Catherine Grady

Adding ancestor from Ireland for Mother's Day.   

CATHERINE GRADY  b: 1832 -  d: 1916:

Catherine Grady was baptised 19th June 1832 in Wexford, Ireland and died 3 January 1916 at Macarthur, Victoria.  Catherine arrived in Australia on the ship 'New Liverpool' in August 1849 Port Fairy at seventeen. She married, aged 20yrs, Archibald Hamilton on 25th November 1852 at Port Fairy (formerly Belfast) Victoria, Australia. Catherine Hamilton (nee Grady) Died 3 January 1916 at Macarthur. She married Archibald Hamilton they moved to Mt. Napier Station, where they remained for many years, then on to Macarthur where they both remained until their deaths.  Catherine was a nurse and midwife and it was said she attended over 300 maternity cases. Catherine and Archibald raised a family of twelve children from around 1853 - 1877.  I found Catherine on the Famine Orphan Girl Database on the Irish Famine Memorial (Sydney),on Australia website recently and intend to invovle myself in their project to honour the children sent to Australia during terrible conditions in their Irish homeland.   https://irishfaminememorial.org/

Archibald got a job as an overseer for Donald McKinnon at Kangaroo Station, Hotspur. By 1857, Archibald was overseer at Mt Napier Station for Mr Phillips.  In 1873, Archibald applied for a ten-acre allotment at Macarthur.  On 23 June 1884, Archibald died at Macarthur aged sixty-three.  At the time, the youngest of the children was seven and Catherine needed to provide for her family.  It is also recorded that when one of her daughters left the State of Victoria in Australia to move to State of New South Wales, unfortunately that marriage of the daughter broke down and the mother had to put her 5 children in an orphange, when Catherine found this out she arranged to have the childrent sent to her in Victoria and she also looked after them as well as her children.   What a woman!!! I hope she would be pleased to know that I want to honour her and that she would be proud of me.