Ann Power

The Story of Mary Ann Power of Creewah and
Thomas Geraghty of Nimmitabel, NSW

The other stories supplied by Bryan Power [bryanp2-at-bigpond.com]

Foreword

This is the twelfth story in stage two of a series to record something of the lives of the 15 children of John and Mary Power of Creewah and Wyndham N.S.W. The stage one story was the recording of John and Mary’s life which can be found on the Monaro Pioneers’ website: www.monaropioneers.com

The other twelve stories in stage two are also on that website and they tell of the lives of Mary Ann’s brothers and sisters: The other twelve stories in stage two are also on that website and they tell of the lives of Mary Ann’s brothers and sisters: William, Thomas, Jane, Honorah, Elizabeth, John, Edward, James, Henry, George, Ellen, Bridget, Charles and Patrick.

There are not individual stories for the eldest child, William, who died as an infant and the thirteenth child, Charles, who was the only member of the family who did not marry. His story is told within the context of his sister Ellen’s story.

Bryan Power
PO Box 610 Gisborne, Vic 3437 (03) 5428 2795 or bryanp2@bigpond.com

Acknowledgement

I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the late Dulcie Sheehan of Belmore Street, Bega in compiling much of this story. Dulcie was a granddaughter of Thomas and Mary Ann Geraghty; she was the third child of their tenth child, James. I spoke with Dulcie several times about the family in the 1980s. I am also grateful for the assistance of Judith Holdsworth, the wife of Dulcie’s nephew, Peter.

I have also gleaned information from the Edward Snowden and Thomas Geraghty entries in the pioneers’ database of www.monaropioneers.com

Mary Ann Power – a baby on the Monaro

Mary Ann was the eldest daughter of John and Mary Power who were married at Parramatta in 10 September 1837. Mary Ann was born on 26 August 1839.

John and Mary’s first-born child William had died shortly after his birth but the next son Thomas, the first daughter Mary Ann and the twelve subsequent children all survived well into middle age and beyond.

Mary Ann was only a very young baby when her parents made the decision to travel from their home in Pennant Hills to the wilds of the distant Monaro tableland where John had been promised a position as a superintendent of Creewah, a 16,000 acre cattle run.

No doubt, as the eldest girl in a family that increased by an extra child almost every year, much would have been expected of Mary Ann in assisting her mother in the feeding and care of her younger siblings.

Neither John nor Mary were literate and therefore their children, with no schooling available on the Monaro in those very early pioneering days, had no chance to learn to read and write. (However, some of the children did learn to read and write later in life.) Proof of Mary Ann’s illiteracy is seen in the marriage record at Cooma of her younger sister Jane where Mary Ann, as a witness, “signed” with a X.

The next official record concerning Mary Ann is her marriage registration at Cooma.

The record shows that Mary Ann Power, spinster and house servant living at Nimitybelle, married Thomas Geraghty at Nimitybelle, Manaroo on 2 July 1860. (The more recent acceptable spelling for those two locations is ‘Nimmatabel’ and ‘Monaro’.)

Thomas had been born in 1827 and so was aged about 33 at the time of his wedding. He was the son of Thomas and Catherine Geraghty (nee Henry).

Mary Ann was just a few weeks away from her 21^st birthday, and as there is no declaration of permission from her father on the wedding registration, she apparently convinced the priest that she was already aged 21. Mary Ann marked the record with a X but Thomas signed his name. Christopher Geraghty, probably Thomas’s brother, was one of the witnesses.

St Patrick’s Cooma where Mary Ann married Thomas in 1860.

Thomas and Mary Ann settled at Square Range where Mary gave birth to as many children as her mother had borne – fifteen - but with nowhere near the success of rearing them beyond childhood that her mother had achieved. Many of Mary Ann’s children died very young.

The Geraghty Family

The name Geraghty requires very careful researching because of the great variety of spellings found in the official records. I have found Garaghty, Garahty, Garathy, Garaty, Garity, Garraghty, Garrahty, Garraty, Garratty, Garrety, Gerachty, Geracty, Geradey, Gerafty, Geraghly, Geragthy, Gerahty, Geralhty, Gerarty, Gerathy, Geratty, Geraty, Geraughty, Gerraghty, Gerrathy, Gerratty and Gerretty. And that’s only in the New South Wales’ records. With a little imagination you may find others!

Having fossicked through all of these spellings, I believe that there were at least two Geraghty brothers who settled in the Nimmitabel area in the mid nineteenth century: Thomas who married Mary Ann is one of them; the other was Christopher.

