Sister Mary Keegan

List of Deceased Sisters

Date of Death 24/11/2023

 Born:                 21^st February 1933

 Professed:         9^th March 1954

 Died:                 24^th November 2023

  Born in Brisbane on 21^st February 1933, Mary was the daughter of Cecil and Mary     Bridget Keegan (nee Hogan), and a sister to Thomas Keegan. Mary left school at 15   and went to work as a stenographer-clerk, studying accounting at night.

 After working for three years, Mary joined the SMSM in Wahroonga on 16^th August   1951, and on 9^th March 1954, she made her first profession. Three years at Killara and  one at Wahroonga giving community service followed before, Mary was sent to complete her secondary school full time.   

In March 1960, Mary was the first SMSM in Australia to be sent to university and graduated in 1963 with BA, Dip Ed.  and a Diploma in Theology.  Fired with enthusiasm and armed with her learning, she set out in 1964 for the Solomon Islands to give young people, especially the girls, the riches of education and personal growth.  Her first assignment there was teaching primary school at St. John’s School and she was also vicecaptain of the Honiara II Girl Guides.  Mary was involved with the Girl Guides throughout her time in the Solomon Islands and was a member of the National Executive from 1970 to 1979.

In 1967, Sisters Mary Keegan and Pauline Rae joined two Marist Fathers in setting up the St. Paul’s Secondary School in Aruligo.  The school was co-ed thanks to the Sisters’ insistence and was still being built as they began so they lived the school motto, Press Onwards.  While continuing to teach, Mary was appointed Regional Councillor in December 1968, the first of many appointments over the years to administration in the congregation.   

At the end of 1970, Mary left Aruligo and moved to Rove to take up the role of Regional Superior. While she could be strong in her words and actions among her own, she was hesitant to impose herself on people of another culture and was anxious to do the right thing.   At the end of her term, in 1974, Mary made her LTSR in the States and on her return to the Solomon Islands in 1975, she found that the secondary school had moved from Aruligo to Tenaru. After teaching there for just two years, Mary was once again made Regional Superior, and on the side, from 1975 to 1979, she was a Member of National Film Censorship Board of the Solomon Islands.

In 1980, after completing her term, Mary left the Solomon Islands and in April 1981 she began her service as Provincial Financial Administrator.  This was a very exacting role as the congregation sold most of the land at Killara to be developed into a retirement village and an aged care hostel was built for the Sisters on the remaining portion. In 1983, Mary moved into the SMSM hostel, Marist Villa, as the first hostel supervisor.

In 1984, Mary was appointed Provincial Councillor and at the end of the year, she handed over her role as hostel supervisor.  In June 1985, Mary moved to the community in Goodna, Queensland. After a meeting in Rome on her return trip to Australia, Mary stopped off in Bangladesh for the first time.  The following year she was appointed as the representative of the Queensland bishops on Australian Catholic Relief and in that capacity visited Bangladesh and India in November 1987.

Mary completed her term at Provincial Councillor in January 1988 and commenced studies at Banyo Seminary.  1989 was a significant year as Mary moved to Melbourne to continue her theology studies but that same year near the end of a renewal in New Zealand, Mary was a passenger in a car accident and suffered a bad fracture of her leg.  This would become a problem for Mary years later.

In 1991 Mary set out again, this time to Goroka in Papua New Guinea to be the Financial Administrator for the diocese.  In 1994, her contract with the diocese was completed and Mary left for Australia.  She went to England for a Marist Family renewal and on her return trip stopped in Bangladesh for the third time, to teach English for three months to the Bangladeshi postulants.

Back in Australia, in May 1995 Mary took up the role of Registrar at the United Theological Institute at Hunters Hill for two years and was also the SMSM representative on the Marist Family Committee until 2003. During these years, Mary and Sr Marie Berise SM were very involved in the evolution of Marist Laity Australia.

Then in 2000, Mary was once again asked to be a Provincial Councillor and moved to the Provincial house, then in Holroyd.  However, after two years, Mary resigned and moved to the community in Ashfield. Later, in 2007, she was asked to coordinate a course in Brisbane to help Nigerian seminarians and priests adapt to the Australian culture.  In 2008, Mary moved to Unit 61 in Plumpton.  Before long, she was helping Dr. Trevor Garland, then honorary consul for the Solomon Islands, with the financial accounting of the programme to bring people from the Solomon Islands to St. Vincent’s Hospital for treatment until 2014.

The injury from the car accident began giving Mary a lot of pain and making it difficult for her to get around.  However, she was one of the first to shop for her groceries online as she adapted to her limitations.  Getting an electric wheelchair in 2017 gave Mary pain-free mobility.  As time went by, Mary had good days and not so good days with no way of predicting her good days, and her leg began giving her more trouble again. She preferred independence but accepted help and was grateful for her carers and always loud in their praise.

Mary delighted in the achievements of others whether it was her students or the nation of the Solomon Islands and would often say “Aren’t they marvellous in what they can do”.  Wherever she met with people, she was keen to know their story and was a great listener who could be trusted to keep confidentiality.  This made her a mentor and trusted companion for many.   

Mary was a proud Queenslander but at heart, always a missionary.  Like all of us, Mary had her strengths and weaknesses, so often from the same personality trait.  She had the gift of leadership but it was not without its challenges. A strong personality, over the years, Mary mellowed and grew in self-knowledge, but she always lived out her call to be Marist, missionary and religious with utter sincerity.  Her love for the congregation and her desire for its flourishing never dimmed.  Her last request to us all was to pray the prayer for the congregation each day with her.   

Mary, a woman with Marist simplicity, a passion for justice and a love for other has surely heard the words,

“Come, my good and faithful servant, and share your master’s joy.”

Sr Jennifer Clarke smsm