Eileen O'Connor Centre Opens in Coogee: Commemorating the life and vision of Eileen O'Connor, saint-in-waiting

I was lucky enough to make a trip to Sydney to see the new museum that commemorates Eileen O’Connor, a young woman who suffered terribly from illness and deformity but founded an order of nurses to care for the sick poor in the slums of Sydney in 1913. Considered by many who knew her to be a saint in her own lifetime, Eileen was declared Servant of God in 2018 and her cause for canonisation is now being investigated at the Vatican.

A life-sized statue of the three-foot ten (115cm approx) Eileen gazes towards the entry. The statue of ‘Little Mother’ was carved from ironbark by Brother James (Gregory) Fitzgerald.

The museum is in the grounds of Eileen’s former home, and uses treasured artifacts, photographs and videos to immerse visitors in her life story. While I stood studying the contents of one of the display cases, my breath was suddenly taken away when I heard familiar voices. Sister Greta and the late Sister Margaret Mary had recorded their memories and incidents from Eileen’s life. I met them while I was working on my novel about Eileen and was spellbound by their storytelling on the screen.

The late Sister Margaret Mary was a familiar face. She was wonderfully supportive ally while I was researching and writing my novel about Eileen, and even made a cameo appearance in the story.

There’s a replica of the bedroom that became the hub of Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor when Eileen, paralysed in both legs and her right arm, took over the duties of matron, coordinating patient care and fundraising from her bed and taking phone calls on an Ericsson broom handle phone. Her actual bed and phone take pride of place in the display along with her Pieta statue.

Eileen must have been one of the first potential saints to have her own telephone!

Next to the bedroom, is a reproduction of part of her living room, with the sofa the desperately ill Eileen was resting in to have her portrait painted as a memento for her nurses. The painting, by Norman Carter, is also on display, showing a serene young woman, with a penetrating gaze.

Eileen had her portrait painted only months before her death as a gift to the nurses, who lived in her house with her and who she knew would miss her dreadfully when she died.

While allowing us to get a feel for Eileen’s dreadful suffering, the museum also showcases Eileen’s zest for life: her passion for photography, her love for her devoted dog Rags, the joyful images she scrap-booked to show children who visited for the garden parties she liked to host, partly to bring fun to the lives of impoverished children, and partly to ensure they had a decent meal.

Eileen died at age 28 and is buried in her former bedroom which has become part of the chapel in her home next to the museum.

The memories of nursing care in the slums shared by Sister Margaret Mary really struck home. Sometimes the nurses would get to a patient’s home to find the door was locked, so they’d climb in through the window. They’d navigate floors with the risk of falling through holes up to their waists, and the before beginning to care for the patient, they’d have to clean up cat and dog excrement.

Eileen’s own experience with catastrophic illness and poverty and her abiding faith that she was doing God’s work, drove her to go to extraordinary lengths to alleviate the suffering of people in dire circumstances, before social security payments and Medicare. She inspired a courageous, dedicated group of young women to take up a vocation and do the same. She and her Sisters lived by the maxim, “The cause of a person’s poverty is not yours to question. The fact a person is poor is the reason you help.”

Congratulations to Project Manager Andrew Summerell and Archivist Carlos Lopez for creating a welcoming and authentic testament to Eileen, co-founder Father Ted McGrath and the generations of nurses who have lived and died in loving service to Eileen’s vision and the poor.

An enlarged photograph of Eileen welcomes visitors to the Centre.

The Centre, at 35 Dudley Street, Coogee, is open by appointment on Tuesday and Thursday. Bookings can be requested here: https://www.ourladysnurses.org.au/request-your-visit