Sr Josephine Johnston

Ellen Georgiana Johnston was the fourth child born to Ellen and George Johnston at Port Sorell on 28th January 1886. 

Her mother, Ellen Fanning (Fannon) was born at Don in 1856 and married George Johnston at Emu Bay in 1881.   She died ten years later, on 7 July 1891, from consumption and is buried in the Forth cemetery with her baby daughter, May (Mary) Josephine who died on 24 August 1891, aged 5 months. 

Her father, George Johnston (1851 – 1918) worked on the West Coast of Tasmania, as a miner and carpenter.  After his wife died, he married again and moved to New Zealand.  His mother-in-law (Margaret Fanning) (Fannon) and sister-in-law (Margaret or Mary Anne Fanning) (Fannon) took over the rearing of his surviving children – Charles (then aged 10), May (then aged 7), Nellie (Ellen, then aged 5) and Dorothy (then aged 3) – at Devonport.

Ellen Georgiana was a pupil of the Sisters of St Joseph at Devonport.  After deciding to enter religious life, probably around the age of 16, she completed her novitiate (training) at Zeehan, then the motherhouse of the Sisters of St Joseph in Tasmania.  She took the religious name of “Sister Mary Josephine” -  this was also the name of her baby sister who had died so soon after her mother. She taught in the school at Zeehan until she contracted a disease that threatened lung trouble.  In order to have a better chance of recovery she moved from Zeehan to Devonport, but died soon afterwards on 2nd October 1907. 

Sr Mary Josephine is buried in the cemetery attached to the former Catholic Church in Forth – now the MacKillop Hill Spirituality Centre.  She is buried with nine others of her family in a tomb marked by a large, ornate stone cross.   The family members buried with her are Margaret Fannon, Margaret Mildred Fannon, Sarah and Michael Fannon, Ellen (Fanning) Johnston, May (Mary) Josephine Johnston, Patrick Fannon, Mary Ann Fannon and David Fannon.

 

The headstone reads

Pray for the soul of Margaret Fannon (mother)
Margaret Mildred Fannon, also Sister Mary Josephine RIP. 

 

The Sisters of St Joseph came to Tasmania in 1887 and Sr Josephine was only their third death – Sr Magdalen Hegarty had died in 1905 and was buried at Westbury.   Sr Eustelle Cleary died at Zeehan in 1906 and was buried there.  Since 1908, when the motherhouse moved to New Town, the Sisters of St Joseph have usually been buried at Cornelian Bay Cemetery in Hobart.

However, it is unusual for a Sister of St Joseph to be buried with her family.