The Life of Mary Philomena Daly

A biography by her son Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly

with thoughts from my own life intermixed

Mary Daly was born in Kingston upon Hull in England in the United Kingdom on the 7th of July 1937. She was the third child of Tom Baker and Gladys Baker, her two older brothers being Terrence and Gerald. Mum and Terrence didn't get along terribly well
she tells me, but she and Gerald seemed to get along better. Mum remembers the war years. Hull was bombed a fair bit when she was a wee little one. She saw real war devastation, but seemed to come through unscathed emotionally. She liked music a bit, and
some of the stars she liked were Lonnie Donnegan and Val Doonican. She tells me she was a bit too early for the Beatles, and doesn't appear to have had much of an inclination for the music of the 1960s or later. We always had the radio on in Berridale,
and she listened to that, but I don't think she really ever became much of a fan of latter music artists, although in latter years there have been some bands she likes, like 'The Priests' and she is fond of the lads 'The Justice Crew' but is not really
into their music as such. More of a Father Chris Riley fan who was instrumental with the lads. She studied at a Girls Catholic School, taught by French Nuns, in Hull, and then worked in various jobs, before meeting my father Cyril Daly on a Lourdes
pilgrimage in the mid 1960s. They married and Matthew, my older brother, was born on the 21st of October 1969. They lived in Jindabyne to start with in New South Wales, but then moved to Berridale, not far from there. My mum and dad are big parts of my
childhood memories. There was one time when I was outside of 7 Bent Street in Berridale were we lived and I wanted to get onto the roof. I had explored the entire perimeter of the House and deduced I needed a ladder. Dad had a heavy metal blue ladder (
which is currently rusting in the back yard of 29 Merriman) which I attempted to unfold to put against the house. But I was too little and got caught in between the folds of the ladder. I screamed and screamed for mum for a number of minutes, before she
finally appeared. I was so thankful to her for it. She tells me that one of her memories is me coming home from school on my first day and saying ‘Thank God for That’. Mum has a definite English accent, still does, and has not yet taken out
Australian Citizenship, but is a permanent resident. But she calls herself and Aussie Pom because she has lived in Australia longer than she lived in England. In Berridale we went to the Catholic Church from my earliest memories. Mum and Dad would take
us in the car, the family, and I would sit there, staring at the cross, not thinking much except that it was boring. Mum and Dad prayed the rosary at home in those days and we occasionally had people over to pray at nights. Mum was in the kitchen a lot
and the radio seemed to be perpetually on. I remember hearing the new songs and learning them quickly, and liking them. Mum likes some of the old artists from around the 1950s, but doesn’t really listen to them at all. She listens to classical music
mainly when she listens to music. There was a time when Grandma Gladys in England sent us a big box of stuff from England. We got lots of surprises. Mum would visit Mrs Luchetta in Berridale a lot and some of the other Berridale residents. She always
seemed to be very chatty, and we would stay behind after church was finished for mum to chat to her friends, which she has never stopped doing after church and still does. I remember that Mum went into hospital a while after Greg was born, and she had a
miscarriage. I figured that out in time. When Greg was little I remember wanting to hold him, but mum said Brigid would, because she was older or something like that. We travelled to Cooma via the bus when we started school. I remember one time, coming
home, we had missed mum at the bus stop in Cooma and came home alone. There was a big doll she had made, and I was ever so grateful to her and hugged her for it. It meant the world to me and I really loved my mother for it. I remember riding my first
bike out the front of 7 bent street on the road. Mum would look at us and I would shout ‘Watch me’ as all kids do.

We moved to Cooma around 1980 and the ‘Collins’ were across the road. We lived at 6 Bradley Street, and Mum became friends with Mrs Collins across the road, who also went to the Catholic Church. Us kids played with Peter Collins a lot, who also went
to the Catholic School and was in Jacinta’s year. Peter’s cousin was David Lancaster, who was in my year. David was a pretty big guy, and I liked him, but I was never too popular with him or the other kids in the Catholic school. At times I was a
little bit befriended, but not much. However, around 15 I befriended some of the kids from the Public school and had a new gang. That is were I seemed to fit in and probably explains why I eventually left Catholicism. Sort of, in my mind, Noahide equates
with ‘Public Schools’ (aka State Schools in Australia), and Catholicism is for Christians. Even though, as a courtesy to Jesus, I attended the Catholic Church last Sunday (I go a couple of times a year) mainly to honour the early commitments I made
as a Catholic in my youth, I really am not a believer in Catholicism or Christianity. But, in truth, Jesus, to my mind, just started a ‘Torah-Like’ ministry anyway, and the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus probably do deserve to last forever and,
in a non Christian sense, he deserves to have a spiritual community based on his teaching enduring throughout eternity. Sort of a ‘Kosher Jesus friendly Assembly’ which is NON-Christian and NON-Messianic in any way, because he WASN’T the Messiah,
but he taught some good ideas anyway. To my mind, he wanted to start a spiritual community, so for his evangelistic efforts he deserves some sort of permanent legacy. Jews sometimes call him one of their own and a watered down gospel could maybe one day
pop up in some sort of Jewish assembly which didn’t mind Jesus on a personal human level. I had some ideas for a ‘Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth Ministries’ which removed all the ‘Christ’ ideas from Matthew Mark and Luke and all the scathing anti
Jewish comments (which I think Jesus is now over with in his heavenly domain – were I do believe he lives alongside the righteous who have died) and start a Jew friendly Jesus club, for want of a better word. Someone might do that one day.

