JOSIE SHEAHAN 1932 – 2020

 

*This is a lengthy blog but a beautiful tribute to a both a beautiful and generous woman so worth including here in its entirety. As an historian I am every grateful to Josie's tenacious work to preserve the history of this district. I am grateful to Vivienne and Christopher Parry and Kerry Davison and the Sheahan family for this touching and fulsome tribute to Josie.*

1949 Josie in VAD uniform              Dan, Molly, Shaun,                                                                Josie and family

Josephina Rosa Miguel, “Josie” Miguel, was born to a Spanish immigrant family in February 1932, and as she proudly would say was the same age as the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Her grandfather, Antonio, came to Australia in 1907 to work in the canefields and his wife Teodora and two sons, Joseph and John followed in 1910. By this time Antonio was cutting cane with a gang on 10 acre blocks at Beeva, and Teodora joined with another of the wives in cooking for  the gang of men.  What a different and challenging life these migrants had, but they took it willingly with gusto and appreciation of the opportunities offered by this new and wonderful country.

In 1929 at age 26 Josie’s father, Joe, went on an overseas trip with his friend Joe Donatiu from Innisfail.  They sailed via Suva, the US, through Europe and ended in Spain.  As the family hailed from Catalunya he visited there first.  In San Feliu de Guixols, he met and courted Dolores “Lola” Rabionet, married her there and brought her back over to join his family at Hawkins Creek.

Josie’s early life was a happy one on the Forest Home farm at Hawkins Creek.  Her beloved sister Mary was born in 1934.  As she said in her Miguel family history book, “There were not many luxuries, but not having had them, we did not miss them.” To our generation of technology and labour saving devices, this pioneering era was life of hard work and minimal comforts. 

To quote from Josie’s Miguel book again – “In the tributes to the early cane cutters of the sugar industry, the work efforts and sacrifices of the women are often overlooked.  Whether wielding a hoe or raising a family in conditions never before encountered, the women who supported their men in overcoming the hardships of a new country merit some attention. With courage and determination, they battled the problems of language, climate, isolation and often physically gruelling work, maintaining family stability throughout the Depression and uncertainties of war time”.

Josie’s brother Henry was born in 1941. At that time Joe leased the farm out and joined the Civil Construction Corp based at Mt Spec as part of the war effort.  The family were evacuated down to Inglewood for the duration.  After the battle of the Coral Sea was won in 1942, the family returned to a rented house in Cartwright Street and resumed “real life”.  Another brother Ray joined the family in 1943. Real life for Josie involved Lourdes Convent School and later a Scholarship year at St Pat’s College in Townsville.

It was at this time, in 1948, that Josie first met Shaun Sheahan when he brought his parents down to Townsville to visit his sister Mary who was also attending St Pat’s. 

Josie’s first job in Ingham was as a stenographer in a solicitor’s office and she then joined the Commercial Bank. Her free time was spent as a member of the basketball and tennis association and as a Lifesaver’s Club Associate with her sister Mary and her many friends, in particular, Vi Day, and going to dances at the Drill Hall and the pictures at the De Luxe theatre.  It was here that she reconnected with Shaun Sheahan.

It was a romance threaded with work and family commitments and punctuated by Shaun’s decision to learn to fly and Josie’s work stint in Brisbane.   A major highlight in their lives was when Shaun achieved his pilot’s wings and acquired his Tiger Moth…..the “other woman in his life”.

Eventually however, they were married in Ingham in November 1958 with a huge celebration of 400 guests at the Drill Hall. There were Italian caterers, Spanish singers and a Scottish bagpipe band in the mix that ended up, in Shaun’s words, “The best wedding I’ve ever been to!”

Family and work continued to be the major facets of their new life on the farm at Elphinstone Pocket.  Lives came and went – Shaun Jnr was born in September 1959 to much joyful celebration and Joe Miguel died in August 1960 to much sadness and heartbreak.  More children were welcomed – Kerry in 1962, Peter in 1963 and Brendan in 1966. 

Throughout the ensuing years, Josie and Shaun were the mainstay of each of the branches of the Miguel and Sheahan families. They were always there to give their time, effort and support to anyone who needed it regardless of the personal cost to themselves.

 Mary, Henry and Ray all married and started families and Shaun’s siblings did the same. The family tree expanded into many branches and life for everyone was hectic and wonderful all at once. 

 It was an amazing era for families to grow up in with space and lots of playmates nearby. Sundays were gathering days and the Miguels and Ganzas would join with the Sheahan clan over at Molly and Dan’s on the ridge. Molly’s sister Bridie Murphy and her family joined in and the Hennessys were included too. Close friends and neighbours the Lows, Kauppilas, Kaurilas, Guerras, Linos, Duffys and Smithwicks helped the family to appreciate the wonderful mix of people and cultures that was Ingham community at its best.

