What a way to start your school day. At this school in country New South Wales, about 6 hours drive from Sydney, the pupils walk past a cemetery to start their day. All the nuns who taught here are buried out front.
Part of Taphophile Tragic's to view the others click here.
P.S Gunnedah is booming, motels all full, Sydney house prices, Chinese coal company in town.
I've never seen anything like that before.
ReplyDeleteExtraordinary sight! I guess cemetery and school are all in the church grounds too! Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteGoodness how unusual to site this memorial here, wonder what made Sister M Peter O'Toole choose her name?
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of the convent where I went for music lessons. All the nuns were known as Sister Mary 'name' and just one as Sister Peter 'name'. I've often wondered how this one chose a different path. I see just a few of the sisters here were not Sister Mary.
ReplyDeleteMining sure makes a difference to country towns. I am going to be showing Blayney over at SW and 100 Towns soon and it has had a lift from mining too.
Very unusual. You think the cemetery would be separated from the school in some way.
ReplyDeleteThe years 1943 and '45 seem to have been very sad years for this convent.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this is meant as a daily reminder of one's mortality.
I'm not surprised to see all the Sister Marys. In the school run by Catholic nuns I attended for my first six years of schooling, many were also called Sister Mary, although I distinctly remember Sister Frances and Sister Theresa, too. I've never met a Sister Joseph or Peter, though! In the Philippines, many Catholic girls are named Mary something. What is surprising is this communal marker. And are there others for those who died after 1946? I wonder whether some of the students get blasé about death, walking past this cemetery every day...
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking that perhaps the students don't even notice it anymore. I would find it a little creepy myself, preferring to have the cemetery off to the side (but not necessarily out of sight)
ReplyDeletewow! that is kind of weird!
ReplyDeleteare the kids allowed to play along the graves?
How interesting! I am sure the sisters would have sermonised about the vanity of life to the young students! :-)
ReplyDeleteI feel certain the kids are NOT allowed to play footy between the markers! I quite like them where they are. Takes the 'seen but not talked about' aspect away from death. I, too, noticed the 1943/1945 decimation. I suppose one would have to know how the popularity of a religious calling waxed and waned over the years. I suspect that they have fewer and fewer burials in these gardens in this era of the non-religious life.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to hear that Gunnedah is booming. We are a nation of digger-uppers!
My aunt was buried there. She was not a nun. If anyone has any photos i would love to see them. Her name was Anne Louis.
ReplyDeleteI was a boarder at St Mary's, Gunnedah in the early 1960s. We used to have a 'school ghost' who was the Sister Peter (O'Toole) on this monument. O'Toole would have been her family name, and Peter was the name she took when she joined the religious order. The film star was heard of in those days.
ReplyDeleteWe used to believe that she 'walked' on August 9th. The nuns forbad us to talk about it, we used to scare the little kids. One August 9th myself and another girl got out of the dormitory at midnight and ran down to Sr Peter's grave, touched it and ran back. I think the head prefect 'told on us'.