Christopher Geraghty (born 1836) married Alice Mary Feeny at St Patrick’s Cooma on 12 May 1864. Thomas Geraghty was one of the witnesses. (Christopher had been a witness at Thomas’s wedding four years earlier.)

It is interesting to note that Honorah Power, Mrs Mary Ann Geraghty’s sister, was married in the same church on the same day as Christopher and Alice, surely not a mere coincidence. Honorah married James Agnew and their witnesses were Edward Power and Elizabeth Power. There must have been a gathering of the Geraghty and Power clans (and not forgetting the Agnews) on that day, with all of them probably attending a combined wedding reception.

Christopher and Alice had at least eight children:

1. Catherine Geraghty born 1864. She married Alban O’Reilly. Catherine died on 8 February 1933 aged 68 and is buried with her husband and parents at Nimmitabel. Alban died on 3 February 1923 aged 65.

2. James Geraghty born 1865. James died in 1879.

3. Thomas Geraghty born 1867

4. Patrick Timothy Geraghty born 1871. Patrick married Margaret Sutherland at Eden in 1896. There are records at Eden for all the children except John T:

1. Alice M Geraghty born 1897

2. John T Geraghty born 1901 at Candelo

3. Mary D Geraghty born 1902

4. Christopher D Geraghty born 1905

5. James W Geraghty born 1908

5. Christopher John Geraghty born 1873

6. Mary Geraghty born 1877

7. Alice Geraghty born 1878 Alice married Hugh Geraghty at Nimmitable in 1914.

8. There is a record of death in 1870 for Sarah Geraghty, daughter of Christopher and Alice.

Christopher died at Nimmitabel on 27 January 1926 aged 89. His wife, Alice Mary, had predeceased him by 17 years; she died on 27 June 1909 aged 70. They are buried together at Nimmitabel.

There was also a John Geraghty living on Monaro at that time but I am not sure that he was related to Thomas and Christopher.

This John Geraghty married Margaret Venables Their six children were:

1. John Geraghty born 1862

2. John Thomas Geraghty born 1864. The use of the same name indicates that the first John had died although there is no official record of a death.

3. Ellen Geraghty born 1866

4. George Geraghty born 1869

5. Kate born 1871

6. Christopher

The fact that they named their second child John Thomas and their youngest child Christopher may suggest that there was some relationship with Thomas and Christopher.

Children of Thomas and Mary Ann

Thomas and Mary had 15 children but only nine survived to adulthood. Of those, only three produced children in the next generation.

1. Catherine Mary Geraghty born on 17 October 1860 in Eden and died at about the age of six. Her birth was registered at Eden in the name of Mary Gerafty.

2. Jane Geraghty born 1862 at Nimmitabel and died the same year.

3. Thomas Geraghty born 1863 at Nimmitabel and died in 1865.

4. John Geraghty born 25 August 1864 at Nimmitabel. John was a bachelor and a very big man – about 19 stone. Dulcie Sheehan said that his sister, Biddy Peters, went to live with him in Nimmitabel at his unpainted weatherboard home (the third house from the corner) that was situated on the flat down the first right hand side road as you enter Nimmitabel from the Bega end.

John’s death on 28 August 1925 was registered at Cooma.

5. Catherine Geraghty born 1865 at Nimmitabel and died in that year.

6. Patrick Geraghty born 1866 at Nimmitabel and died in the following year.

7. Mary Ann Geraghty born 1867 at Nimmitabel. Mary Ann married William Charles Snowden in Cooma in 1892. William was the son of Joseph Snowden and Mary Anne Corey and he had been born in Cooma in 1866. After their wedding Mary Ann and William lived at Woodstock near Cooma.

William and Mary Ann had four children:

1. Thomas Joseph Snowden was born at Woodstock near Cooma in 1893. In WW1 he served as Private No 3218, 55^th Battalion, 1^st AIF from 17 October 1916 to 17 March 1919. His unit embarked from Sydney on board HMAT A29 Suevic on 11 November 1916.

In 1921 he married Elsie Muriel Phillips (a sister of his brother-in-law Reg Phillips) at Cooma. Elsie had been born there in 1897.

Thomas died at Cooma on 9 September 1968 at the age of 75 and is buried at Mittagang Cemetery, Cooma. Elsie died at Cooma on 18 April 1978 aged 81 and is buried in grave 206 at Mittagang Cemetery, next to her parents’ grave.

