Julianne Jennett’s Internship Experience with Rep. Ben Gilman

Julianne Jennett ’99
Office Placement:

Rep. Ben Gilman

JOURNAL ENTRIES

Publish Journal Entry
08 Jun 1999
13:50:59

Julianne, welcome from the Webmaster. Your Journal Pad is operational. We look forward
to following your visit here in the U.S. If you have questions about the web site, you can
email me at webmaster@storywise.com or call your program coordinator.

Publish Journal Entry
31 Aug 1999
10:12:30

“Johnny we hardly Knew You” “The spectacle, being the reigning social
organization of a paralyzed social organization, of a paralyzed memory, of an abandonment
of any history founded in historical time, is in effect a false consciousness of
time.” Debord 1994

Another spectacle takes place before us- a spectacle of
death which seems to embrace us all into a community of grief as large as the nation
itself. The emotions are so palpable, but they puzzle some of us.

For we had never
before given a moment’s thought to these persons who died. We are learning only after
their deaths why they were so well known to us, even if they weren’t.

Yet we feel we
know enough about JFK Jnr to vicariously participate in the mourning circle, watch the TV
funerals, even drop some flowers at the people’s shrine.

We may not be involved, but
we feel we are. The “power of spectacle” catches us up. With such vivid images
and stirring words, the media makes the JFK Jnr character come alive in our imaginations
only after he has died. Perhaps because he has died.

Death frees us from the facts. We
can indulge in the game of “what might have been.” We can journey back to the
image of a little boy saluting a coffin, an icon of innocence overwhelmed by grief.

What the actual event was- an unfortunate plane accident that took young lives- not unlike
the car smash that kills teenagers, is certainly sad, but it is not earth-shattering
beyond the families directly affected.

Tangled in an Old Grief But this accident has
got us all tangled up in the unfinished narratives of a nation’s grieving.

The Kennedy
saga is a national epic of “If he hadn’t died young- what might have been.”
Every new chapter of Kennedy vanity or recklessness only seems to relacerate that national
wound of feeling betrayed by time.

Our grief is most certainly more than just about a
young man, his wife and his sister in-law. They were more like the excuse for our tears.
We have been crying all over again for that time when we lost our innocence.

The Dream
that died What brings us up short is that JFKJnr, like us, was a survivor of that time. He
had shaken off the family myth. But he hadn’t at all. And neither have we. The dreams of
1961 became the nightmare of 1963 and 1967 and 1968, and now 1999, and we of that
generation have not yet recovered.

They say that one symptom of post-traumatic stress
is recurring flashbacks and a hyper-vigilance-waiting for the next body to fall, the next
jolt to our sense of meaning. The over-reaction of the media speaks more of the shock
waves a catastrophic event set up in the collective memory 36 years ago than what plunged
into the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.

Whether JFK Jnr wanted it or not, (and it seems
like he had strived to avoid it,) his life and his death were always going to be colonized
by the national epic.

We insult the dead when we pretend that our deepest sympathies
are purely with them. It may feel like that, but we are weeping as much for ourselves.
“Johnny we hardly knew you” like we hardly knew your father and your uncle. But
we continue to bask in the seductive innocence of Camelot that we weave out of yesterday’s
“if onlys.”

The Kennedy’s were never that, and we were never there. And that
is something we still haven’t quite got used to.

Read some of our Earlier
Editorials on how History has been drowned by Nostalgia

Trapped in the Sixties

Read our recent Editorial on Youth Violence Littleton-When Kids Killing Kids is Normal

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Publish Journal Entry
31 Aug 1999
10:14:24

Don’t miss our Movie of the Month, Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” (Sept 6)
starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It’s the centerpiece of our Men of Steal Labor Day
film festival: A day’s worth of films about the slickest scam artists ever to cross the
silver screen!

This week on American Pop! is your chance to see Bill Haley and the
Comets and Little Richard rock the house in “Don’t Knock the Rock” (Sept 4).

“Hollywood Real to Reel: Hollywood Goes to Court” (Aug 31, Sept 5) promises
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the film genre known
as the courtroom drama. Don’t miss “12 Angry Men,” starring Henry Fonda,
immediately following the documentary.