When Dan “Pop” Sheahan eventually retired from physical work, his thoughts turned to the poetry that he had written throughout his life.  He decided to publish his poems and asked Josie to help him with this.  Of course Josie agreed, but with a young family and workmen to cook for as well she didn’t have much spare time. So it took almost 10 years to come to fruition.  Pop would walk across from his home when he was in the mood, and it didn’t matter what Josie was doing, she had to put it aside and sit down with him and type as he recited.  There were quite a few “interesting discussions” over his brogue and its translation!  Eventually though all this time and effort resulted in the “Songs of the Canfields” book which gave Dan much pride and pleasure.  Josie then did a huge amount of work alongside Robert Clarke in 1988 to get Dan’s biography published.

Josie and Shaun’s house and shed were the mainstay for the family and local community.  There were many weddings and celebrations hosted there and the shed always had someone who had called in to borrow equipment, get something repaired and just get advice and/or company. It was the generous spirits of Josie and Shaun that was the feature of hearth and home.

 One of the constants throughout this time was Shaun’s love of flying. Many family and friends got to experience the thrill of a Tiger flight when Shaun was able to snatch free time amidst all his commitments. He treasured his flying time and they had lots of long-time friends in the Aero Club.

The family expanded further and life continued, always busy and messy and ever-changing. Especially heartbreaking was the death of Josie’s beloved sister Mary after a lengthy illness. Josie and Lola took on the role of surrogate mother to Janine, Louise and Diane.

Life in the sugar industry had its ups and downs. The 1980s saw the family in a very low patch economically and Josie was finally able to benefit from her 12 years of volunteer time at Abergowrie State School and St Teresa’s College to become Librarian at the Hinchinbrook Shire Library. She held this role for sixteen years, also being the Shire Historian. Josie built and maintained the Local History section of the library and it is thanks to her that we have this wonderful resource today. Josie was very generous helping many researchers with family and district histories. She initiated research into private burial sites in the district, work that has been continued by others.

While she selflessly divided her time between her own family, the extended family, her job and community work, Shaun was her “other half” throughout all of this. Then the unthinkable happened and Shaun passed away in 1994 after a relatively short illness. To quote Josie, “I was Shaun’s passenger many times, but he was always the pilot of my life”. Eventually life resumed for heartbroken Josie but unfortunately she was dealt another blow less than six months later when her mother Lola passed away. But life resumed and Josie’s time was filled again with family, work and community obligations

Josie had two amazing trips overseas to Spain, Ireland and Europe and in doing so completed the circle that both Shaun and Lola did not get to do by visiting the home countries and revelling in the people, the history and the landscapes that were so dear to them both.

Josie also continued her community work along with her enthusiastic lifetime friend and stalwart Vi Groundwater. The Museum at Halifax came about largely thanks to their work. In the years after her retirement from the library Josie continued to be contacted for help and advice on historical matters by many people from near and far. She did enjoy peaceful times to be amongst her stories and books and it is her record keeping and amazing personal photo and historical collection that will be one of her ongoing legacies to family and the community.

Everyone who has been connected with Josie and Shaun, and then later Josie alone, will appreciate their good fortune and treasure that friendship. Josie was truly a kind and humble woman who was very generous with her love and she will be remembered as one of the great women of the Herbert Valley.

 

 

Thanks to Kerry Davison and the Sheahan family.

 

Isabella WICKHAM (formerly Campbell) - publican

 

When Isabella Campbell and her three young children disembarked at the port of Cardwell on Tuesday November 1, 1870 they had arrived at the frontier of European settlement in the northern tropics. Her travelling companions and employers, the Mackenzie family, were in the process of establishing a sugar plantation, Gairloch.  Isabella was one of only a handful of intrepid white women who ventured north to the Herbert River district in the early 1870s accompanying the male sugar planters and small selectors.

Isabella was born in 1825 in Comrie, Scotland to John Morrison and Catherine Drummond.  In 1854 she married Alexander Campbell. They went on to have six children, of which only three survived into adulthood. When Alexander died in 1868 Isabella was pregnant with her last child, Isabella Alexandrina.

Moving back to Comrie with her children she went to work for the Mackenzie family consisting of parents Elizabeth and William (a retired Presbyterian Minister) and ten adult children. Together with this family she and her three children, Alexander (14), Murdoch Donald (7) and Isabella Alexandrina (5), travelled to Australia aboard a three-masted sailing ship the Hawksbury. The journey onwards from Sydney to Cardwell was made by the cutter, the Mary Jane. On their arrival in Cardwell a number of the Mackenzie family took up residence. James Mackenzie was the driver of the family’s move to Australia. He started the plantation era on the Herbert when he secured land for a plantation which he named Gairloch after the family home in Scotland. He was assisted in this venture by his siblings, Alfred and Isabella.

