From the Archives

1910-1919

During the second decade of our school’s existence, the community was shaken by local and world events. On the world stage, St Brigid’s High School, or the BCM (Brigidine Convent Mentone) as Kilbreda was then known, felt the effects of the Great War from a distance. Many of the staff and students had family members involved, and after four years of hostilities, it was with great pleasure and excitement that the boarders raced up the steps of the Tower from their dormitory, in what is now Room 5, to ring bells to celebrate the Armistice in November 1918. Past pupil Bessie O’Donoghue was among them and another past pupil Fred Denny recalled that the streets around the convent “were packed with joyful people with sirens and firecrackers.” 1

Locally, the convent and school were rocked by the illness and subsequent death in 1913 of the Convent Superior, Mother Benedict Moore. Not a pioneer of Mentone, Benedict had arrived in 1905, but had sent the pioneers off from Echuca with a farewell message. She blessed “her old darlings” and placed them “in the arms of Our Immaculate Mother in the hope of their never separating themselves from her maternal arms and of bringing very many souls to know, love and serve her Divine Son.”2 A number of items held here indicate the high esteem in which she was held by all. When she died, the local press reported, that “the angel of death visited the Brigidine Convent Mentone and had borne away the spirit, so nicely endowed, with the gifts of God, of Rev. Mother Benedict Moore, Superior of the Brigidine Convent, Mentone. Inexpressible was the grief and lamentation of the Brigidine community and the Convent children at the loss of their beloved mother. Longfellow beautifully describes the spiritual sweep of the Angels of Life and Death in his poem “The Two Angels”- “Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom- a shadow on those features worn and thin, and softly from that hushed and darkened room, two Angels issued, where but one went in.”3

Mother Benedict’s name lives on as the official name of the colonnade building, “St Benedict’s Wing”, and the back oval, which for many years was called “St Benedict’s Park”. Mother Benedict was buried at the Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery.

Enrolments during this decade remained around 60 pupils with a peak of 73 in 1917. One of those, Claire Keppel, was a student here from 1915-19. A few years ago, in the aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfires, I was invited to the reopening of the Marysville Historical Society, which had been burnt to the ground, and all items lost in the devastating fires. It had been founded fifty years ago, in 1969, by Claire, whose family conducted the Australian Hotel there for many years. Claire, who had wanted to be a nurse, ended up caring for elderly relatives and teaching Religious Education at Buxton State School nearby. In addition to the Historical Society, Claire started other institutions including the local Red Cross Society, the Senior Citizens Club etc. The Keppel name can still be found in Keppel Falls, Keppel Cottages, Keppel’s Hut and numerous other places. Claire died in her 90s in Marysville in 1994 and I found it strange that she and three generations of her family, who had been so instrumental in Marysville’s history, are all buried in Melbourne and not Marysville. There was a memorial window in Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church dedicated to Claire but it too was lost on that fateful day in 2009.

In another quirky link with Kilbreda, Mr Andrew McKenzie, whose wife attended Kilbreda in the 1960s and whose sister-in-law, Deirdre Walsh, created the sculpture on the wall of our Chapel, was responsible for restocking the Society with photos and memorabilia from visitors and former residents of the town. Amazingly, the Society’s collection was larger, after its reopening, despite every single item having been lost!

Notes

1 Fred Denny recollections Kilbreda Archives

2 Brighton Southern Cross Sat 29 November 1913 p4

Damian Smith

Archives