Sister St Jude Doyle
Class of 1944

Sister St Jude was born Elizabeth Lensey Elvie Doyle in Sydney in 1927. As ‘a babe in arms’ her family moved to the South Coast to Austinmer, but after their house burned down they moved to Thirroul. She had four brothers and six sisters and a ‘wonderful mother and father’, remembering her childhood as ‘a very happy one’.

Her father, William, was a ‘gentle man’, ‘selfless’ and ‘extremely intelligent’. And her mother, Mabel, was ‘a great manager’ who had ‘a heart as big as the world’. She ‘loved them all’ and made a difficult decision later in life when she entered the convent:

Very happy, lovely, I had brothers and sisters and a wonderful mother and father. I loved them, I loved them all. And when I entered the convent that part nearly broke my heart, but the call was greater than the family. I missed them all, but I entered the convent and stayed.

St V's

Sr St Jude isn’t sure why her parents sent her to St Vincent’s College, Potts Point, but she’s glad they did. In her first year at St Vincent’s, she turned 12 and World War II broke out. Her father’s job was to transport soldiers and required the family to move to Goulburn and later to Casino. Sr St Jude enrolled at St Vincent’s as a ‘bursary kid’, which was an all-expenses-paid government grant available to talented students whose parents weren’t considered wealthy. She recalls her first train trip to Sydney as a Vinnie’s girl:

And I remember dad put me on the train at Casino to come down to Sydney to go to St V’s and he put me in a…no he didn’t put me in. The guard put me in a carriage with soldiers and ladies in the army. And dad came through just to see if everything was right and he removed me and put me in a carriage with just the soldiers and not any women. Of course years later I realised why but then I didn’t and that kind of thing he…they took great care of us. Why did he change? Because the women were going to play up to the men. He didn’t think that was a thing for a young girl to see! (laughs)

The ‘wonderful teachers’

Sr St Jude has memories of some ‘wonderful’ teachers at St Vincent’s, including the well-known educator and World War I veteran, Carl Henry Kaeppel. Originally from Mittagong, NSW, Kaeppel taught at Shore School, North Sydney before enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force in 1915. In 1916 he was awarded a Military Cross for ‘conspicuous gallantry in action’, showing ‘great pluck and enterprise’ during the Battle of Pozières in France. He later taught at Melbourne Grammar School and at St Vincent’s. He died in 1946. Sr St Jude had the following to say of Kaeppel:

There were some wonderful teachers there. There was only one I won’t talk about, but the others were very friendly, very nice, very helpful. I liked them all. Most of them were nuns in those days, oh yes there were some lovely lady teachers. Yes. A married lady, she was great and wonderful, she was good. Then there was another young one. Oh and there was Carly [Carl] Kaeppel, I’ll always remember him. Carly Kaeppel was considered the greatest brain of Sydney University when he was there and then he was looked after by a lady, Miss…Barry something and he used to teach us. And she used to bring him to school because he’d never get there, he’d stop and talk to somebody, or stop to do something, wouldn’t get there, so she was the neighbour, she used to bring him to school…he was a brilliant teacher.

She remembers a teacher of German extraction, who taught English and History and ‘never called us by our first name’, and the Maths teacher who used to ‘wear odd socks’ and tell the students about his young children. And Sister Teresa used to put Sr St Jude in the front row during singing lessons, 'because she used to say I showed expression.'

Despite the talent of her teachers, Sr St Jude struggled with some subjects:

You see nowadays the students choose their subjects. In my day, you didn’t choose your subjects, you were given them. And I stupidly was given French, Latin and German. I never should have been given those subjects…English and History were my really…I loved English and History, and Economics but then they dropped Economics, and I remember after I was in the convent I did a degree in economics myself. But no in those days, they were given, students were told what subjects to take.

‘They were trying to get to us’

According to Sister Reparata's (Marion Corless) account, published in Sister Joan Jurd's history of the college, parents and teachers became concerned about the safety of the students after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. A decision was made to move the students to Wahgunyah, a guesthouse in Katoomba in February 1942. According to Sr Reparata:

'The leaving Certificate class, boarders and day pupils whose parents chose to evacuate them from the city, accompanied by Sisters M. Lorenzo and Reparata, gathered on Central Station in early February 1942.'

Yet despite the students leaving earlier that year, Sr St Jude has very clear memories of the night of 31 May 1942, when three Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour and one of them torpedoed HMAS Kuttabul at nearby Garden Island, killing 21 sailors:

Sr St Jude: In my mind, I can hear the bells going off, the guns going off. Yes the explosions, and we were taken down to this basement place. It was at night it happened, there were two ships and it was at night that they were bombed, found and bombed. They were trying to get to us. There could’ve been panic, I’m not, even as a child I wasn’t a panicky child I think, coming from such a big family, I took a lot of things in my stride. No credit to me but just, it was the way I was brought up.

Nicole Cama: Do you remember what those around you were like, and what the teachers were like and the nuns?

Sr St Jude: Oh yes. Oh the teachers didn’t go down, only the Sisters came down with us at night, those who were on duty, they were pretty calm. I don’t know what they were like inside, and I’ve never discussed it with any of them now. But they appeared to be calm and appeared to take it in their stride.

Nicole: So you stayed overnight in the shelter?

Sr St Jude: Oh yes, and went to school the next morning.