Isabella and her children travelled in the height of tropical summer from Cardwell, over the Seaview Range, to the Herbert River district by horse-drawn dray. The journey took seven days. After a night at Henry Stone’s Stone Hut on Trebonne Creek they proceeded to Gairloch where she was to continue her role as companion and housekeeper living alongside Isabella Mackenzie in the large thatch-roof log huts abandoned by a first small group of hopeful sugar planters.

In the press reports of when the Marquis of Normandy and his cavalcade came to officiate at the first crushing at Gairloch Mill on October 7, 1872 women were invisible. It was recorded that the official party was served a luncheon, no doubt organized by Isabella Mackenzie assisted by Isabella while the property was described as owned by Messrs Mackenzie Brothers even though their sister also owned plantation land.  It was only Isabella Campbell’s daughter who recalled her mother as having produced the first sugar in a kitchen saucepan from cane crushed by the new mill. This milestone event is not mentioned in contemporary men’s accounts.

Two men assisted the Mackenzies, Scotsman William Stewart and Nova Scotian George Wickham (not be confused with Henry Wickham, the tobacco planter who also lived on the Herbert for a while). Only two months after arriving in Cardwell Isabella Campbell married 35 year-old George Wickham in a ceremony conducted by William Mackenzie at the Mackenzie’s Cardwell house. By 1881 the marriage was ostensibly over with Wickham leaving the district and his whereabouts afterwards unknown. Isabella Mackenzie married hot-headed drunkard, William Stewart. That these women entered into ill-conceived and even hasty marriages was not unusual for women arriving on the frontier. In Isabella Campbell’s case she may have even used a little deception to catch her man for she was recorded as 32 years old on her marriage certificate rather than her actual age of 46. 

Marriage offered economic and sexual protection, and on the frontier where women were few and employment opportunities for women scarce, they were impelled to find a new husband as soon as possible. Being widowed or accompanied by children was no impediment. While Isabella was not to know that Elizabeth Mackenzie would die so soon after arrival nor Isabella Mackenzie marry, she would have suspected that her role as companion was not one that would continue indefinitely. It is not surprising that she married as soon as the opportunity arose.

Wickham secured an 80-acre selection in 1872 naming it Cowden and built their home there. Isabella’s daughter recalled that there was no township in the vicinity, and that her mother waited desperately for goods to arrive from Cardwell so she could feed them. In the meantime, the only vegetables were pig weed boiled for greens, and young white palm leaf.

In 1875 Wickham built a hotel, called the Planter’s Retreat — a two-storey building with a distinctive shingle roof—located halfway between the Camping Reserve (the main settlement) and Gairloch Plantation. It had river frontage and a wharf where passengers alighted for the road journey to the Camping Reserve. Hotels were often the first buildings to be erected because they could be easily constructed, conducted by a few people and were provided essential services: food, drink, company, lodging, stabling and fodder for horses and bullocks, entertainment and meeting rooms before the construction of shire halls or community or church halls. Reverend Mackenzie held the first religious service conducted on the Herbert at the Planter’s Retreat while it was there that prominent citizens met for an historic meeting to decide on the name ‘Ingham’ for the former Camping Reserve.  Eliza Jane Ah Bow, resident of the Chinatown located at Cowden, married Lee Look Hop at the Planter’s Retreat. Isabella’s own grandson to her son Alexander and his wife Mary was born at the hotel.

Planter's Retreat, Gairloch. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photograph Collection

Hotels were often conducted by women in Australia as hotelkeeping was one occupation where their role as businesswomen took precedence over their sexuality. Under her stewardship as hotelkeeper’s wife, and then as sole licensee from 1882 to 1892, the hotel gained reputation for “good pure spirits and delicious Scotch scones” and the Scotch gatherings and balls were long remembered.

Isabella died on July 15, 1902 and was buried in the Old Ingham cemetery. The hotel closed in 1909. Her daughter recounted that Isabella provided her children with a wholesome life and opportunities. Isabella’s sons moved away from the district, Murdoch to the Cairns district, and Alexander to the Pialba Shire. Today, descendants of daughter Isabella still live in the Herbert River district.

Isabella Campbell’s story gives a rare insight into the life of a female publican living and working on the frontier of tropical north Queensland in the late nineteenth century. Her story illustrates the means women took to survive and thrive in a predominantly male environment.