Catherine Ellen Grant was born on the 19th of January 1933 at Grantham Hospital in Canowindra, just a few doors up in Rodd St from her parents’ home ‘Kildare’. She was the fifth of seven children of Myra and Doug Grant of ‘Coocumber’ and ‘The Square’.
She shared a happy childhood with Mary, Monica, Max, Elaine, their cousin/brother Billy, and little sisters Margaret and Airdre before their deaths as infants.

Catherine was educated by the Sisters of St Joseph at St Edward’s School, Canowindra and later by the Sisters of Mercy at St Mary’s College, Bathurst.

After finishing school in 1949, Catherine got a job in the office of Tee’s Flour Mill in Canowindra. It wasn’t long, though, before she set off to Perthville to pursue her true vocation.

Attracted by their egalitarian ethos of living and working amongst the people, and tackling disadvantage through education, Catherine entered the Sisters of St. Joseph, Perthville, on the 11th of October 1951. She took the name Sister Maria Goretti, and she was professed on the 30th of March 1954, just over 70 years ago.

Catherine spent most of her Religious life in the Diocese of Bathurst, serving in Gilgandra, Portland, Gulargambone, Blayney, Woodstock, Manildra, Perthville, Canowindra, Oberon, and West Bathurst.

Catherine worked as a teacher and school principal for many years. She was a moderniser, and she capably managed the changing times, like fewer nuns in the school and the advent of lay–teachers.

Despite being good at it, education wasn’t Catherine’s passion, so she petitioned her hierarchy to be allowed to train as a nursing sister. They finally agreed, and so in the mid 1970s, Catherine started her nursing training at St Vincent’s Hospital in Bathurst. She took to it like a duck to water, and once qualified, she was assigned to the Crows Nest convent and went to work at the Mater in North Sydney and the then new Mount Druitt Hospital.

Then, it was back to the bush. Catherine worked as a much loved and universally respected community nurse in the Gilgandra Shire for 14 years.

Next stop was Terrigal, where Catherine continued to apply her nursing training in caring for Sr Jenny Buckley, who suffered from kidney disease.

Catherine was then stationed at Perthville, where she had to make one of the hardest decisions of her life – whether to go with the majority of the Perthville sisters in merging into the Brown Josephites, or to ‘stay black’. She decided that she had signed up all those years ago to a philosophy informed by Fr Julian Tenison–Woods as well as Saint Mary MacKillop. Catherine had the courage of her convictions, and was blessed that the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph Lochinvar welcomed her with open arms, and looked after her as one of their own from then on.

Catherine’s first ‘Lochinvar’ placement was in Muswellbrook. She then served in Windale, before moving to Waratah, which she loved. An enormous amount of the credit for that goes to the Dominicans who lived around her and embraced her as part of their community.

Catherine died peacefully in her sleep during the night on the 3rd of May, in her home.

Her family and friends give thanks for her life of courage, commitment and example, and above all of love.

May she rest in peace.