End of an era

The End of an Era – the Josephite Sisters leave Rushworth after 70 years.

Tuesday, 28th of February will be a significantly sad day for our 

school.  On this day Sr Nellie will be leaving our parish after 12 years and moving to Melbourne to be closer to her Sister friends. 

Sr Nellie has been a wonderful support to our school and to the wider Rushworth community.  Nellie was true to Mary MacKillop’s ideals of “Never seeing a need without doing something about it”.   

Sr Nellie has regularly visited our school and attended our Masses. 

Sr Nellie has presented our special MacKillop Awards to our 

worthy students each year.  We will miss Sr Nellie’s presence in our town. 

St Nellie’s departure also signifies the end of the Josephite 

presence in Rushworth.  In 1954 our parish school was opened and 

the Sisters of St Joseph, who were founded by Mary MacKillop, 

Australia’s first saint, began teaching and serving in our parish. 

The school was built by men and women of our parish with the 

support of professional trades people.  Sr Cuthbert Tyler was the 

first principal and she was joined by other sisters who taught and worked in the convent and parish.

Over the 70 years, we have been privileged to always have Sisters of St Joseph living in the Convent in our parish and supporting people through their joys and sorrows.  The Sisters instilled the love of God and fellow human in all they taught and the Sr Geraldine Larkins was the last Sister to work in our school and she finished her principalship in 1997, before working as the Deputy Director of Catholic Education, Sandhurst.   Since then, Mr Matt Mann, Mr James Waight and I have been principal and we have and will continue to stay true to the values of Mary MacKillop. St Mary’s has had exceptional educators join the ranks over the years to provide an excellent education to the children of Rushworth.

To ensure that the Josephite charism and MacKillop values continue in our school we have many icons such as our statue of Mary MacKillop in our front garden, our wall plaque which is illuminated at night, MacKillop crosses in each classroom and our building are newly named: the Josephite Building (Admin and staff amenities building) and the MacKillop Learning Centre (newly refurbished building). 

During the holidays Simon and I travelled to Robe, South Australia and while there we visited Penola where Mary Mackillop worked and established her community of Sisters.  We bought a MacKillop rose from Wagner’s Rose Nursery in Kalangadoo a town near Penola. 

On behalf of St Mary’s School Community, I had great pleasure in presenting this rose to Sr Nellie at our Mass last Friday. We hope that St Nellie can watch it bloom and think of us, her friends in Rushworth.

God bless you Nellie.