Hannah McNamara nee Kenafacke 1878 - 1909

Born Under Canvas

Hannah Kenafacke was born 26 October 1878 at 130 Mile Camp sixty miles west of Miles, Queensland.

She was the youngest daughter of Irish immigrants, Daniel Kenafacke and Mary Maloney from the small village of Annacarty, six miles north-east of Tipperary, Ireland. Hannah was the couples eight child.

At the time of her birth her father was employed as a labourer on the Southern and Western Railway line extension from Dalby to Roma. Contractors Overend and Company had just begun clearing a new section of the route as the line pushed past Chinchilla to Miles and would eventually reach Roma in 1880.

Railway Families

Hannah grew up under canvas in rough and tumble railway construction camps deprived of the comforts of town living. The Kenafacke's befriended another railway family from Tipperary, Thomas and Alice Lee who had arrived in Australia in January 1876.

The Lee's like the Kenafacke's had a large family of eight children, one of the youngest Mary would become the lifelong friend of Hannah.

The Kenafacke family finally broke ties with the railway and returned to the outskirts of Jondaryan to take up farming. Here they battled with brigalow, prickly pear, lack of water and want of grass, just to make a living. Ironically bad roads and distance from a railway line make life doubly difficult .

Twenty nine year old Hannah married William McNamara in a ceremony at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Toowoomba on 20 April 1908. The groom's brother Edward Patrick McNamara was best man.

Birth Complications

Hannah gave birth to the couples first child William Francis McNamara at Gowrie Junction near Toowoomba on 23rd March 1909, the eve of her husband's thirty-first birthday.

The double celebration turned to tragedy when Hannah developed a life threatening blood infection following the baby's delivery.

While the circumstances leading up to the birth have never been revealed it is believed that Hannah went into labour at home and efforts to deliver the baby by her or husband Will went tragically wrong.

A Losing Battle

Hannah succumbed a week later, 30 March 1909, leaving a shattered husband and a young son barely seven days old fighting for his life.

Following Hannah's funeral a desperate William rushed his seriously ill son by train from Gowrie Junction to Dalby and then by horse and buggy to the family property "Rosebank" at Jandowae, 40 miles from the railhead.

The frantic father was hoping against hope that his mother Mary Anne, an experienced midwife and mother of 12 children, could provide life saving post natal care.

After a three month fight the battle was finally lost when a badly weakened William Francis died of convulsions on 30 May 1909. The child was buried in Jandowae Cemetery, his mother lies in Toowoomba and Drayton Cemetery.