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The 30-bed hospital is much the same today, although it has been renovated and re-equipped
and the theatre has been closed. The views from the windows of low hills and meadows are
rural and pleasing, with a wealth of fine trees in the grounds, azaleas and jacarandas. In the
summer, drifts of darting dragonflies sparkle in the sun, and the strident singing of cicadas assails
the ear. In some aspects it echoes the mild Irish countryside that Mary never knew.
Here, as Mary toiled through the last years of her life, she heard of Lawrie's ill-fated marriage in
1910, and in the following year, in March, of Willie's early death.
We know she kept in touch with her children by letter during these years. For her daughter,
Annie, spoke many years later of receiving letters from her mother when she was in her teens
(Annie was 13 in 1904). And there is a Christmas card, sent by Mary to Bob and his wife,
Lena. It says: 'From Mother. With love to all my Dear Grandchildren'. This implies that at least
two or three of them had been born by the time the card had been dispatched, and this would
date it to 1909 -1912. There is no post mark, which would have shown the date and place of
origin. But the fact that the card was kept - for sentimental reasons, no doubt - seems to
indicate that it was the last communication Bob's family received from her before her death.
Soon after Willie's death, in March 1911, Mary's mother, Winifred, died in Nowra, and was
buried there beside her husband, Patrick.
As Mary crossed herself above her parents' grave, did she have any premonition that her own
burial would soon follow her mother's - that the three of them, who had lain so closely together
so long ago in a ship's damp belly, would soon be reunited in the same dry earth?
A year later, in the damp Australian winter, Mary caught a chill, and a few weeks after her 59th
birthday in August, she died.
Her death certificate gives the cause of death as pneumonia and cardiac failure. It describes
Mary as an 'invalid pensioner1 and gives her occupation as 'domestic duties'. Her doctor, Karl
Georgs, who was then the medical officer in charge of the David Berry Hospital, had not seen
her officially since 3 August. She was clearly of not much concern to him. Dr Georgs was a
Prussian, and changed his name to George when the Great War began.
Mary Honeycormbe died on 1 September, 1912, and was buried in Nowra two days later, in
row 5A in the cemetery in Kalendar Street.
She was buried in a grave at one remove from her parents' resting-place. The allotment had
been bought, by an unnamed person, the day before. The funeral service was conducted by the
priest of St Patrick's Church in Berry, Father Bernard Sheridan, and the burial was witnessed
by Richard Solway and John Mcgrath.
Who were they? Probably grave-diggers, or undertakers, not members of the family. So where
were Mary's sister, Norah (by then Norah Harvey) and her
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brother James Casey, who had troubled to put up a stone topped with a small cross in 1911 at
the head of their parents' grave? Where were Norah and James? Were they away from Nowra
for some reason or other, perhaps to do with her marriage and his work? Or did they feel as
little concern for her, despite their strong Irish family ties and origins, as Dr Georgs?
No stone bears Mary's name on her grave, nor is there any numbered marker among the
weeds. The stone that James put up on his parents' grave has fallen, and the cross has broken
off. Their grave is forlorn, like others in the cemetery. There is no mention of Mary on the
Caseys' stone - Norah and James had left no room for it - and nothing commemorates her
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