Written by Sister Ursula Markham RSM

This was written for a local history display at St Ignatius School in 1992. It was requested by Mrs Pratt, a St Ignatius teacher.

"Among the people I visit in the Toowong - Taringa area on First Fridays are two old Toowong residents who often share their memories with me.

Mrs Eileen Angell (nee Hickey) is 94+ and she has a very clear memory of her childhood. Her father wa a hansom cab driver on the Toowong Rank with Mr Bater and Mr Pye. She remembers Keefer's Shop at the corner of Sylvan Road and Jephson Street in the days when Sylvan Road was the dirt track known as "Cemetery Road". The only shop then where Toowong Village buzzes with life now, was Cox's in Sherwood Road. If anything very special was needed, one went to the ABC draper's shop in the Valley.

The Hickey children walked from Taringa to Toowong and often used to walk home via Stanley Terrace, picking flowers that peeped between the fence palings of well-tended gardens - a bunch of flowers was always something beautiful to present to Mum. At school, Eileen was taught music by Sister M Reginald and the "Head Nun" was Sister M Ildefonsus. On Saturdays, Eileen used to be sent by Mum to the Convent, with gifts of slowers for the Altar, and frequently with "a cooked chook and some eggs for the Sisters". It was no easy matter for a child to walk from Taringa to Toowong with these gifts, so the little girl was happy to be put sitting on the cool verandah outside the bay window of the Convent Chapel, to cool off with a drink.

At home in Taringa, Eileen played with her friends Margaret Kelly, at the far end of Rokeby Terrace, the MacDonald girls, two doors from the Kelly's house, and Marjorie Hinton. Mr Kelly owned a draper's shop where Briggs was in George Street, City, until recently and Mr MacDonald was the original Mac of "Mac and East", also in George Street.

When Eileen was 22 she married George Angell. They were married by Fr Little in Toowong. She had been in the "Children of Mary" when Mabel Fallon used to play the organ. Mrs Angell told me that one evening when she was preparing to go out with George to a dance or show, during their early courtship days, she went into her bedroom to find one of her sisters on her knees beside the bed. When she exclaimed in surprise, her sister told her "I'm praying for you, Eileen, that God will protect you and George and that everything will turn out well for the two of you". They had a long and happy marriage and two wonderful children who are still their mother's very special blessings. Her sister Evelyn still owns the little plot of land in Rokeby Terrace where they grew up, but the old house was replaced by one built especially for Evelyn by her brother-in-law Ron Lacey.