She also described what happened after the attack on Sydney Harbour, when the boarders were moved to a guesthouse in Katoomba called Wahgunyah:

In the war years, the first year I was at St Vincent’s, the Japanese ships were found in the Harbour as you know, the two Japanese ships, eventually they were bombed but we were called out of our beds and had to go down to this place underground, it was like a cave place built there, steel. We had to go and stay there until it was safe. The sirens told the teachers when it was safe to go back to our bedrooms. And then, the next year, the boarding school closed at Potts Point and went up to Katoomba because they thought it wasn’t safe for us to be living at Potts Point with the Harbour and the ocean so close to us, and with the Japanese as they already had those two ships. So quite a number of the day pupils changed to be boarders and to go up to…Katoomba we went to, Katoomba. And we had the Sisters of Charity who ran the place, I don’t know whether they bought three houses or they rented them, I don’t know because it wasn’t my business to know was it? And then the Americans had an army base at Katoomba and they used to invite us over, and we would entertain them by singing and doing things like that, and they would reward us with great packets of chocolates that they got from America. And they were really very kind to us and very helpful, and I really enjoyed the visits to the army camp.

‘The sisters would be about’

Apart from the perils of war, the students had another challenge to contend with – school dances. Sr St Jude says the boys from St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill would come to Potts Point to dance with the girls, all under the watchful eyes of the sisters of course:

Sr St Jude: At Katoomba yes, then at Potts Point, St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill the boys from there, I had two brothers there while I was there. And anyway, they used to come across, certain classes of them, for dancing with us. They didn’t call it dancing, but for the ‘evening’s entertainment’, and that was dancing, which I loved. And I knew a lot of the boys because of my own brothers and because of the Bolts who lived in the same street as we did, Joan went to St Vincent’s and her brothers went to St Joseph’s, Hunters Hill. They were held at St Vincent’s, held in St Vincent’s.

Nicole: In the Hall.

Sr St Jude: In the Hall yes. There was a beautiful hall, see it’s years and years, it was quite new at the time and we had them there, and the sisters would be about. And then when we were at Katoomba, I think they were the, I’m not sure what brothers up there had a school but they used to come then. And then sometimes we went to other schools, that could be for a function, not very much though. We were self-contained in a lot of ways, heavily self-contained. We seemed to have so much activity, interesting activity, within our school.

Though she notes the school was self-contained, they did go out sometimes, especially during their time at Katoomba:

Sr St Jude: We did go out sometimes, for things. The year we went out a lot was up at Katoomba. The army men put on beautiful concerts for us, then we would put on concerts for them. During the course of the year I suppose about half a dozen times we’d put on a concert for them, then about half a dozen times they’d put one on for us. In my book, that army being there at Katoomba and being so available was the making of Katoomba (laughs), just looking back on it.

Nicole: Why was that? Did it draw a lot of people to Katoomba?

Sr St Jude: It gave us so much joy. We had so much contact with them. It was something a little bit different.

Life after St Vincent’s

Sister St Jude said after she left school it took her two years and nine months to convince her parents to accept her decision to enter the convent. She said:

I liked the work they were doing, I liked that. Then I also liked that they were stretching out and trying to help people. That appealed to me very very much indeed. And then when I heard about Mary Aikenhead, what she was doing over in Ireland and what the sisters were attempting to do in Australia. Yes, I really liked the Sisters of Charity. Actually they’re the only ones I know. I just wanted to go and do this work for God.

Since she entered, she had a very successful career in teaching, introducing the sub-school system at Liverpool, travelling around the world, working for the Immigration and Advice Rights Centre and establishing the Sisters of Charity Outreach program.

In addition to being awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 1997, she has another unusual achievement – as NSW’s first registered lady lifesaver. She is quick to point out, however, that she only claims to be NSW’s first registered lady lifesaver, and not Australia’s. Although female lifesavers were not widely accepted at the time, she says the others ‘wouldn’t have dared’ challenge her joining as her brother was in charge at the time:

Sr St Jude: After I left school, after we’d moved back down the South Coast, and my eldest brother was in charge of the lifesavers and I so often was down with him and then he used to show me what to do and I used to join the other lifesavers and do it, once or twice a week.

Nicole: How old were you at the time?

Sr St Jude: I would’ve been late twenties I expect, yeah in my twenties because I was in my twenties when I entered the convent, so it was before I entered the convent. We had quite a number of people who needed to be saved. A lot of the Sydney people didn’t watch the tide, they swam where they shouldn’t be swimming, lots of people who would come and visit. They were the worst of all. The people who would come and visit. And they were stupid. But I didn’t slap any of them. I felt like it quite often (laughs). And also the other thing is then…the ropes used to pass along the top of your head [life saving reel] you know, up there but now you don’t do that way, you have them down low. But that was over our heads, that was how we did them in those days.

Proud of St Vincent’s

Just before she retired, Sr St Jude returned to St Vincent's and taught Year 7 drama for 12 years. She has very fond memories of her time both as a student and teacher. Reminiscing about the school, Sr St Jude said:

I used to enjoy just sitting around with the other girls talking. I used to enjoy going out for sporting activities. And I enjoyed contact with some of the sisters and different lay people. I was happy at school. Actually I have enjoyed all my life except one year, and it’s nothing to do with anybody else that year, and it’s not during school years at Potts Point. I loved Potts Point, always very proud of it. Proud of the school, and proud of the students.

Reflecting back, she counts her time at the school as a great privilege:

In my view, the two great privileges in my life are my family and the opportunity of going to St Vincent’s, Potts Point.