Tributes and other material related to Mary’s death
Mary Caroline O’Brien, the eldest of Irene and Bill’s 12 children, was born on 13 March 1917, and passed away just over a week after her 77th birthday on 21 March 1994. In this story, I’ve gathered a few pieces from newspapers, eulogies and the like.
Death Notice from the Sydney Morning Herald
STRACHAN, Mary Caroline – March 21, 1994 beloved mother of Tony, Tim and Garth and mother‑in‑law of Fiona and Karilyn, grandmother of Cato, Marly and Lauren and her many loving brothers and sisters.
Aged 77 years.
Go with God.
Sydney Morning Herald, 23 March 1994
Notice of Service from the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 March 1994
STRACHAN. — A Requiem Mass for eternal repose of the soul of Mrs. MARY CAROLINE STRACHAN will be celebrated at St Thomas’ Church, High Street, Willoughby, on Saturday (March 26, 1994) commencing at 9 am.
At the conclusion of prayers following the Mass the cortege will leave for the Northern Suburbs Catholic Lawn Cemetery.
Headstone at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium
Mary’s grave is located in the Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium, on the Roman Catholic Lawn, Block 18, Grave 0344.
Marys headstone
I found the following poem, ‘Frontiers’, amongst my Mum’s documents, but I’m yet to find out who wrote and delivered this. It may have been delivered at the service mentioned above. Please let me know if you can any additional information.
It’s transcribed here with the same structure as the printed version I had.
FRONTIERS
for Mary Strachan
She milked the cows
And fed the shearers
On a rural frontier
Between two great wars
In early womanhood
She found a new frontier
North in the line of fire
Patching up the wounded warriors
Of equatorial battles
An artful man enticed her
Yet further north to
Christen the promise of an exotic land...
And so
Frontiers within frontiers emerged:
Children, business opportunities,
service to her neighbours.
It was written at the time
She was a human dynamo.
It was understood she possessed
The most absorbent shoulder for a hundred miles.
It was known she packed a verbal punch.
On her last frontier
The Sydney phase
She watched the artful one wither and fall.
As time passed
Her mind whipped the cryptic crossword
But her imagination made a cocktail with regret.
The last frontier was too entangling
Too unkind
Unforgiving...
Though often she saw enough light still
To offer that matriarchal shoulder
To the odd lost soul.
And now?
Now all the frontiers are behind her
serenity lies before.
I also found the following tribute titled ‘To Mary From Candy’ amongst my Mum’s documents. Mary’s son Tony explained who Candy was:
Candy was Candy Parrish who was a chatty mate of mum’s and a great gossiper. Hubby Doug Parrish was a legend in PNG post war. He was known as ‘The Black Prince’ due to his dark Arabic skin; he was tall and good-looking. He was a patrol officer initially but rose to District Commissioner up there I think, including being based in Finschhafen. Later he rose to the 2nd in charge of the Public Service Association in Sydney.
There’s a tragic story attached to them. In the 1950s or 1960s they motored down the east coast of Oz. An aboriginal fellow came out of the bush while they were picnicking and shot Doug in the chest with a rifle and raped Candy. Their young twin boys witnessed all this close up. Doug eventually got to his feet and in driving rain ran a great distance to find help.
Following Candy’s tribute to Mary I’ve included a story from the Sydney Morning Herald written on the death of Candy’s husband Doug.
TO MARY FROM CANDY
Forty odd years ago I was working in an office in Sydney when I met someone with whom I fell in love. I didn't know he lived in Papua New Guinea when he proposed 48 hours after our meeting. When I told the girls in the office I was off to New Guinea, one of the girls, Joan O’Brien, told me she had a sister, Mary, living there and to make myself known to her.
Mary was an identity in Lae, New Guinea - she was so vibrant, so busy and so get up and go. She held her famous dress parades in many towns other than Lae.
The greatest honour she paid me was to allow her eldest son, Tony, to come holiday with me in Finschhafen. He was only three years old.
Some of the things I remember about Mary when staying with her - she would arrive home from her boutique, called Caroline’s - have lunch, pull the combs from her beautiful hair, go to sleep for half an hour, get up and with four quick movements arrange her hair and drive back to work. Such was her discipline.