2. Charles Edward Snowden was born in 1894 at Woodstock. Charles also enlisted and served as Private No 2985, 13^th Battalion, 1^st AIF between 12 January 1916 and 31 January 1918. He embarked from Sydney on 25 October 1916 on HMAT A11 Ascanius.

Charles died at Balmain on 6 July 1970 at age 76 and is buried in grave 211 at Mittagang Cemetery.

3. Mary Ann Snowden was born in Cooma in 1895. She married a fellow Woodstock resident, Reginald William Phillips, at Cooma in 1920. Reg had enlisted in the army in WW1 on the same day – 17 October 1916 - as his friend and future brother-in-law, Thomas Snowden, and they embarked from Sydney together aboard HMAT A29 Suevic on 11 November 1916. Reg served as Private No 3203 with the 5^th Machine Gun Battalion, 1^st AIF until 5 July 1919.

He also served during WW2 in the 3^rd Employment Company, CMF.

4. Bridget V Snowden was born in Cooma in 1901 and died there two years later.

Mary Ann died at Cooma when aged 34, possibly because of complications following the birth of her daughter Bridget. She is buried in grave 207 at Mittagang Cemetery in Cooma. Her husband William died at Cooma on 23 August 1956 aged 90 and is buried with Mary Ann.

8. Bridget (“Biddy”) Geraghty born 1869 at Nimmitabel. Biddy married James Peters in Bombala on 9 February 1899. James was about 12 years older than Biddy. Biddy was very tall (about 6’2”) and thin. She lived with her mother Mary Ann at Square Range.

Her husband James was the second youngest child (of eight) of John and Bridget Peters. James was born on 22 June 1857 at Nimmitabel. Thus he was about 42 while Biddy was aged about 30. Their four children were:

1. Thomas H (“Toby”) Peters born 1901 at Nimmitabel.

2. Mary Peters was born in 1903 at Nimmitabel and died there on 18 December 1935 as a result of a horse accident. She is buried in grave 154 at Nimmitabel.

3. Bridget Peters was born in Nimmitabel in 1905. At Newtown N.S.W. in 1937 she married Leo Thomas Forbutt, son of Thomas Forbutt and Margaret E Sullivan. Leo was born in Braidwood in 1905. He died in 1970 in Bankstown.

4. Catherine (“Kitty”) Peters born 1907 at Nimmitabel

5. Agnes Peters married a man named Williams and moved to Canberra.

9. Laurence (“Larry”) Geraghty was born 1870 at Nimmitabel. Larry married Emily Colletta Thornton at Nimmitabel on 5 May 1911. Emily (also known as Emma) was the daughter of Patrick Joseph Thornton and Ann Culley. Emma was born in Nimmitabel on 30 September 1879 so she and Larry would have known each other from childhood. They had no children.

Larry died in about 1936 at Nimmitabel. Emma died at Queanbeyan on 4 December 1930 aged 51.

10. James J Geraghty born 19 June 1872 at Nimmitabel. James married Annie Elizabeth Clarke at Nimmitabel on 6 April 1910. Annie was the daughter of Charles James Clarke and Sophia Jane Cassiles and was born in Nimmitabel in 1883. Thus she was 11 years younger than her husband. Annie already had a son William Charles (known as Billy) born in 1902. He remained a bachelor and died on 5 May 1979 aged 76. He is buried at Bemboka.

Like his brother Larry and his brother-in-law James Peters, James Geraghty was a late starter in the marriage stakes but his marriage was the most productive when compared with his siblings. He and Annie produced ten children with all but one surviving childhood.

James died on 22 March 1930 at Bega aged 57 and is buried at Bemboka. Annie died on 6 September 1963 aged 80 and is buried with James.

There ten children were:

1. Thomas Edward Geraghty born 1910 in Nimmitabel. He married May Lloyd in Bemboka on 12 October 1931. They had no children.

Thomas died at Bega Hospital on 27 August 1967 at the age of 57 and is buried at Bemboka.

2. John Aloysius Geraghty was born at Nimmitabel in 1912 and died in the same year as a result of a leaking valve in his heart. His name was recorded on the death entry at Cooma as Gerachty.

3. Dulcie Kathleen Geraghty was born on 19 June 1913 at Nimmitabel.

Dulcie married Thomas Augustine Sheehan in Bemboka on 2 April 1934. Their only daughter was Marina Sheehan.

Marina married Vincent Smith and they had a daughter, Julie Denise Smith who died at the age of two.

