SERVIAM: Past, Present, Always
Memory. It is a much more engaging word than history…memory joins us to the past. History sometimes keeps us distant from the past. There are tears in memory, laughter, love, pride and anger. There are paradoxes and contradictions in memory, like life itself…memory is something we can share.
Historian Professor Greg Denis, launching the UNESCO Memory of the World Australian Register at the NSW State Library, 2001
A year after I started working at St Ursula’s my daughter graduated from the College as a Year 12 student. On her last day of school, most of the Year 12 students wore junior uniforms, and makeup including bright red lipstick. She didn’t know why she and her classmates were doing this, just that it was something that had always been done. Just one tradition that has shaped our ex-students memories of their time at the College.
Schools are multifaceted, busy places, and a lot of different interactions, events and activities can take place over the course of one single day, let alone over the course of 70 years, but celebrating this landmark anniversary gives us all the opportunity to fondly remember and commemorate what has stayed consistent during this time, as well as commit to the longevity of those special elements that sets St Ursula’s College Kingsgrove apart from other Catholic girls’ schools.
It is also important to recognise the fact that many of our current students have had older relatives also attend the College – sisters and cousins, mothers and aunts, and even grandmothers and great aunts.
A 70th anniversary also gives us an opportunity to initiate new ideas and programs including an artwork which will be placed within the main playground that will reflect our story from Angela Merici to Germany to England to Armidale to Kingsgrove, as well as the creation of a museum space within our historic first building known today as Angela Block. In this space we hope to provide tangible connections to items that reflect our individual and collective stories so that future Urshie girls will learn about important things like that special day each year when Year 12 students wore bright red lipstick to school to celebrate their last day at the school.
A few staff members have begun looking through our archive collection and thinking of what items we could place into our new museum space. A few of them you can see below. However, just like the red lipstick, in 2026 we don’t always know the full story of how and why certain things happened, and this is where we would like your help.
Are you a former member of the College? Was one of your relatives or friends? Do you have pieces of the uniform you used to wear? A copy of a certificate you were awarded? A photo of your friendship group in the playground complete with a story? If so, we would love to hear from you with as much details as you can provide about the item, the dates, the people involved, the occasion…your memories, your legacy…We have many traditions here at St Ursula’s, formal and informal, individual and College based. With your help we would love to capture as many of those as we can.
Bibby Brooks
College Historian and 70th Anniversary Coordinator
You can contact me through the following avenues:
E: info@stursulakingsgrove.catholic.edu.au
T: (02) 9502 3300
