Mary MacKillop was the eldest of 7 children of Scottish migrants to Australia. Educated in private schools and by her father. To help the family, who were struggling financially, she took a job as a clerk, then a teacher in Portland, Victoria. In 1860 she became governess to the children of a relative in Penola, South Australia, and included poor children from the surrounding district in her classes. She then helped her family open a boarding school in Portland.

Mary had met Fr Julian Woods, a local priest, whose vast parish had many children in need of education. He asked Mary and her sisters Annie and Lexie to start a Catholic school in Penola and the first St Joseph’s school opened there in 1866 in an old stable. There were about 50 pupils. The school was free and great value was placed on music. Mary called to be a nun, was unable to find a suitable order, so she and Fr Woods began their own. The Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. By the end of 1867, there were 10 other sisters, committed to live in poverty and help educate the poor. The public called them, "Brown Joeys".

The order quickly grew, opening schools in Adelaide and Brisbane, with 70 sisters, work was not confined to schools, but included orphanages, children at risk, work with the elderly and the chronically ill. A lot was done in the outback, where the nuns shared the hardships of local life.

In 1871, Bishop Sheil of Adelaide, who had approved the rules of the order, excommunicated Mary for “disobedience and defiance”, because some of her Nuns had reported to church authorities, a local priest in their area was a paedophile. Mary was reinstated 5 months later. She went to Rome and got papal approval for the rules of the order. She continued to meet with opposition, but had some strong supporters. The key issue was the independence of the order vs. being subject to control by bishops and local clergy. Partly in response, the headquarters of the order moved from Adelaide to Sydney in 1883.

Despite difficulties, the order grew spreading across Australia and beyond. The first school in New Zealand, opened in Temuka in 1883. Mary suffered ill health in later years. In Rotorua, New Zealand in 1901 she was partially paralysed by a stroke. afterwards needing a wheelchair, but her mind and speech were unaffected. She was re-elected as Mother Superior-General in 1905. She died at the Mother House of the Order in Sydney. So revered that people kept coming to take earth from her grave. Her remains were then transferred to a vault in the chapel on Mary MacKillop Place. Moves were begun in 1925 to have her recognised as a saint, and she was beatified in 1995 by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Australia, and canonized in 2010.

BORN: 15 January 1842, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia

DIED: 8 August 1909, North Sydney, Australia