Bessie Keppel

I recently reread the recollections of a few old girls, who were here 100 years ago, in 1918. They are fascinating in how different times were for those students. One of those, Bessie Keppel, nee O’Donoghue, remembered that the “senior schoolroom was a very large one facing Florence Street with a row of windows looking out on to the shopping centre, and a row of French doors opposite, leading on to a verandah – this latter gave out to a garden bed. The Intermediate class sat on the left-hand side facing Florence Street, the Sub-Intermediate opposite and at the back of the room the First and Second forms.

A large fireplace separated First and Seconds from the front section. During the cold weather a bright log fire burned continuously, the mantelpiece surmounted by a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes decorated during Rosary month with a rosary made of freshly picked daisies.

The pupils comprised boarders and day-girls. When the number of boarders reached fifty, Reverend Mother granted all a day’s holiday. On Armistice Day at the end of World War One, the Papal Flag was hoisted from the Tower. It was a great privilege to be allowed to ascend the Tower to look out over the panorama from the sea to the Dandenong Ranges.

On Holy days of obligation, all assembled for morning prayers and roll-call, then took part in various activities according to the season and the weather – a tennis tournament arranged by Mother Genevieve Sheedy, or geography and botany excursions to points of local interest such as Table Rock Point, Rickett’s Point or along Mordialloc Creek, under the supervision of Mother Winifred Nihill, accompanied by at least one other nun. Mordialloc Creek, I hasten to state then was a pleasant stretch of clean water flowing between green fields into the Bay.

If the weather appeared inclement, many of us gathered in the Senior classrooms where Mother Margaret Mary read poetry – usually Australian – or a story with an Australian setting. Like Oliver, we ‘asked for more!’ How thoughtless of the young, not realising the strain on the reader’s voice!”

Bessie was a regular attendee at Kilbreda reunions over the years, living locally in Collins St Mentone. She was remembered in the 1964 annual as “a great power for good in her Church of England Staff Membership and a great Kilbredian.”

Bessie concluded her reminiscences thus: “These happy personal occasions, pleasant to recall, are mine whilst I live and I am most grateful to the nuns of those days for the good Christian training received from their teaching and example; also the good friends I made there. To paraphrase Charles Lamb: I have had playmates, I have had companions, in my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days, - some are gone, the once familiar faces.”

Damian Smith

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