HISTORY - EARLY SISTERS - OUR LADY'S NURSES' WAY OF LIFE - MEDALLION - MUSEUM
Two rooms at Our Lady's Home are dedicated spaces containing artefacts, furniture, memorabilia and items precious to Eileen O'Connor and Father McGrath. Among such treasures are Eileen's writing desk, her wheel chair, a model in the habit of 1913 and Father McGrath's Mass Kit and War Medal Citations.
Eileen's bedroom is lovingly preserved as it was in her lifetime. A portrait of Eileen by Norman Carter hangs near her bedroom and helps keep before the eyes of all the features of her whose spirit animates the Home. The vault in the chapel contains Eileen's exhumed body although it was fifteen years before the authorities would grant permission for the exhumation to take place. Eileen's remains were transferred to the vault on 19 December 1936. In 1962, Mr W. J. Dixon of the Darlinghurst Funeral Directors made a statement of what he saw on that day.
"After the exhumation at the cemetery, the unopened casket was taken to our Funeral Chapel at 347 Anzac Parade, Kingsford, where a large number of Our Lady's Nurses awaited us. The Nurses asked me to open the sealed lead casket and remove the inner pine lid. This was done, and I was startled to see Eileen O'Connor lying there as though asleep in her simple blue gown, her hair lying naturally down each side of her face, and her hands joined on her breast. The skin appeared slightly dark and the eyes seemed a little sunken, but, not having the good fortune to know her in life, I could not know if this was natural... Our Lady's Nurses then gathered around the open casket and appeared not in the least surprised at seeing "the Little Mother" as they last saw her 16 years earlier. The Nurses rested Rosary Beads on "The Little Mother's hands for a few seconds".
In the terms of hagiography, Eileen's body was incorrupt.