My aunt Joyce, my father’s youngest sister is the relative I have seen the most over the years.
Joyce was apparently rather wild as a teenager. I did hear that she ran wild for some time before she married. I do know that sometimes she has not been very law abiding – shoplifting etc.
Eventually she married a Dennis Brady, whom my parents did not think much of, and had 3 children: 2 boys and a girl. They lived on the inner North Shore for most of the time. My parents kept in contact with her even when they did not keep up contact with any other relatives.
Joyce is a cheerful, loud, ebullient character, always busy, strong as an ox. She has had cancer several times and survived them all. She has several health problems which appear to have never stopped her. She has amongst them an unusual problem: diabetes insipidus. She has had trouble having children: several miscarriages and at least one still birth that I remember.
I visited my aunt for a week when I was about 12, during one holiday, I have no idea why I should have done so, as I did not know her very well, and I found the visit a strain. At the time she was living in a terrace at Milson’s Point, and the clearest memories about the visit are feeling out of place, going to church on the Sunday by myself after receiving directions, and pinching a small packet of cornflakes from the cupboard because I was hungry. Why I remember that I don’t know; maybe I am still feeling guilty about it – I am generally a good person so to do something “naughty” sticks in my memory.
Another time I remember visiting them when I was older, about 18, when they lived at Willoughby. At that time my grandmother, Joyce’s mother, was visiting them. I recall a fairly conventional household, except for the fact that Dennis Brady drank too much. Apparently he was suffering even then from alcohol related disease, and could not work. From what I could tell at the time, the marriage was not very happy and I remember wondering why she stayed with her husband.
My aunt worked at various jobs to support the family, and did so under several bogus names, in order to get around the dole and sickness benefit limitations – if one of a couple was on benefits, the other’s income counted, so she withheld it by working under other names. She had several full identities in different names. In her time she worked in various trades, including as a nursing aid.
After her husband died, she went to live in Taree, near the Biripi, and began to work looking after her aboriginal relatives who needed home help. She was trained to give dialysis, for example. At one point her finances got into a terrible mess. She was always asking for my father to bail her out, which he (and I, once) did help her with. However it was her brother Eddy, when he moved to Taree, who was able to finally sort out her finances and get various creditors to accept settlement and get her on her feet to start fresh.
In the early 2000s, she was looking after some special needs children of the Biripi, to whom of course she (and I as well) was related. One of these was the baby of a McKinnon cousin, and was badly physically and mentally disabled. Joyce decided to take her on, and adopt her, as her parents could not cope with her. She was still a baby. Joyce has taken a baby who was not expected to walk or talk, and one with a very limited lifespan, and has her walking, talking (if you concentrate you can understand her) and has given her a life, rather than being left to rot and die in a few years from neglect. Perhaps it is Joyce’s strength: she likes to have a cause; and Paganini is her cause, despite the fact she is now in her late 60s. And Paganini has blossomed, even though her life expectancy is only about 6 years, the doctors are amazed at her progress – Paganini is doing things that someone with her condition is not supposed to do.
In some ways, Joyce has had a hard life. I am not sure if she would say so. She has always had a positive attitude. She has always worked, but appears not to notice it. She has at times been very ill, but has always bounced back. She likes to have something to fight for, and if she has that, she is happy. Perhaps she likes to feel needed.
Her children imposed on her as children, and she allowed it, and they continue to impose on her even as adults. Two of her grandchildren live with her now, and she has taken over their rearing, the parents not willing or able to do so themselves. Both her sons married and then separated from their wives. Her daughter married a Greek man and had five children. She herself was fairly wild as a teenager, and managed to contract hepatitis on that wild period, from using drugs, which has left her with a legacy of periods of serious illness. This has put stress on Joyce as well at times.
I admire my aunt for her ability to bounce back from bad situations and to keep going. I wish I had her stamina.
