O’Dowd Family Stories
O’Dowd Girls’ Education
Oral family history says that the O’Dowd girls were educated at Presentation Convent Windsor and were among the first pupils to attend the convent. The school opened on January 26, 1874. Having thoroughly searched the early records, I found no sign of any of them in the old ledger books.
However, Nola Lyttleton Henderson has a book ‘The Rose Tree’ by Canon Schmid which was presented to her grandmother, “Miss Maggie O’Dowd for English Lessons in III Class”. It is dated Christmas 1886, Presentation Convent of the Sacred Heart, St Kilda. So, Maggie, the second youngest daughter definitely attended PCW.
It is thought that the nuns took in girls of families that they considered worthy, for a discounted fee arrangement. Although the O’Dowds moved constantly, they were usually within an easy distance to Presentation Convent Windsor. If this was the case, Francis probably attended Christian Brothers College East St Kilda.
O’Dowd Occupations
The O’Dowd children’s marriage certificates show that Thomas’s working life was still varied. At the time of Francis’s marriage in 1899 he was a wool presser and a few months later, Julia’s marriage certificate says he was a storeman. However, gardener seems to be his main calling and it’s interesting that gardener is stated as his occupation on his death certificate in 1919. He was 76 at the time of his death from a cerebral haemorrhage.
According to their marriage certificates, Mary and Maggie were dressmakers, Julia was a domestic, Francis was a butcher and Ellen/Nell was a lady. Alice’s certificate was blank under rank or profession, but as she had just moved to Fremantle, we can safely presume she wasn’t working. According to her grandson Leo, she was a tailoress.
Canterbury Road Toorak
Thomas and Catherine O’Dowd chose to live in Canterbury Road Toorak on several occasions. They first resided in the street in the 1870s when Alice and Francis were born there. Sands and McDougal records (1884) show that they were living at No.21 Canterbury Road and in 1889, at No.45 Canterbury Road, where we presume Thomas Tobin first visited. Much of the subdivision of the area consisted of narrow streets and working class cottages in contrast to large properties including Leura, Montalto and Brookville Estates, all of which needed coachmen and gardeners. The City of Prahran Rate Records indicate that T. O’Dowd was a coachman in 1891, when they bought 111 Canterbury Road – the year of the Great Flood. Gardiners’ Creek ran through the lower reaches of Canterbury Road and often flooded. Perhaps this occurrence made the properties in Canterbury Road more affordable for Kate and Tom O’Dowd.
They lived at 111 Canterbury Road until 1913 before moving ‘over the back fence’ into 10 Ross Street Toorak. Catherine also purchased No.12 Ross Street Toorak. All up, they spent nearly 40 years living in different houses in Canterbury Road Toorak.
Catherine O’Dowd’s Will and Codicil
Catherine’s Will made in September 1913 leaves her properties to her five daughters. There is no mention of Francis her son. The Codicil in June 1914 directs that her husband Thomas receive all the rents from Nos 10 and 12 Ross Street Toorak after expenses have been deducted. On the Codicil she describes her husband as a gentleman during his life-time. We presume he was retired by then, living the life of a gentleman at the age of 71. She states her address as 10 Ross Street and formerly of 111 Canterbury Road. Nos. 10 and 12 Ross Street still stand immediately behind 111 Canterbury Road, now a 1950s era block of flats.
It’s claimed that Catherine ‘took in ironing’ to get the money to purchase the Ross Street houses. Sands and McDougall records show a Thomas O’Dowd residing in Atherton Road Oakleigh from 1914 to 1919. Thomas died in 1919 in Mansfield, Victoria.
Thomas Tobin’s Letter to Thomas O’Dowd c.1898
During my research, one of my cousins said that Thomas wrote and asked for any one of the girls that is, not specifically for Alice, to come over to Fremantle and marry him. If this were the case, it’s difficult to believe she would have volunteered to go when she had a boyfriend.
Another cousin thought that he had asked for one of her sisters, but Alice turned up! Personally, I find both stories difficult to believe. I think Thomas would have been specific when asking for Alice as he felt that she was the girl he could marry. How well he actually knew the O’Dowd family is unknown. Suffice to say, the O’Dowds must have liked Thomas well enough, as they sent their daughter Alice thousands of miles away from home to marry him. My mother Vera always sensed that Alice had been very unhappy in the beginning and blamed herself for Mollie’s backwardness. We’ll never know the complete truth, but facts tell us Alice had a very hard life.
Maggie’s Wedding Dress
Using a cotton fabric as an underskirt, Maggie fashioned yards of netting into a very full skirt and train; and encrusted the netting with beautifully shaped lacy flowers and motifs. Strips of lace and heavily embroidered stitching helped to finish off the lovely eye-catching gown.
After her wedding to Roger Morris in 1907, the gown was worn by Maggie’s niece, May Fitzgibbon on her reception as a nun into the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ) order in 1914. May’s religious name was Mother Mary Victoire Fitzgibbon.
It was next worn by Bonnie Proto to her marriage to Maggie’s son (Sylvester) Owen Morris in 1944 and when Maggie’s granddaughter, Nola Lyttleton, wore it for her marriage to Jim Henderson, it was then 68 years old. [Alice (Morris) Lyttleton and Nola (Lyttleton) Henderson.]
Maggie’s Wedding dress had its last public wearing in 1993, when Kelly Jarvis, daughter of Di Lyttleton and Maggie’s great granddaughter wore it for her wedding to Julian Ward.
Mum (Alice Lyttleton) fixed up the lace for Kelly, who changed into a second dress for the reception after the wedding ceremony. [Di Lyttleton]
Mother Victoire F.C.J. (Mary Fitzgibbon, also known as May)
The following information is from the Faithful Companions of Jesus Annals 1959 – courtesy Aileen Ryan.
Mary Fitzgibbon was born 19th August 1893, daughter of Joseph and Mary (O’Dowd) Fitzgibbon. Mary entered the Society at Vaucluse Richmond on the November 13th, 1912. She received the religious habit at Richmond on January 26th, 1914.
She went to Europe on the May 13th, 1914 and at Upton Hall in England, made her final vows on the January 31st, 1917. She taught at Hawthorn until January 1922 and taught at Deepdene till 1930. She left for Benalla (?) where she taught history and died on February 7th, 1959 in Benalla. She was greatly respected by the children and by other nuns and is remembered as a good teacher, a devout nun, a person with a very witty sense of humour.
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