MARGARET O’KEEFE 9 February 1920 – 5 March 2007
Margaret Byrne – no middle name – was born on 09.02.20 in Murwillimbah, on the far north coast of NSW, a daughter to Hugh and Mary Byrne. She spent her early years in Kyogle, where she made her First Holy Communion, then Murwillimbah, growing up during the depression, when times were hard.
At the age of eighteen, she took a position as housekeeper to Pat O’Keefe. Pat was a widower with two small children, Nanette and John – Father John as you see him here today. Three years later, in November 1941, they married. She was 21, he was 41. Did they have any inkling that despite the age difference, they would eventually tally up 46 years as a married couple – almost half a century.
The following year they moved to Melbourne. Pat was a motor mechanic who worked for the war effort during WWII. Margaret gave birth to her first child in 1942, and that was me, Hugh Patrick O’Keefe. They went on to have four more children, Robert Anthony, Christopher Lawrence, Dorothy Maree – the long-awaited for daughter – and finally Stephen Mark, the baby.
In 1944 they moved to Sydney and lived in Ryde. Here both Robert and Chris were born. In 1953, (I’ll call them Dad and Mum from here on, as that’s who they were,) Dad’s mother died and he inherited the family dairy farm at Goolmangar, just out of Lismore, so they returned to the far north coast once more. During the following seven years a number of major events, both happy and sad, took place. Dorothy was born, John was ordained a priest. Nanette married her beloved Alan Lowe and later gave birth to a daughter, Anne, who is here today. Tragically, only months after Anne’s birth, Nanette died and Alan was left to bring up Anne as a sole parent, and did a pretty good job of it.
During this time too, Mum’s sister, Pauline, who had moved in with us with her husband Mac and family to help run things, contracted cancer and died. Thereafter Mum cared for Pauline’s youngest sons, Paul and Michael, and I know they fondly refer to her as Second Mum.
Around 1960 Dad realized that none of his offspring was really keen on milking cows twice a day, 365 days a year. He sold the farm and once again the family moved to Sydney, to live in Strathfield, then Burwood and finally Cronulla. Much to their – and our – surprise, there was yet another birth in the family and young Stephen arrived on the scene, in 1963, when Mum was 43 and Dad a very proud 63.
I pause to mention here that, one idle day, I calculated that Mum made school lunches almost continuously for 46 years – that’s a lot of lettuce and vegemite sandwiches.
There is no doubting that Mum was a very loving wife and a dutiful mother. She was a devout Catholic – some would say verging on the fanatical, but we’ll leave that for the wake – never neglectful of her duty to her God. All of us children were raised in the bosom of Holy Mother Church and the family rosary was a given.
Finally, in 1987, Dad died peacefully in his sleep, in the double bed they had always shared, and Mum was left a widow. She sorely missed her beloved Pat and, having cared for him religiously during the final years of his life, she hadn’t given much thought to how she’d cope without him. She had children and grandchildren of course, and was never happier than when in the company of her family, but no one ever filled the void he left. For the following years she began to dwindle and turn inward in her life.
She moved into St Michael’s, now the Southern Cross Hostel here in Daceyville, where she spent the last ten years of her life. More and more she expressed the wish not to linger on in this world and longed for the inevitable reunion with her beloved Pat in the great hereafter. Earlier this week, on Monday, 5 March, after two months of hospitalization, her God granted her final wish.
A friend of mine, in offering sympathy, said , “She’s gone to that continuous Mass in the sky”. With great respect I would hope that it’s a bit more than that, and that Dad has a major part to play in it.
Mum, you’re the last person actually in need of God’s blessing, and I know you’re already resting in peace.
