Catherine McKay was born on 23 November, 1845 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She entered the Sisters of Mercy and received the habit on 4 August, 1869 taking the name Sister Antonia. She was professed on 5 August, 1871.
Antonia was 34 when she came to Adelaide in 1880. She was appointed Bursar at Angas Street in 1887, as one of the first governing councils composed totally of Argentinians.
In 1890, the Sisters of Mercy were given charge of Goodwood Orphanage by Archbishop Reynolds. Mother Antonia McKay was selected as the first Superior of the orphanage, and she remained in charge until the end of 1897. Following this, she travelled to Western Australia as the founding superior of the Mercy Institute in Coolgardie.
When Antonia took over the administration of the orphanage, she was in her early forties. She had, therefore, some twenty years of experience in the works of Mercy, ranging from Buenos Aires to Adelaide. Her years at Goodwood must have been happy ones. Five young women who had passed through her care eventually joined her community in Western Australia. The relationship between these and Mother Antonia was deeply affectionate. They proved to be, as members doing the domestic work of the convent and boarding school, of great importance to the survival of the goldfields’ foundation, literally keeping the place going at times.
One of these ex-Goodwood children was Lizzie McMahon, who became Sister Veronica of Coolgardie. When she was twelve, she was sent to help with six children whose mother had died. She stayed with this family for thirteen years and would talk about ‘the wonderful orphanage and the girls who were there like princesses, and Mother Antonia was the Queen who was in charge and mother of them all.’ When Mother Antonia revisited Adelaide, Lizzie went to see her and decided to return to Coolgardie with Antonia. Many years later, one of the O’Sullivan daughters wrote to the nuns at Goodwood, describing how she had kept in touch with Sister Veronica. ‘The greatest thing of my life’ she claimed, ‘was that I did not lose touch with her.’
In November 1897, Bishop Gibney of Perth visited Adelaide and called at the Convent at Angas Street, requesting a community of Sisters for the West Australian Goldfields.
The following is written by one of the founding members, Sr. M. Ignatius Conlon:
‘M.M. Antonia accepted his offer with the permission of her Superior, M.Mary Clare (Murphy). The community chose M.Mary Antonia McKay as Superior. She had the right then to pick four Sisters from the volunteers. . . We left for Western Australia on 3 January1898 and arrived at Fremantle on 15 January. After a few days we went by train to the Goldfields. We stayed a few days at St Brigid’s Convent, John St., West Perth. M.M. Antonia being very ill all the time on board the ‘Gabo’, a very rough cargo boat, she felt the voyage very much and told us on board, that if she died before we got to the Goldfields to go back to Adelaide.
We arrived at Coolgardie on 22 January 1898. It was intended that we go to ‘White Feather’ afterwards called Kanawna. The day before our arrival the Church was burned down so we were transferred to Coolgardie. Up to this the school had been taught by seculars in a part of the Church, a galvanized iron building in Woodward Street. The Bishop was anxious for us to prepare the children for Confirmation.
We first lived in a four roomed cottage on Montana Hill – close to the St John of God Hospital. It was there we had our first breakfast, after which we went to the cottage. The priest in charge was Father O’Dwyer, a Franciscan. The next was Fr. O’Reilly who returned to Ireland where he died. When the new brick Church was built . . . Father Dunne was the Parish Priest. He went on a trip to Ireland but died of Bubonic plague at Bombay on his return and was buried there.’
Life was difficult in Coolgardie, as this extract from one of Antonia’s letters to a priest in Perth conveys:
‘We are very isolated here, deprived very often of Mass and Holy Communion, with very hard work and a most uncomfortable place to live in, (it does not deserve the name of a convent) and not a bright future. The idea occurs to me often that God does not want us in Coolgardie.’ (27 April 1902)
Mother Antonia’s last visit to Angas Street was in 1921, where she celebrated her Golden Jubilee with Mother Clare Murphy, with Antonia being professed less than four months after Clare. The Old Scholars of St Aloysius School showed their fondness for their ‘Dear Nuns’ with the gift of a beautiful, golden bejeweled monstrance.
Mother Antonia died on 3 August 1924 aged 72 and is buried with 13 Sisters of the Congregation she founded in the Cemetery in Coolgardie.
By Sr Mary-Anne Duigan and edited by Jacqui Jury, 2024
References
(ed.) 1996, Women on the move: Mercy’s Triple Spiral, Sisters of Mercy, Adelaide.