AMC and New Line Cinema celebrate 7th
Annual Film Preservation festival honoree John Ford, by auctioning a rare, original movie
poster from Ford’s “My Darling Clementine.” All proceeds go to support The Film
Foundation, fighting to preserve our film heritage. Make your bid today! Or call
1-800-AMC-3360 to make a donation to help save our films. You can see what today’s stars
have to say about saving our films right here!

Publish Journal Entry
02 Sep 1999
09:19:22

Where did it all begin?
Irish Immigrants-The Two Brothers Costello
How many times have I heard the story told- of the two Irish brothers, Michael, the eldest and James, the youngest, leaving from an impoverished farm in county Galway, from a village called Menlough, to try their luck in a far off land-Australia. This is the 1880’s or thereabouts. At least we know the two brothers because we know the families that have sprung from both.

Or was it three or four Brothers?
But where the story gets lost in the mists of time and forgetfulness is the memory that there were three brothers and that the third brother, John, ended up somewhere in America. Another account says that there were four brothers and that one of them returned to Menlough, where there are still Costello’s living to this day.

Disembarking at Fremantle?
Another memory dimly recalled is that there was a brother, Martin, who disembarked at Fremantle because he was sick of the long boat trip. Did he also go back to Ireland? Or is his family still somewhere In West Australia?

The fact of the matter is that we don’t know for sure because if there were two other branches of the family who came out, we have lost the trail. Helen Emanuel once found a ship register in Port Adelaide that listed three brothers on a ship out from Ireland. But were there three or four?

A recent check of the Port Adelaide lists show more than one set of Costello siblings who immigrated. But which ones are US? And if there were more than the two we know, can we trace where the lost cousins might be today?

Settling in Queensland
The two brothers we know settled in Queenland and Michael worked on the railways and lived in a little place called Wanora,a few miles on the Toowoomba side of Ipswich.

The younger brother, James, became a boilermaker ( or carriagebuilder?) and worked for most of his life in Ipswich at the railway workshop.

His youngest daughter, Sister Katherine Mary, (Sister of Mercy-Retirement Village-Banyo) is still alive at 95 years old and has more stories to tell.

Michael Costello’s Family
Michael had three sons himself, Tom and Martin and Michael, and two daughters, Bridget and Mary. The story goes that the local schoolteacher told Michael, the Dad, that his younger son, Martin, was bright enough to win a scholarship to Nudgee, a famous Catholic school in Brisbane (where some great-grandsons go today) but the old man, believing in the traditional privileging of the eldest son over the youngest, didn’t heed the advice and Martin never took the scholarship exam, and hence had little formal schooling.

Tom, the eldest, inherited the little property at Wanora, and Martin got a job in the railways, where he worked as a night porter and took postings all over the state, even as far north as Kuranda on the Atherton Tableland.

Grandfather Martin Costello-
“a self-educated man.”
In his career as a railway man, Martin educated himself by reading by candlelight after work. He was a self-educated and widely read man and loved to read authors such as Huxley.

He met and married Catherine Cahill, from another local family that had originated in Ireland.

The front verandah of the station master’s house in Ipswich, we are told, was a book discussion and lending library where Martin entertained members of Parliament and clergy and hotel keepers discussing the latest book, or the latest politics. Martin was keenly interested in the affairs of his day.

GrandMother’s Family-The Cahills
Margaret Catherine Cahill 1886-1950 marries Martin Costello

Her family consisted of:-

Lillian Cahill (single)

Michael Patrick Cahill
(single-killed in WWI-No.4398 on 9th July 1916)

John Daniel Cahill married Mary?(Uncle Jack)

Eileen Ann Cahill marries Steve Kinnane

Pauline Cahill(single)

Theresa (Tessie) Josephine Cahill(single)

The Costellos and the Cahills
Before the first world war, Martin Costello married Margaret Catherine Cahill. Catherine (always called Kate) was the eldest daughter of a Townsville family. Her father was a Cahill, a man who worked in the prison service and was a warden at Stewart Creek prison in Townsville. Her mother was a Molloy, a well established family in Townsville, and she was trained as a nursing sister.

Both husband and wife worked as a team in the prisons, and were posted to Toowoomba where Kate was born, and later to Roma where her Dad was the Superintendent.

While in Roma, both parents contracted the unmentionable disease of the day, TB and died within a few months of each other, leaving a young family and no one to take care for them.

