Founding Sisters
Founding Sisters 1911,
St Aloysius College Archives
Mother Antonia McKay
1845 – 1924
Catherine McKay was born on 23 November 1845 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1869 and was professed on 5 August 1871, taking the name Sister Antonia.
Antonia was aged thirty-four 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. 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.
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 (1962):
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 January 1898 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. We first lived in a four roomed cottage on Montana Hill – close to the St John of God Hospital.
Life was difficult in Coolgardie, as this extract from one of Antonia’s letters to a priest in Perth on 27 April 1902 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.
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 bejewelled monstrance.
Mother Antonia died on 3 August 1924 aged seventy-two and is buried with thirteen Sisters of the Congregation she founded in the Cemetery in Coolgardie.
Compiled by Sr Mary-Anne Duigan
Edited by Jacqui Jury, Deputy Principal (Teaching & Learning) 2024
References
Condon, I. (1962). An account of the establishment of the Coolgardie foundation. Adelaide: St Aloysius College Archives.
McKay, A. (1902). Letter from Mother Antonia McKay to a priest [Letter]. Adelaide: St Aloysius College Archives.
McLay, A. (1996). Women on the move: Mercy’s Triple Spiral. Sisters of Mercy Adelaide.
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