4. Ivy Elizabeth Geraghty was born at Bemboka on 2 October 1914. Ivy married Robert Reginald Walker in Bemboka on 3 February 1937. She died at Bemboka on 22 March 1989 aged 74. Robert died on 21 November 1971. Ivy and Robert had three daughters:

1. Sylvia Madge Walker

2. Elizabeth Ann Walker

3. Vernita Mary Walker

5. Eileen Mary Geraghty was born in Bega on 9 February 1916. On 8 March 1943 she married Albert William Holdsworth in Sydney. Eileen died on 3 May 1985 aged 69 and is buried at Bemboka. They had seven children:

1. Glen Thomas Holdsworth

2. Maria Rosalind Holdsworth

3. Kathleen Denise Holdsworth

4. Roy William Holdsworth

5. Peter James Holdsworth

6. Janelle Allison Holdsworth

7. Joanne Mary Holdsworth

6. Oscar James Geraghty was born in Bega on 14 July 1918. Oscar married Olive May Fuge at Bemboka on 21 August 1948. Olive’s date of birth was 26 October 1917. Oscar died on 4 August 1976 aged 58 and is buried at Bemboka. Oscar and Olive had three children:

1. Robert James Geraghty

2. Alan Noel Geraghty

3. Lynette Anne Geraghty

7. Veronica Mildred Geraghty was born on 7 December 1919. She married Ronald Gottas in Bemboka on 9 June 1951. Ronald died on 5 May 1993.Their only child was Roderick Eric Gottas.

8. Madge Marion Geraghty was born on 30 July 1921. Madge married Norman Keys on 20 September 1944 in Bemboka. Sadly, Madge died less than a year after her wedding, on 6 July 1945, the day after she gave birth to their stillborn son Ian. She was only 23. She was buried at Bemboka. Norman died on 20 February 1997.

9. Noel Dominic Geraghty was born on 25 December 1922. On 23 January 1953 he married Joyce Lindwall at Bemboka. Their two children are:

1. Tony William Geraghty

2. Leanne Maree Geraghty

10. Joseph Norman Geraghty was born on 2 April 1925. Joseph did not marry.

11. Catherine Mortenia (“Kate”) Geraghty born on 10 November 1873 at Nimmitabel. Her name was recorded as Geratty. Catherine had a daughter, Catherine M P Geraghty, in 1900.

On 7 March 1905 she married George Walker, son of Mark Walker and Sophia Tingey at Bombala. George had been born at Crankies Plain near Bombala on 22 October 1868 and so was five years older than Kate. He had been married less than a year when he died in 1905 aged 37.

12. Christopher Geraghty born 1875 at Nimmitabel. He did not marry. Christopher died at Nimmitabel on 19 January 1951 at the age of 75.

13. Ellen Geraghty was born in 1877 at Nimmitabel and died there in the same year. Her death was recorded at Cooma in the name of Geragthy.

14. Thomas Henry Geraghty born 1879. His name on his birth registration at Cooma was recorded as Garraty.

Both Tom and his younger brother Charlie were bachelors who had fought in WW1. He served as a driver, number 7248, 8^th Field Artillery Brigade, Ist AIF from 7 August 1916 to 10 December 1918. His unit embarked from Sydney aboard HMAT A18 Wiltshire on 7 February 1917.

Tom and Charlie were tall, thin men. They both died within the same week in 1923, Tom at Nimmitabel and Charlie at Bairnsdale in Victoria. Their niece, Dulcie Sheehan, remembered going with her father in a horse and sulky up Brown Mountain to attend Tom’s funeral at Nimmitabel.

15. Charles Edmund Geraghty was born on 6 March 1881at Nimmitabel. His name was recorded at Cooma as Garraghty. Charlie served in the army as a private No 3754, 45^th Battalion, 1st AIF from 27 March 1917 to 18 January 1919. His unit embarked from Sydney on 10 May 1917 aboard HMAT A74 Marathon.

The following letter is from Ken Percival, a great-grandson of Mary Ann’s sister, Jane Jess (nee Power)

In this 1981 letter Ken relays the memories of his mother Cecilia Thornton (nee Jess) who was aged 80 at the time and who remembered seven of the 15 children Geraghty children. Seven of the Geraghty children had died before Cecilia was born but the one other surviving child she doesn’t mention is James Geraghty who married Annie Elizabeth Clarke in Nimmitabel in 1910. James and Annie moved away from Nimmitabel in 1913 or 1914 so that may have accounted for Cecilia not recalling them.

Ken Percival in 1982

19th October. 1981.

