Mary Waterman, nee Barry, was born in Goodwood, South Australia. After her father deserted her and her mother about two years later, Mary was brought up in her maternal Irish Catholic grandmother's cottage in Daly Street, Adelaide. Surrounded by variously employed and unemployed uncles, she remembers a lean but busy and happy childhood. The family moved to Prospect in 1907, coinciding with Mary leaving school at thirteen and beginning seven years work as a machinist in clothing factory workrooms in the city. Mary married out of the Church in 1914 to more hard times, and gave birth to her six children before 1930, her second son dying as an infant of meningitis in 1917. Mrs Waterman always took in dressmaking to help support her family and over the years has invariably had parents and grandchildren in her home to care for as well.

Copyright is assigned to the Libraries Board of South Australia with unreserved use by State Library of South Australia customers. 

Permission to use this item for any purpose, including publishing, is not required from the State Library under these conditions of use.