Mary Durack - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Dame Mary Durack AC DBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

(20 February 1913 — 16 December 1994) was an Australian author and historian. She wrote Kings in Grass Castles and Keep Him My Country.

Childhood

Mary Durack, born in Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

, South Australia, to Michael Patrick Durack

Michael Durack

Michael Patrick Durack, was a pastoralist, and Western Australian pioneer. He was the son of Patrick Durack and Mary Costello, both Irish-Australians....

(1865–1950) and Bessie Durack (née Johnstone), and her siblings lived at the remote Argyle Downs

Argyle Downs

Argyle Downs is a pastoral lease and cattle station located about south east of Kununurra in the Kimberley region near the border of Western Australia and Northern Territory. It is operated by the Consolidated Pastoral Company....

and Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe Station

Ivanhoe or Ivanhoe Station is a pastoral lease and cattle station located just north of Kununurra in the Kimberley region of Western Australia....

cattle stations

Station (Australian agriculture)

Station is the term for a large Australian landholding used for livestock production. It corresponds to the North American term ranch or South American estancia...

in the Kimberley region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. The Durack family were pioneers in the settlement of the area by Europeans. The story of her family's history, beginning with the mid-19th century migration from Ireland, is presented by Durack in Kings in Grass Castles, and its sequel, Sons in the Saddle.

Writing

In 1935 Mary and her sister, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Durack

Elizabeth Durack Clancy CMG, OBE was a Western Australian artist and writer.-Early life:Born in the Perth suburb of Claremont on 6 July 1915, she was a daughter of noted Kimberley pioneer, Michael Patrick Durack and his wife, Bessie Johnstone Durack. She was the younger sister of writer and...

, were to publish their first collaboration. The text in All About: The Story of a Black Community on Argyle Station was supplied by Mary and the illustrations were by Elizabeth. The collaboration was to produce a number of children's books: Chunuma in 1936; Son of Djaro and the Way of the Whirlwind in 1940–1941;The Magic Trumpet in 1946 and To Ride a Fine Horse (1963).

Mary Durack wrote under the name "Virgilia" for The West Australian
The West Australian
The West Australian is the only locally-edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia, and is owned by ASX-listed Seven West Media . The West is published in tabloid format, as is the state's other major newspaper, The Sunday Times, a News Limited publication...

during 1937–38, a column for women and children in rural areas. In 1950 she wrote the novel Keep Him My Country. Other important works include the saga of the Durack family, Kings in Grass Castles (1959) and its sequel, Sons in the Saddle; and a play, Swan River Saga: Life of Early Pioneer Eliza Shaw (1976). A biography, To Be Heirs Forever, also used Eliza Shaw as a subject. Durack also continued to write children's literature, most notably the story of the Nyungar man, Yagan

Yagan

Yagan was an Australian Aboriginal warrior from the Noongar tribe who played a key part in early indigenous Australian resistance to British settlement and rule in the area of Perth, Western Australia. After he led a series of burglaries and robberies across the countryside, in which white...

, which was published in 1964 as The Courteous Savage: Yagan of the Bibbulmun and Tjakamarra: Boy between two worlds.

Other works by Mary Durack included a two–act play, Ship of Dreams; an Australian Settler (1968); The Rock and the Sand (1969) is a history of missionaries in the state; The Aborigines in Australian Literature (1978) is part of the non-fiction component of her work, a subject often forming the basis of many of her works of fiction.

Personal life

On 2 December 1938 she married the aviator, Captain Horrie C. Miller

Horrie Miller (aviator)

Horace Clive "Horrie" Miller OBE was a pioneer Australian aviator and co-founder of MacRobertson Miller Airlines .Miller was born in Ballarat, Victoria....

, OBE

Order of the British Empire

, who died in 1980. They had two sons and four daughters, including Robin Miller

Robin Miller (nurse)

Robin Elizabeth Miller , known as "The Sugarbird Lady", was an Australian aviatrix and nurse. The name "The Sugarbird Lady" was given to her by outback Aboriginal children during her work combatting polio...

, a famous aviatrix and nurse who was known as "The Sugarbird Lady" after her work fighting polio. Two of Mary Durack's daughters predeceased her.

Durack was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Order of the British Empire

(DBE) for her services to literature on 31 December 1977. On 12 June 1989 she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia

Order of Australia

The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...

(AC).

Childhood

Writing

Personal life

Further reading