Mary and husband, Arthur, were very involved in theatre. I remember one afternoon when Mary said "Let's go, we’re picking up props for Arthur's show." How can I forget standing on the back of a truck balancing two six-foot lamp stands and we had only just begun.
If someone needed cooking or flower arrangements, you just called on Mary Strachan. Mary had a beautiful three split level home in Lae where she had bridge weekends. People flew in by aircraft from all over New Guinea.
The house was so elegant with beautiful gardens. Guests were expected to drop coins under the table and when I asked why Mary said that it was a "perk" for her staff whom she really cared for.
Saturday mornings were something to be observed in house Strachan. She would cook up trays and trays of wholesome biscuits at the same time arrange bouquets and wreaths with such natural talent.
I even remember that she made her boys "one piece" pyjamas - she believed that elastic around the waist was not good for growing boys. She, as a trained nurse, was so aware of her children's health.
In those days Mary, who was such a lover of dogs, had bulldogs and that was before she became involved with her beloved dachshunds - a few of them called Saki. She was a devotee of cricket, classical music and good books.
Mary had such a rewarding life in Lae, New Guinea - she never ever forgot it - it was so much of her happier life.
Mary be! bilong mü hewi tumas, Gut bai pren, gut bai Mary.
I asked Mary’s son Tony to translate the pisin (pidgin) with which Candy ended her tribute:
Mary be! I am so very, very heavy inside myself. Goodbye friend, goodbye Mary.
This is an article from the Sydney Morning Herald on 27 March 2003. It was written on the death of Doug Parrish, the husband of Mary’s friend Candy who delivered the above tribute. It gives some insight into the difficulties of life in Papua New Guinea in the early 1950s.
Comedy wedding became marriage made in heaven
Candy Parrish's wedding to "my tall, dark and handsome" assistant district officer Douglas Parrish in New Guinea in March 1951 was like a Hollywood comedy.
The bride, flying up from Sydney wearing a fashionable tight skirt, high heels and long kid gloves, was off-loaded enroute, retrieved, driven by jeep to the beach at Lae at midnight, coaxed into an unstable dinghy in the surf, then up a swaying rope ladder to the crowded deck of a coastal trawler headed for her fiancé’s outstation.
That was only the beginning. Before the wedding ceremony the best man broke his leg, the light aircraft taking the bride and groom to their reception had to turn back and the partying went on without them, the bride lost her gold watch and an expensive earring, and the bridegroom was laid low for the next 10 days with a serious infection.
But it turned out to be "a marriage blessed in heaven", Candy wrote 45 years later, a few months before she died unexpectedly in her sleep. Now Douglas Parrish has died of cancer, aged 81. His death closes another colourful chapter in the narrative of those Australians who chose to work and raise families in an emerging Papua New Guinea at a critical period in its modern history. Parrish's 30 years with the Australian Administration were significant to PNG's development.
Like so many others who made their careers there, Parrish was introduced to those islands during the war. He enlisted in the AIF in 1940, and the middle of 1943 found him behind enemy lines in the Sepik as a sergeant with a guerilla force known as Mosstroops. The official war history relates how in one engagement Parrish and a companion were attacked by - but put to flight - six Japanese and a dozen armed natives.
Cecilia (Celia) Flanagan had met Mary when they both attended Mt Erin Convent School as high school boarders. Cecilia went on to marry Mary’s brother Jack. Cecilia and Mary had known one another for over 60 years when Mary died in 1994, and it was to honour that friendship that Cecilia set up a perpetual prayer folio for Mary. Cecilia’s son Mark, a priest, travelled some distance to perform the service at Mary’s funeral.
In May of 1994, Mary’s eldest son Tony wrote the following letter to Cecilia thanking her for the prayer folio and for Mark’s kindness.
Dear Celia
Thank you for your considerate and caring gesture of the perpetual prayer folio for Mum.
I think she’d be glad to know her closest girlhood friend of all those years ago still remembers her when she was at the height of her powers and personal qualities.
It was marvellous of Mark to come so far for the service and to do such a fine job.
Yours sincerely
Tony
Written by a host of people, collated by Rob Landsberry, with added material written by Rob Landsberry, last updated 8 December 2023