Dear Bryan,

Last Friday I visited my mother and was able to obtain some information from her that you should find quite interesting. It relates to the family of Thomas and Mary Ann Geraghty, the latter being the third child of John and Mary Power.

I think I told you earlier that my mother is a grand‑daughter of Jane Power and John Jess. She is the product of the marriage of one of the daughters of Jane and John who was called Mary Ann Catherine Jess. Mary Ann Catherine Jess married a Morgan Thornton, hence my mother's maiden surname was Thornton. My mother married Eric Percival, thus giving me my name of Percival. The relevance of all this will become clear in the following paragraphs.

My mother was born in Nimmitabel in 1900. The Thornton family moved to Queanbeyan about 1920 or thereabouts so she has plenty of reasons for remembering Nimmitabel and some of its inhabitants. Amongst the inhabitants she remembers are the Geraghtys (Thomas and Mary) and their children. At this distance in time from those days in Nimmitabel she is not clear about dates and the likes, but she has a particular recollection about one of the Geraghty children.

According to my mother, Thomas and Mary Ann had seven children. The family consisted of four sons and three daughters. Mother does not remember how they ran in the family line, but their names were John, Charles, Thomas, Laurence (known as Larry). Bridget (known as Biddy), Kate and an unknown one who later married and became Mrs. Snowden. Kate married a fellow called Walker (first name unknown) while Bridget married a chap called Peters. Mother knew him as Uncle Jim, or at least thinks that is what she knew him as. Of the four boys the only one to marry was Laurence (Larry), and his marriage ended childless. What all of this means, of course, is that probably there is no direct male descendant of Thomas and Mary Ann Geraghty carrying that name, which would doubtless have made it difficult for you trying to trace the line down through the years.

Mother remembers Larry very well because of several reasons. The first is that he married a half‑sister of her own father Morgan Thornton. Her name was Emily and she was one of the offspring of Patrick and Ann Thornton. Patrick was the father of Morgan through his first wife Mary (she died about 1880) and Patrick married Ann Sims who gave him another five children including Emily, who became Mrs. Larry Geraghty. As indicated earlier, the marriage of Emily and Larry was childless.

Mother told me that Larry and Emily were married in Nimmitabel. They were apparently getting up in years because Mother says that she was about 9 or 10 when Larry and Emily married. She can remember the wedding, and she told me that it was quite an event in the family. In those days, of course, weddings in small places such as Nimmitabel were events to be remembered, so it is not surprising that she can recall the event. The fact that Larry and Emily were not all that young might possibly account for the no children result of the marriage.

Emily died in Queanbeyan about 1930. Mother is pretty certain about the year of death because my sister June was a baby at the time and she was born in December 1929. After Emily's death Larry came to live with my mother and father (in Queanbeyan) and he remained with us for about two years before he returned to Nimmitabel to live with his sister Bridget Peters. Mother was unable to recall with any precision when he died, but she has promised to think about it and try to place it in a time slot for me when next I get in to see her. So far as is known Larry died before the outbreak of war and he is almost certainly buried in the Nimmitabel cemetery. When next down that way I will visit the cemetery and see if there is a headstone for him that might give us his date of birth as well as his date of death. Likewise I'll look for Bridget's name as well as Larry's three brothers who might also be buried there.

I can remember going fishing along the Queanbeyan River with a person I called Uncle Larry. He had a big bushy black beard, and I can still remember fossicking around in his bait bag for him and also putting his catch in the bag. It was a smelly old sugar bag, but no doubt smelt heavenly to Uncle Larry. He was, of course, Larry Geraghty but I had no idea until I started on this particular bit of research who he was or that we had a common bond (through John and Mary Power) with him. Mother assures me that Larry was indeed a keen fisherman and that he used to take me with him on his forays up the River.

That completes the information, thus far, on the Geraghty family.

Ken Percival

Mary Ann Geraghty (nee Power), died at Square Range, Nimmitabel on 27 September 1927 at the great age of 91 and was buried at Nimmitabel Cemetery on the following day. The record notes that her son Charles Edward Geraghty was the informant and recorded that the surviving children were Bridget 57, Laurence 55, James 53, Christopher 47, Charles E 44. Deceased children were 4 males and 5 females. (He missed one female.) Mary Ann had outlived ten of her fifteen children.

There is a record of the death of a Thomas Geraghty at Nimmitabel in 1893. He was the son of Thomas and Catherine Geraghty. This is probably the record of the death of Mary Ann’s husband.

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