Joyce was apparently rather wild as a teenager. I did hear that she ran wild for some time before she married. I do know that sometimes she has not been very law abiding – shoplifting etc.
Eventually she married a Dennis Brady, whom my parents did not think much of, and had 3 children: 2 boys and a girl. They lived on the inner North Shore for most of the time. My parents kept in contact with her even when they did not keep up contact with any other relatives.
Joyce is a cheerful, loud, ebullient character, always busy, strong as an ox. She has had cancer several times and survived them all. She has several health problems which appear to have never stopped her. She has amongst them an unusual problem: diabetes insipidus. She has had trouble having children: several miscarriages and at least one still birth that I remember.
I visited my aunt for a week when I was about 12, during one holiday, I have no idea why I should have done so, as I did not know her very well, and I found the visit a strain. At the time she was living in a terrace at Milson’s Point, and the clearest memories about the visit are feeling out of place, going to church on the Sunday by myself after receiving directions, and pinching a small packet of cornflakes from the cupboard because I was hungry. Why I remember that I don’t know; maybe I am still feeling guilty about it – I am generally a good person so to do something “naughty” sticks in my memory.
Another time I remember visiting them when I was older, about 18, when they lived at Willoughby. At that time my grandmother, Joyce’s mother, was visiting them. I recall a fairly conventional household, except for the fact that Dennis Brady drank too much. Apparently he was suffering even then from alcohol related disease, and could not work. From what I could tell at the time, the marriage was not very happy and I remember wondering why she stayed with her husband.
My aunt worked at various jobs to support the family, and did so under several bogus names, in order to get around the dole and sickness benefit limitations – if one of a couple was on benefits, the other’s income counted, so she withheld it by working under other names. She had several full identities in different names. In her time she worked in various trades, including as a nursing aid.
After her husband died, she went to live in Taree, near the Biripi, and began to work looking after her aboriginal relatives who needed home help. She was trained to give dialysis, for example. At one point her finances got into a terrible mess. She was always asking for my father to bail her out, which he (and I, once) did help her with. However it was her brother Eddy, when he moved to Taree, who was able to finally sort out her finances and get various creditors to accept settlement and get her on her feet to start fresh.
In the early 2000s, she was looking after some special needs children of the Biripi, to whom of course she (and I as well) was related. One of these was the baby of a McKinnon cousin, and was badly physically and mentally disabled. Joyce decided to take her on, and adopt her, as her parents could not cope with her. She was still a baby. Joyce has taken a baby who was not expected to walk or talk, and one with a very limited lifespan, and has her walking, talking (if you concentrate you can understand her) and has given her a life, rather than being left to rot and die in a few years from neglect. Perhaps it is Joyce’s strength: she likes to have a cause; and Paganini is her cause, despite the fact she is now in her late 60s. And Paganini has blossomed, even though her life expectancy is only about 6 years, the doctors are amazed at her progress – Paganini is doing things that someone with her condition is not supposed to do.
In some ways, Joyce has had a hard life. I am not sure if she would say so. She has always had a positive attitude. She has always worked, but appears not to notice it. She has at times been very ill, but has always bounced back. She likes to have something to fight for, and if she has that, she is happy. Perhaps she likes to feel needed.
Her children imposed on her as children, and she allowed it, and they continue to impose on her even as adults. Two of her grandchildren live with her now, and she has taken over their rearing, the parents not willing or able to do so themselves. Both her sons married and then separated from their wives. Her daughter married a Greek man and had five children. She herself was fairly wild as a teenager, and managed to contract hepatitis on that wild period, from using drugs, which has left her with a legacy of periods of serious illness. This has put stress on Joyce as well at times.
I admire my aunt for her ability to bounce back from bad situations and to keep going. I wish I had her stamina.
The photo shows Joyce, in striped outfit, sitting next to her husband, at Barney's wedding, with my mother standing talking to her, and my brother Ron in the foreground. She also features in the previous photo, in the striped dress.
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