Category: Uncategorized

  • Reunion speech – Rick Sullivan

    MONTE PIO, MURRAY DWYER ORPHANAGE REUNION Sunday, 6 March 2011 Thank you to Nancy and Anne and Pat and other organisers for all the effort you’ve gone to over the years putting together these re-unions. And thank you for inviting me to share my own thoughts based on my own time in the orphanage. Some…

  • Memories (1966-1970)

    I have many memories of “Monte”. I was there from about 1966 – 1970. Also for a short time before that. The mind gets a bit hazy now and then. I remember…… The razzle dazzle; the rocker [some girls rocked so hard and fast it tipped over]. The Wooder girls getting their beautiful long hair…

  • Memories 1952-1956

    Letter dated January 28, 2006 “Monte Pio – Memories of Daily Life in a Maitland Orphanage”. I was upset when I read this thesis. It does not speak for me or my sister. In the 1950s, we were placed in Monte Pio due to a broken home, while our brother briefly stayed at Mayfield with the Daughters…

  • Memories (1967-?)

    Hi Just found your website and how excited I was. My sister Joanne and I were at Monte Pio from, I think, the end of ’67 or possibly ’68. Don’t know how long we were there. I was 5 or 6 at the time; Jo was a year older than me. Our life was quite…

  • Memories (1952-1962)

    Where to start? First and foremost, to thank God and my father for putting me into Monte Pio and not some other girls’ home. I didn’t have the shockingly terrifying experiences of many children who were placed in care, in institutions and homes throughout Australia. The broken spirits and the thread of fear that runs…

  • Memories (1939-1949)

    I remember when I was leaving Monte Pio, the Sister in Charge said to me “When I told you to do this, or go do that, it wasn’t because I had a grudge against you; I did it because when I asked you to do something, it would be done properly and I could rely on you……

  • Memories (1962-1966)

    It has surprised me that this contact to my past existed. I lived at Monte Pio. I do not have many good memories of this experience. You may remember the girl that was often sitting outside the TV room with a cake of soap in her mouth for daring to suck her thumb. Although I…