Cudgegong Valley History Project

DEATH. DWYER. - At Sydney Hospital, Sydney, MARY ANN, the beloved wife of Cornelius Dwyer (late of Rylstone), and mother of Mrs. C. Howe (Rylstone). Mrs. H. Warden (Randwick), Martha Stollery (Sydney), Joseph Stollery (America), and M. J. Stollery (Lithgow), on MONDAY, April 1, 1912, in her 64th year. "Recquiescat in pace." Mudgee Guardian. Mudgee Guardian, Thursday 4 April 1912, p. 16. Mary Ann Dwyer Death

An Appreciation On the Late Mrs Con Dwyer. [By "Old Friend.") At Waverley, on Wednesday last, was interred in her last earthly home the body of one long identified with Mudgee and the district, and known and respected by everyone, who had come in contact with her, known to us of late years as Mrs. Con. Dwyer, to an earlier generation as Mrs. M. Stollery, and earlier again as Mary Ann Merriman. She was justly entitled to be considered one of Mudgee's "old identities," in that she came to reside in the town with her father and brother some sixty years ago. Her father, the late Michael Merriman, left his home in Yorkshire (Little Barnsley, where Mary Ann was born) sixty years ago with his wife and family for this country: but his wife died at sea, and thus the children were motherless when they landed. Mr. Merriman went into business in Mudgee as a general storekeeper, and later on followed the western line as it progressed towards Bathurst. For some years his daughter, Mary Ann, was housekeeper for Father O'Donovan (now Monsignor O'Donovan, and still amongst us. Then she went to Brewongle, and from there was married to her first husband, Ephraim Joseph Stollery, at Bathurst, by the late Dr. Byrnes. There were four children by that marriage, viz., Mary (Mrs. Howe, Rylstone), Michael (foreman in the Lithgow "Mercury" office), Rose (Mrs. Henry Warden, Randwick), and Joseph (America), and Martha (now in Sydney, and unmarried). Her first husband - who, by the way, was a native of Suffolk (Woodbridge road), England - died in 1890 at Rylstone, where he had gone into business as hotelkeeper, and kept the old Shamrock Inn until his death. His widow kept the house on until her marriage with Mr. Con. Dwyer, who took the Bridge Hotel, and later on went in for journalism, and founded the Rylstone "Advocate," which made a considerable stir during its brief life. The bank smashes of '93 smashed many in their fall, and among the number Mr. and Mrs. Dwyer. Their hard earned money was lost, and they had to seek "fresh fields and pastures new," which happened to be in Sydney, where for a time they kept the Caledonian Hotel in Bathurst street. For some years things were not too bright, though they came out of the struggle all right, and for a good spell the sun shone pleasantly on them. Then, just as they were making a safe anchorage for their old age, in a pleasant suburb over the water from Sydney, the physical ailment came which ended Mrs. Dwyer's not uneventful life at the age of 64. She died in Sydney Hospital on Monday morning, at 1 o'clock, after seven weeks of suffering, during which she underwent two operations for a serious internal complaint. From Monday till Wednesday this good woman's body lay in her coffin — looking as if in a passing sleep - at Wood and Cofffill’s mortuary chapel, in George-street, where many old friends and acquaintances went to see her lying in peaceful sleep of death. At an early hour on Wednesday the body was conveyed to St. Patrick's Church, where a Solemn Mass was celebrated by the Rev. Father Ginisty, leaving the church at 8.45 for Waverley cemetery, where the interment took place shortly after 10, the funeral service of the church being celebrated by the Rev. Father Beigley. The place of interment is pleasantly situated on a gentle slope towards the blue Pacific, though a considerable elevation. Close by - a few graves away in another block - rests the earthly remains of Sheridan, the well-known actor (the original "Widow O'Brien" on whose monument is a curious inscription, viz., "And sorry I am, I am here." True enough, maybe, but seemingly a contradiction in a Christian place of sepulture. Be that as it may, Mary Ann Dwyer rests peacefully alongside a very old friend, Sarah Burns. It had been so agreed between them, and the promise. made was faithfully kept, both husband and children striving in every way to carry out the dying wishes of their loved one. Writer had the privilege of knowing Mrs. Dwyer intimately, and he feels the loss of a true friend and confidante - one not easily replaced. It has been a sad Easter for her husband and children, who had hoped to see her about and among them again. But now all is changed! A breath of wind, the faint light of the taper flickers, and then disappears! But "Dry up your tears, and place your rosemary On this fair corpse; and, as the common custom is, In all her best array bear her to church; For, though fond nature bids us all laent, Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment." Mudgee Guardian, Thursday 11 April 1912, p. 32. Mary Ann Dwyer Obituary