OLD-fashioned hospitality runs deep in the Seery family and Judith is no different to her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother in opening her home to friends, relatives and those called to a life of Christian service.
When I spoke to the principal of St Anthony’s primary school, Alexandra Hills, just before Easter she was expecting to host Sisters of Mercy friends later in the year and recounted the times her great-grandmother and family hosted Mary MacKillop on her trips to Bungendore, NSW, in 1899 and 1901.
The irony of her chosen profession is not lost on Judith who was born in Goulbourn in NSW and spent her early years “wandering the paddocks” of many remote NSW communities.
“Because we were in the country we didn’t go to school,” she said.
“I didn’t go near a school, there was no correspondence, no schooling at all until I was about eight or nine. I had a very free upbringing.”
Having a father that worked on the land Judith said the family moved often during her early years and in most locations there was no schooling available.
She taught herself to read at a young age and said while she and her siblings did do correspondence lessons at times there were often interruptions.
Judith experienced her first taste of “school” in the late 1950s.
Her mother was caring for an ill younger daughter at the time and in no position to supervise correspondence lessons so the Seery children enrolled with the Good Samaritan Sisters at St Christopher’s primary school, Manuka, Canberra.
“(In) 1958 I landed in a classroom and it was strange. It was the strangest thing, but Mum was at that stage of saying ‘these children need an education’.”
Judith spent two years at the school before the family moved again, this time to a more permanent address.
“Dad drew a soldier’s settlement block and we then moved to a place outside of Scone,” Judith said.
“Once again we were a long way from the closest school (Catholic) which was Scone so we went to the local public, one-teacher school, (at Bunnan, NSW).”
Judith said the school had about 15 children of all ages and the elder children had to help the younger ones with tasks such as reading.
It was here that Judith first began to ponder the importance of education and how she could help children learn.
“I felt so far behind because I hadn’t had the beginnings of what education was about,” she said.
Her mother became frustrated that her elder children spent more time teaching others than learning so the Seerys left the school and returned to correspondence lessons.
These lessons continued for several years until the Mercy Sisters in Scone stepped in, and Judith and her sister became boarders in Singleton.
“Mum and Dad used to take (the Mercy Sisters) meat and bits and pieces into the convent and they said (to our parents) ‘those girls need to be in school’ and they sent us down to St Catherine’s in Singleton to the boarding school, and we thought we were on holidays.”
Judith didn’t do well in the confines of a classroom, missing the freedom of “a book in every room” while she did housework or having access to her art supplies while preparing dinner.
“I hated being in the classroom, hated that confinement of being in the classroom and I used to spend a lot of time in the library.”
Judith may have hated the classroom but she loved the Mercy Sisters.
However, with the sisters, she did find “the better way of learning” she had been searching for.
“I thought, ‘I want to be like them, I want to be like those teachers’. They had a beautiful way with the children, particularly with the boarders and I thought, ‘I just want to be like that’.”
Judith, along with all the Seery women, had always had a strong Catholic faith.
“Living in the country there was no church available every Sunday, it was once a month.
“I can remember Mum on Good Friday taking us into her bedroom and going through the Stations of the Cross with us, and I would have been about five or six at the time.
“The Rosary was very much a part of our (family) culture. After dinner the washing up was never ever done until the Rosary was said, and we would kneel around the lounge room and pray the Rosary.”
Upon joining the Singleton Sisters of Mercy community, Judith was given the choice of pursuing a ministry in nursing or education.
She chose education.
“I remember distinctly thinking, ‘No, I don’t want to be a nurse because I want to help children, and I want to be able to give them the opportunities I didn’t have’.”
To make that dream a reality Judith went back to the classroom as a nun and completed her fourth-form certificate, then passed the exam needed to enter teacher training.
The Josephite Sisters had opened their North Sydney teacher training college to other religious orders, and Judith went there for her training.
“I was so grateful I went to North Sydney because the Josephites there, as teachers, gave that very strong foundation to teach.
“The theory was there but the practical side of it was very, very strong with those sisters.”
Judith graduated from her teacher training in 1971 then returned to the Maitland diocese for placement to an infant school under the principalship of Sr Bede Howard.
“I made sure those children understood and comprehended anything I taught.
“My first class was kindergarten in those days so no child left my classroom without writing or reading because I didn’t have it (when I was young) and I was really determined that they would have it.”
Judith was appointed to a principal’s role within seven years of commencing her teaching career and her early experiences were invaluable.
They gave her a keen understanding of those children who did not excel in the classroom environment and a strong desire to offer them alternative teaching opportunities but despite her successes in the classroom Judith spent many years ashamed of her own early education.
“I would never, ever talk about my own education and it was only in 1982 when I was to do a course at the Assumption Institute in Melbourne that I thought, ‘At some stage I’m going to have to declare that I never got through my leaving certificate’.”
Following her study in Melbourne Judith spent five years in mission work for the Mercy Sisters in Darwin before heading to Adelaide where she completed her Bachelor of Education.
Judith left the Mercy Sisters in 1989 after 23 years but continued her career in Catholic schools in South Australia and Queensland and still has a close connection to the Mercy Sisters, particularly those in Singleton.
“I’m part of the Mercy Associates here in Brisbane, I helped get that off the ground with a committee that worked together in 1999 and we celebrated our tenth year last year so that connection to the Mercies is very strong.”
Judith has no plans to retire anytime soon, still firmly believing in her calling to make a difference.
“The fact I had that strong connection to Mary MacKillop and Catherine McCauley (founder of the Sisters of Mecy), I think those foundations of those pioneering women who went out to make a difference for people, that was always my strong side – to make a difference. It was that innate factor that I too had that calling to go and make a difference.
“I am where I am today through my own learnings and when I think about Catholic Education particularly here in Brisbane talking about lifelong learning, I think that was something that was very much a part of me that I was very keen to make sure other people had the opportunity (to do).”
