Yes, I joined on June 3, 1958, so 60 years on Sunday.

How did you decide you wanted to join the Presentation Sisters?

I came to Mount Erin as a boarder. The Presentation Sisters had a very strong influence on my life. 

In those days there was a lot of emphasis placed on the three vocations in life: the married life, the religious life or the single life, and I guess I just felt that was something I could do.

So I found myself expressing interest. Six months later, after I left school in 1957, I joined the sisters. I made my first profession in 1961, and was sent to Sydney to teach at Five Dock at All Hallows School.

From then on, I moved around and found myself in some interesting situations.

What were some of those situations?

The first school I went to was at Five Dock. We had these huge classes. I remember I had 63 in grade three. The redeeming features of the school were the students themselves and the parents and the beautiful view of Hen and Chicken Bay.

I was there for two years and then I was moved back to Mount Erin. After that, I ended up back at Five Dock again. In 1970, my name came up to go to St Francis Xavier School at Urana.

It was so dry and dusty and so different. I can remember sort of closing my eyes and thinking ‘Hen and Chicken Bay, water’. But wherever you go, you make the most of it and I had a wonderful year.

After Urana, it was back to Wagga to St Maria Goretti – now amalgamated with Henschke Primary – and at the end of 1974, I had the invitation to come back again to Mount Erin. I later went out to Ganmain, before I came back to the boarding school again.

I’m a bit like a recycled tin can, you know, I keep reappearing. All of my years have been extraordinary, but the boarding school holds a particular place in my heart.

A lot has obviously changed. You are wearing street clothes. You’re no longer known as Sister Assumpta, you’re Sister Barbara. What has changed, what has remained the same for the Presentation Sisters?

When I joined the sisters, we couldn’t keep our given name. We were asked to choose a religious name. Now, our lady’s titles were obviously in fashion that year. I took Assumpta. My father was very amused. He used to call me Sump Oil. 

We wore this very archaic dress. Most religious congregations were dressed in black and white with varying degrees of how that was presented and we wore that in the summer and in the winter. I’m not sure how sometimes. I can still feel the perspiration from gardening in January and then running into the chapel for prayer.

Now, in the early 60s, Pope John XXIII, who was a very visionary man, realised the church was not moving with the world and he called a Vatican Council and extraordinary changes came from that.

After the Second Vatican Council, the whole church was opened up, as it were. It was like the windows were opened and the Holy Spirit was sort of let out. It was a very difficult time because we really faced some very big, big changes.

So when this was all opened to us after Vatican II, it was like a balloon bursting, and it was very challenging. You felt very secure in your routine. Then we were suddenly challenged to go out and do other things. Where was the need at the moment?

Now, I was a bit scared about all this, and I was really happy in the school scene.

Then I had a big turn in my life. I had the opportunity to go to Ireland and revisit the steps of our founder Nano Nagle, which was great. But then I had a stroke while I was over there.

So when I came home, it turned my life upside down. I still continued to do school pastoral care, but my energy level had dropped, so I went to work in the school office.

Then an advertisement appeared in the paper, looking for a co-ordinator for Micah House.

I saw it and I thought about it, but I didn’t do anything. Then the advertisement appeared again and one of my friends told me there was the ‘perfect job’ for me in the paper. She asked why I hadn’t applied.

I said ‘I’m frightened, I’m scared, I’m not quite sure how I would manage that’.

Anyhow, her reassurance made me continue to think, so I applied for a job for the first time in my life at 60, and I got it.

I spent five-and-a-half at Micah House and it was another great experience. The fears I had went out the doors very quickly. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to have that job.

I hope I made a difference in their lives and I know they made a huge difference in my life. 

Any regrets when you look back?

Maybe that I let fear perhaps rule my life at one stage there, when I was thinking about stepping out. But it was probably the right time because what I was doing was fulfilling for me and I think I made a difference in people’s lives and was able to give that spirit of Nano.

It was good that I lost that fear and I stepped out and took one pace. There’s a little quote of Nano’s “take one pace beyond” and when I took that one pace beyond, it really opened up another world. 

Speaking of Nano Nagle we are sitting in the Mount Erin Heritage Centre which was a dream of yours?

Yes, it was. Going back several years our archivist had a lovely little display, but then with progress, all the memorabilia was packed away in boxes. In 2013, we had our first meeting. We just knew we wanted to preserve this history.