of Brisbane had invited the Canossian Sisters to open a hospice for the dying on Gregory Terrace, Brisbane. The Sisters were arriving from Italy to take up residence and open a private hospice in a building which had been previously been a private hospital. They would soon be ready to commence work. On reading that I gave up hope saying sorrowfully: ‘That is the end for us. We can never have our desires fulfilled.’
“I was not able to recall my letter to my Mother General. When she received it, she, not having heard about the Canossian Sisters coming, replied at once: ‘Even without money, or not knowing whether we will have sufficient Sisters, I think it is God’s work and He will help us. I will go forward and buy the land if it is suitable!’ She sent to Brisbane her assistant for hospital works, Mother Mary Giovanni Ackman, who approved the site. Approximately ten acres were secured.
For twenty-five years, Sister Agnes had been pleading with the leaders of her congregation to build a hospice for the dying in Brisbane. This desire was propelled by an extraordinary dream she had, and which made such an impression on her that she committed it to writing before she died. Then in her 90s, she wrote her account of it on the very day it was fulfilled with the opening of Mount Olivet Hospital Kangaroo Point, on the 8th September 1957. This account, though slightly modified for greater clarity, is as follows:
“My sister, Mother Mary Audeon FitzGerald, a Sister of Mercy in Brisbane, died suddenly in 1932, 52 years after her religious profession. Some little time after, I had a very vivid dream about her, whom I loved so much. I thought I was on the verandah of a fair sized and well-built cottage. Coming around the corner towards me was my sister carrying a chalice, her hands clasped around its stem. Floating above it without any support was a large shining Mass Host. I looked at her in surprise.
“‘What are you doing carrying a chalice and consecrated Host? Only a priest should do that,’ I said. Looking down her sister reverently answered, ‘Oh! This is my work now, I have to visit the dying and see that all receive the last sacraments and die happily. This is a hospice for the dying. Will you come with me and look at it?’ ‘Oh yes, I will come and be pleased to do so.’
“When we reached its entrance door I woke up, dreadfully disappointed at not being able to continue being with her. The dream seemed so real that I could not dismiss it from my mind. So I went to see Mother Mary Alban of All Hallows, the Superior of the Sisters of Mercy in the diocese of Brisbane, asking her if she could do something about building and staffing a hospice for Brisbane, which was so much needed, especially by the Catholics.
“Her reply was: ‘No, I could not even consider it and, much as I would like to do it in memory of our dearly loved sister, I have too much on hand at present. The Children’s Hospital is not completed, and when it is, I will have to face the tremendous work of providing a maternity hospital for Brisbane. Try someone else.’
“Events, however, took a different turn and an alternate site for the proposed hospice was offered to the Sisters of Charity by a Miss Mary Bedford. Some time after Miss Bedford had left her property at Kangaroo Point as a gift to the Sisters of Charity, and the hospice site had been changed from Enoggera, I was invited to look through the house and grounds and to make Miss Bedford’s acquaintance.
“While the Sisters with me went upstairs to see the attic rooms, I sat on the veranda by myself, not feeling fit to climb the stairs. After admiring the scenery and thinking ‘What a wonderful gift’, I suddenly jumped up saying aloud: ‘My God! I have been here before. This is the identical veranda and cottage that I saw in my dream of Mother Mary Audeon!’ Now I realized that my dream was true and the hospice was born in heaven.”
So concludes Sister Agnes FitzGerald’s account.
Not long after the first wing of Mount Olivet was officially opened and patients had been admitted, Sister Mary Agnes was appointed to the Sisters’ community of Mt St. Michael’s, Ashgrove.
Here she continued to teach music for a few years and her zeal was undiminished. She remained to many a wise and holy friend.
As time passed her active work lessened and she became a patient at Mount Olivet (image of the opening in 1957 by Archbishop Duhig), Brisbane for several years. She spent those days in prayer, patiently resigned to God’s will.
Her love for her Sisters’ community was real and deep, and at the age of ninety four she was still vitally interested in every facet of its life. She died very peacefully in her Dream Hospital on 26 September 1962.
Her brother, Monsignor FitzGerald, had predeceased her by some years, so the Requiem Mass was celebrated in the Mount Olivet Chapel by the Rev. Cyril Shand, her grandnephew. Her grandniece, Sr M. Bernadette Shand, was also a Sister of Charity. Large numbers of Sisters, nurses, and friends were present at Sister Agnes’ Requiem Mass.
Her body was the first to be buried in the new plot reserved for the Sisters of Charity at Nudgee cemetery. She was pioneering until the end in her beloved Queensland.