Chasing Escaped Convicts
Another story says that the father was chasing an escaped convict gang known as the ……? and died of heat exhaustion on the trail. And the mother died in childbirth. Maybe there is some truth in both accounts.

A family of Orphans
The youngest, Tess, went to live as a home helper aat the Byrne’s family home,”Munature” in Ipswich.

(Granny Byrne was a Cahill) Eileen and Lillie went to board at Saint Anne’s convent, a part of All Hallows boarding school ( the poorer part) and then went on to work as domestics in various schools like Glenny Grammar, Ipswich Boy’s Grammar, and in Glen Innes.

And Jack, a young boy, was taken to live with his uncle at Biggenden, in the Gayndah area, and later, joined the railways. Pat and Pauline (Poppie) went to live with the Crowley’s (cousins-Mrs. Crowley was a Cahill) at Crowleyvale, outside Laidley in the Lockyer Valley. Poppie lived with the Crowleys for many years and well into her adult life. Pat couldn’t wait to escape the farm and joined the army during the first world war and was killded in action in France.

Kate ( the eldest- she was 14 when her parents died) was able to secure a job working as a housekeeper at the Ipswich Catholic Presbytery. During her years of service there, one of the curates was a priest by the name of James Duhig, later to become Archbishop of Brisbane.

Raising a Family while on the move
At 28 years old, Catherine married Martin Costello.
They met up at Gayndah where Kate was housekeeping for Monsignor Brady, and Martin was working in the railways in the area. They were married by Monsignor Brady in the Gayndah Church around 1915.

Martin had advanced in the railway service and was soon a station master. The family moved around and lived in railway houses in Kadanga- near Gympie(where Martin, Steve and Margaret-the eldest three- were born in Gympie hospital, a hospital where their nephew, Steve Costello is now superintendent))

Then they transferred to Wulcaraka (where Bernard and Monica were born) In 1925, the family moved to Ipswich (where Moreen and Terry, the twins and Jim, were born Grandfather Martin was the station master.

Ipswich was a major railway town because the interstate trains from Sydney to Brisbane went through there, before the Kyogle link was built.
Ipswich also housed major railway workshops.

A Railway Family
The family lived in the station master’s house beside the station. To be the station master was a position of some importance in a railway town and often, Martin had the duty of being a member of the official welcoming party to any important guests arriving in the city. The story goes that he had to introduce the Duke of Gloucester, and the future George VI and the present Queen Mother to the Lord Mayor and other town officials during one Royal visit. The children sometimes could see into the carriages where the dignitaries were seen dressing to get ready for their formal civic welcome. The home faced on to the station.

Martin was a fierce anti-English and anti-War campaigner, and an active member and branch secretary of the local Labor Party until one strike in the early 1920’s where he thought the strikers cause was unjustified. He manned the station so that the interstate trains could go through even though it was picketed. His children, Margaret and Steven, had to run the gauntlet of picketers to get food to their father. After that, he was expelled from the party.

The circumstances causing the strike followed from the Depression years where Martin had to decide what half of the work-force had to be laid off. Painfully, good staff were let go, but the following year, the Union decided to strike for extra pay. Martin felt in conscience that it was unfair to be asking for more money when half their work-mates didn’t even have jobs anymore and many families were starving. Martin had a deep sense of social justice.

In 1936, Martin was transferred to South Brisbane as Station Master and the family moved from Ipswich to Milne Street, Clayfield, not far from Saint Columban’s, the school that the youngest, Jim, attended.

The Death of Grandfather Martin
Martin Costello died when he was only 48 years old, of cancer that spread to his kidneys causing renal failure. That was in 1938.

That left his wife with 8 children, four of whom were still at school. It was left to Catherine and the elder children to provide for the household and raise the younger four.

Martin (jnr) was a schoolteacher working on the Darling Downs. Steve was teaching at Palmwoods. Marg had just left Teachers College (Turbot Street Brisbane) and was teaching at Bulimba and Bernard had left Teacher’s College and had started work with the Commonwealth bank. The other four children were still at primary school.

Martin( snr) had been sick for a year and after some time in hospital-the Mater- he fell into a coma. Berny went to the police to contact his two eldest brothers, Martin and Steve, who were able to be there when their father died. Margaret arrived just after. He was buried from Saint Mary’s Church in Ipswich and in the Ipswich cemetery and the priest was Monsignor Baldwin, a friend of his.

