The Augustinian stockman

January 1961. Brother James (Gregory) Fitzgerald of the Augustinian Priory in Brisbane presents Mother Superior, Cissie McLaughlin, with a life-sized wood carving of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor co-founder, Eileen O’Connor. Raised on a cattle property on the Macleay River in northern NSW, he had sought Eileen’s advice about a vocation more than 40 years previously. Brother Gregory had a natural talent for woodcarving and some of his intricately-carved walking and swagger sticks, which often featured Australian flora and fauna, were presented to Most Rev. Daniel Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne; Irish President, Éamon de Valera; US Army General, Douglas MacArthur; and US President, John F. Kennedy. This statue of Eileen O’Connor, Brother Gregory’s largest work, is carved from a piece of ironbark recovered from the old kitchen at Villanova, the Augustinian house in Coorparoo, Brisbane. Carved using only a penknife, rasp and sandpaper, the statue took Brother Gregory several months to complete. Eileen suffered from a severe curvature of the spine and stood – at best – 115 cm (3’10”) tall. It is now known she suffered from transverse myelitis, an agonising inflammation of the spinal cord.