Mum is a big Jesus fan, of course. Quite into him these days, and serves on the altar as a ‘Minister of the Eucharist’. She is FAITHFUL and has hardly missed a Sunday service in her whole life, just like my father, and my older brother Matthew. My
brother Gregory goes a lot of the time as well still. I personally really wish I had a Noahide fellowship here in Canberra to attend, as I would probably go practically every day – but Noahidism is just beginning, so I concentrate on my personal
studies and devotions. Mum went to ‘Galong’ in New South Wales to the various Catholic retreats at the monastery there throughout my years growing up, with Dad. We kids were bought along a few times, and it is a lovely place. You definitely notice
the peace and tranquillity in the place which is through all the prayers of the saints offered up to God. I am quite sure God keeps faith with Catholics as well and loves them dearly. I just think they haven’t quite worked out yet that he isn’t a
Trinity and connected to Jesus in that sense. They are two separate beings. Jehovah’s witnesses know this – Catholics will hopefully eventually work that out. But God definitely loves the faithful Catholic Church, and they are his people too. As it
goes for all the people of the God of Noah and Abraham. Mum is of average height for a woman, a little bit of extra weight, which has diminished in her older age. She reads constantly, mainly thrillers and crime dramas, but other stuff as well. She
watches a lot of the British television programs on crime drama, as well as being a big fan of ‘Home and Away’. Her best friend here in Canberra is ‘Trish Kirby’ who is a strong theological lady in the local Catholic Church here in Gowrie were
they both attend. Trish’s husband ‘Ron’ is non-religious, but I think he is a great guy, and there grand children ‘Liam’ and ‘Noah’ are tops. Trish has been a strong friend of mums for years, and gave the eulogy a few years ago at dad’s
wedding. Dad lived to 84. Mum misses him, but life goes on in the end. She keeps his photos up around the house. They were a faithful couple in their marriage – definitely took it seriously – and were great examples to me because of it.

Religiously she is strong in the faith, without being too strict or too modernistic. She feels there is something to Christianity simply because it has continued to exist for so long. She might be right. She has standard catholic paraphernalia around the
house, including a small Jesus statue, some pictures and other stuff, but doesn’t go on about it too much during the week. She studies the bible from time to time these days, and seems to be keeping the faith even stronger in her elderly years. To my
mind she has definitely ‘Walked the Walk’ and has never slacked off. She is a genuine Catholic Christian. Nothing fake about her (or dad for that matter on the issue). She has worked with St Vincent de Paul society, as has dad, and done teaching of
RCIA and taught religion to little kids in school. She has been quite involved with the Catholic community her whole life, and is the ‘Real McCoy’ when it comes to a practicing Catholic. She probably gets along a bit better with her daughters than
her sons, but this seems to be a feminine bonding thing. But we are a strongly connected family, and it is good living here with her at 29 Merriman, despite our arguments which crop up. She gives as good as she gets, but she always knows when to give it
a rest. Another of mum’s strong friends is ‘Jill Torley’ who now lives over in Western Australia. Jill writes letters to mum a lot (and she also sends me birthday cards) and we have known Jill and her family for years now. Jill is a very faithful
Catholic like mum, and a big reader of the Bible as well. Jill has a few sons, and Paul Torley has been close to the family as well. Mainly in Cooma years, even though he now lives in Canberra as well like us, but he has a lot of children so is a very
busy man. Jill sometimes does artwork in the letters she sends, and writes little short stories from time to time. She is quite a good artist. Of course, she trained in music and is a piano teacher. These days she is well retired from that life as far as
I understand it. Mum studies a lot with father Michael Fallon’s scripture studies groups at the ‘Curtin Catholic Centre’ in Woden. Michael has written a large number of commentaries on the bible, and his translations of the text are very good. We
have a copy of his ‘Isaiah’ commentary, and it illuminates the text in a way I hadn’t seen before. He is a quite competent priest, and currently is parish priest in the Kippax church. He has a website if people want to go looking for it.