Martin had dropped his insurance to educate the children and the railways had no superannuation scheme so the family had no income except that which the older children could provide. When Martin died, the family moved into a house in Miles street, Clayfied, and which the family decided to purchase.

When war came, Marg and Steve discussed the family finances and determined that the debt on the house was 450 pounds. Steve decided to make the insurance cover on his life to cover the debt. He wanted to cover all options to make sure that his Mother would be able to keep the house, should he not survive his war service. The other arrangement was to have Marg declared his next of kin and his superannuation was taken out of her wages. These were the financial arrangements a family had to make to ensure the family had a house to rear the younger children.

The War Years
When war broke out, Steve joined the infantry in 1941. As well as bing a popular teacher, he had been a very active member of the scouting and life-saving movement (Maroochydore Club) and played cricket and football around the Nambour district, and a favorite debut partner for the girls. He was a sargeant and sent to defend Singapore. When Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942, the family lost contact with Steve and believed that he was either missing or killed in action. This deeply affected Catherine and she developed asthma and other heart complaints.

News of Steve’s Death
It wasn’t until late 1943 that the family got official word that Steve was dead, killed by the Japanese Imperial Army when Singapore fell. His body was never recovered but a memorial plaque was erected by the army at the Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore where, over 40 years later, Steve’s nephew said a requiem mass around the memorial joined by some nuns who had entertained Australian troops like Steve before they themselves were interned. The memorial is not far from where Steve fell.

Berny was working in the Commonwealth Bank in Clayfield and had left to join the army. He was in Townsville during the time the Japanese sent isolated attacks on the town. He wanted to join the Air Force but Catherine would not sign the papers until later.

Berny trained and then went to England to fly with Bomber Command. For many months, the family did not hear from him and when he did send letters, he was careful not to tell his mother of the danger he was in. He was flying bombing raids over Germany.

Marriages in the Family
Back home, Marg had been teaching at Laidley and met up with a Victorian army man who had been invalidated out of New Guinea. He was attending mass at Holy Cross where he met Martin, and came home to join the traditional Sunday morning tea with the family,which consisted of tea and scones.

Eventually Marg and this soldier, Kevin Brody, married in December, 1944 at Holy Cross Church, Woolowin by the priest, Dernis Byrne, who was Marg’s second cousin. They then moved to Victoria where Marg and Kevin taught in country schools around the state, including the areas where much post-war immigration was to be centered.

Leaving Home
The marriage meant the eldest daughter was leaving the family, and two of the eldest sons were either dead or missing in the war, so Kate wasn’t too happy to say goodbye to her daughter.

Martin married Catherine (Kit) Woods, Berny married a Welsh nurse he had met in Ely, Muriel Thompson, Moreen married Bill Sheehan, Terry married Les Raymer. Berny brought his bride home from England and they lived with the family for a time.

Grandmother Kate’s Death
The war years took a heavy toll on Kate Costello. She had lost one son when Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942 -Steve-and another son was flying overseas with Bomber Command, and not heard of for months at a time.

The story goes that these years broke her physically. In 1950, at the age of 64, she died of cancer. The youngest son, Jim, had just finished school and was still a student at Teacher’s College.

The other members of the family, Martin and Monica, were grown up and working.

Bernie remembers the day of the funeral and how, when it came to the final blessing, there was a tremendous roar coming from the sky above as a big American bomber lumbered off the runway at Amberley and flew a few hundred feet overhead, almost in salute.

Aunty’s in the family
Aunty Kate, Sister Kit’s mother, had lived with the family in Ipswich for a year because she had no other family to go to. Later, Lil who was Kate’s sister, moved in and lived with the family from 1938 till 1946 when she moved out to provide room for Bernard’s bride. Lil had been engaged to a man who was tragically drowned when taken by a shark at Southport.

What was it like to live with Aunty’s? What stories did they share about the family? Did the maiden aunts fill the key role of main baby-sitters and story-keepers?

The history of Ireland and of imigration tells us that there were huge numbers of single folk who never married. The role of the maiden aunt or unmarried uncle, the part that couples who have no kids, all these play important roles in making homes for the extended family. They have their story even if they leave no progeny to pass it on to.