Mum likes shows like ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and likes to watch ‘Sunrise’ on channel 7 a lot. She is usually busy enough and is out most days of the week doing this or that with some group or another. She has a form of diabetes and gets
medication for it, but a recent medical improvement has helped her ‘Sugar Levels’ quite a bit. She is doing well now. I think, when all is said and done, Mary Daly will likely be very happy with her life. She has led a positive, helpful life – been
faithful to God with the knowledge she has – married, raised 5 good kids, and been a positive servant of the community. She has a good reputation with a lot of people and, to my way of thinking, has benefited mankind because of it. She leaves a good
legacy to her offspring. When she finally passes I will do up a myspace site dedicated to her, but can’t do that because she objects to such things. But when she is dead I will do it anyway whether she likes it or not. And while she probably wouldn’t
like me posting this biography online, I am going to do it anyway simply because I want to make sure she is remembered. I think, in time in the next life, she will approve of what I have done. All things considered, Mary Daly was and is and has been a
good virtuous woman of God. She would be the first to say she was not perfect, but she has always cared, always loved, and always done her best. I am proud of her.

Continuing on now in 2014, me and mum are living here at 29 Merriman Crescent still. Greg (my brother) is staying with us at the moment, and working at Centrelink, trying to get things right with him and his family situation, with Christie (his wife)
really wanting to live in Perth were she is from, and Greg probably preferring the east coast. But if Greg continues on in the work they will probably move over here yet again. Mum keeps her day busy with a lot of church related activities, mostly the '
Bailey's group' were they pray and chat, and some gentle exercise meetings and other things. Trish Kirby remains mum's closest friend, but Jenny Knee is also a part of her life. Of course, Brigid and Jacinta (my sister's) take up a lot of her time as
does the family in general (were all her worries come from, she would tell you). Mum helped us all out recently with some money which came into the family, and a lot of work has been done on the house to improve it. New kitchen a while back and now a new
bathroom and toilet and back door and painted rooms. It is looking quite good the house now, and there is work being done on the roof soon to fix up some broken tiles and other things. Recently mum was at a Galong weekend (and I think Brigid went as well)
and it was run by a nun from melbourne. She enjoys her Galong retreats and they revitalize her life. Matt's death (my brother) last year affected mum strongly, but life moves on (as she said the other day) and time heals things I guess. The death in the
family has been accepted and Mum is strong and has coped with it. She visits the Cemetery were Dad is buried with Matt from time to time and has a few quiet thoughts for them. They are buried in the Queanbeyan Lawn cemetery, just near the Jerrabomberra
township, which is not that far from Macarthur were we live actually. Mum continues to read her thriller books quite a bit, which is how she occupies herself, and his been knitting all sorts of things recently. Some of them have been for people in East
Timor (and she asked me were that was) to help them out. A lot of her time is knitting and reading and watching TV and usually she makes the evening meal for the family. She enjoys watching TV a lot, and channel 7Two is probably her favourite. Most
mornings she watches 'Sunrise' on channel 7 with David Koch and Natalie Barr and Samantha Armytage and co, and she enjoys that greatly. I usually sit with her for a while and watch a lot of it as well (and its a great show, channel 7. Really well done).
She usually watched the Morning Show with Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies aftewards, but recently has been watching Studio 10 or whatever it is called on channel 10 for something new. The mid day movie is commonly watched and Escape to the Country, Bargain
Hunt and then things like My Kitchen Rules and Masterchef are very popular. The British Crime stuff like Inspector Morse and Endeavour and Jack Frost and others are always watched, as well as Midsomer Murders and Poirot. All Saints we have been watching
recently in the afternoon, and City Homicide, and she enjoys 'A Place Called Home' on 7 on sunday nights a great deal. Very good show again channel 7. TV has been a big part of mum's life for a long time now, because it gives you something to do and
keeps you informed. Her life is really quite balanced on how she spends it and she seems happy enough. There are usually outings from time to time with Brigid, especially places like Gold Creek were they buy things they like and they have gone to England
3 times now (I think) in recent years, and have returned with lots of knick-knacks. She spends time talking with the neighbours, including Bernadette across the road, Doreen and David Grima next door, who have always been faithful friends, and Diana
Archer down the street in lower Macarthur. Mum is generally a conservative lady and doesn't approve of a lot of my musical tastes. And she obviously has somewhat conservative views on sexual morals and thinks shows on TV push it a bit too much on various
issues from time to time. I tend to think she is somewhat a product of her era (as a lot of older people are I guess), and perhaps doesn't easily connect with the idea that our latter generations have, in general, a lot more liberal standards. But she
gets along with the world and the culture well enough and is happy enough and is by no means a fish out of water. I should probably take Solomon's advice more and listen to the wisdom of my mother more, because she probably knows what she is talking
about.

Mum was telling me today (Shrove Tuesday 2016) about how when she was younger she used to attend the Shrove Tuesday Fancy Dress party at her Church, Sacred Heart Church, in Hull. She went as a Red American Indian a couple of times, and had cocoa on her
face, and her brother Terrence went one year as a Cowboy singing a song, and her brother Gerald went one year in a Dutch girls outfit. Today me and mum had pancakes, and this really begins the religious season of Lent, which starts tomorrow on Ash
Wednesday. She was recalling some childhood memories on the subject. In the last while mum and me and have visited my sister Brigid's place in Calwell for dinner a couple of times. The first time Brigid's whole family was there and we had a lovely
chicken and bacon dish, a risotto of some kind. The other night Brigid invited us over again, and we had pork chops with potato and honey carrots. We watched 'Our Zoo' on ABC, which I really enjoyed, but mum mostly read her book. I think she is still
reading the same one, which is a Wilbur Smith book, one of her favourite authors. At the moment mum is in very good health, looking at her, seems strong enough in both her mind and body, but she sometimes forgets minor things. It doesn't appear to be
Alzheimers though or anything like that really – mainly just older age. She's quite a strong lady still, and it feels like she will be around for quite some time yet. Recently she went with Trish Kirby to see the movie 'Joy' which was alright as she
put it. In the middle of last year she visited England again with Brigid, and had a good time, and this year her brother Gerald is probably going to be staying with us here in Canberra, and with the strong possibility Greg and his family will be coming
over from Perth for Christmas over here, it will be a big family gathering Christmas this year. All in all mum is doing well at this time in February in 2016. Anyway, I will continue on with this again some time and share a few more details about my life
with Mary Daly from younger years.

It's the 2nd of July 2016, and I have some new stuff on mum. It's been a sedate enough last 6 months for mum here at 29 Merriman Crescent. Mostly life as usual. She got involved with a Special Catholic Presentation group on 'The Dark Night of the Soul'
for a little bit, and we had a chat on that. She shared some of the ideas of how life usually is a travel up to God on top of the spiritual mountain in the traditional view, but in the Dark Night of the Soul view, there are periods were you dip right
down for a while, in soulsearching melancholia, before regaining your ground and continuing on upwards. There seemed to be some truth in that idea from my perspective. She mentioned that in her Baileys group she's getting a little bored now with some of
the conversations, one of the reasons being that they don't really discuss Vinnies work much anymore, and just chat about life. They'll now only be doing the group twice a month, in the first and third week of each month, instead of every week. Mum likes
to share anecdotes of her life story with me regularly, and talks about people from church and her friends and family she grew up with. We continue to watch shows like Bargain Hunt and Family Feud, and we are enjoying Masterchef Australia quite a lot,
which is probably the best show we watch together a bit, but I'm in my room a lot of the time. Today she is off voting, and says she will probably vote for Labour, but might vote for the Christian party. We chatted about things, and I suggested she
should vote for the party which best represents her values, and she said that was probably the Labour party. She is shopping also this afternoon, which she usually does about once per week, and Trish Kirby usually, but not always, shops with her. It's
Woolworths more often than not, but sometimes Aldi and Coles as well. Nearly always in Tuggeranong somewhere, and Erindale has long been the place she likes to go. Her, Trish and Matt used to do the shopping after church each Sunday nearly every week,
but since Matthew died a few years back, and recently since Trish has starting going to another Catholic Church in Tuggeranong, things are on no set pattern for when she gets the shopping done, and she just gets it done when she can. I have a little bit
of a winge when we're running low, but she tells me its not easy, and she does the best she can do. She's great though, and at 78, soon turning 79 (just a few days away on the 7th), she's in good health, and can appear to still do the things she does
physically well enough. She's not an olympicathlete by any means at her age, but she's no couch potato either. Mostly her health is good, and she's a strong and determined lady to live out life to the very end. She's no quitter. Her Baileys group friends
gave her some nice birthday presents the other day, and Jenny Knee made a nice cake, which I got to eat most of when she brought it home, as she didn't really fancy it. She's going to England yet again next year, and of course her brother Gerald will be
visiting us and staying with us here in Canberra later on in the year for about 3 months. Mum is a content lady, has no plans for ever moving house again, and is completely settled here at 29 Merriman. Her life is still full and active enough, and I
sense she is mostly happy with the fortunes of her children. She has concerns that Alan (Jacinta's husband) is a bit too selfish, but she does say she likes him. Arguments between us aren't terribly fierce much anymore, and we are always on talking terms
even right after a tiff. We get along well enough as a family, and life is good enough for the most part at the moment in the life of Mary Philomena Daly nee Baker.

That's all for now.

Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly

Canberra, Australia

2011 AD / CE & 2014 AD

6175 SC & 6178 SC



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