CELEBRATING the birth of her 29th grandchild in late March and preparing to see her 10 children throughout the Easter break, Allora’s Joyce Gibson took time to talk about her love for God and the blessings as matriarch of a large Catholic family.
“I continually ask the (Holy) Spirit to help me to grow in awareness of God’s presence in my life and in the lives of others,” she said.
“I have tried to accept the circumstances of my life as it unfolds … (and) live a day at a time, (although) one moment at a time is preferable.
“In the words of St Augustine I try to ‘entrust the past to God’s mercy, the present to His love and the future to His providence’.”
Born in Toowoomba almost eight decades ago, Joyce spoke of the Irish father she barely knew.
“Just Olly and me and Joycey makes three – we’ll be happy in our blue heaven”, her father Jim Bobin sang when first “cradling” his daughter beside his wife Olga.
“(But) our ‘blue heaven’ was permanently shattered when my father died in 1934,” Joyce said.
“By then our family was (made of) four as my brother Jim was then five months old.”
Olga “gathered up her two babies and went to live with her parents and eight siblings in Bundaberg”.
She remarried five years later – to Edward Taske – and together they gave Joyce three more brothers and a sister.
Proving to be “a wonderful stepfather”, the non-Catholic “supported the practise of the faith” and the children attended St Patrick’s primary school, Bundaberg, overseen by the Sisters of Mercy.
“(The sisters) had a big influence on me in terms of religious practise,” Joyce said of her “spiritual mentors”.
“(And) my mother’s simple faith, her dependence on prayer, her devotion to the Holy Family, her compassionate heart and her commitment to providing each of her children an education at a Catholic school – at great cost to a working class family – was the centre of my faith-building.”
Joyce headed to Kelvin Grove Teachers’ College armed with a sense of serious “responsibility to God and the Church” and later was the sole teacher at Spring Creek State School in the Clifton Shire, on the Southern Downs of Queensland.
“I was quite upfront about my beliefs and was willing to share my faith experiences with friends,” she said.
“In later years God has surprised me on more than one occasion by bringing people back into my life who tell me how much they appreciated that sharing.
“In fact that has become something of a feature of my relationship with Jesus – he surprises me by showing me how he has used me in my relationships with others.”
Soon forming a relationship with Robert (Bob) Gibson – “a local boy who worked his family’s dairy farm” – the duo married in St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Kangaroo Point, in 1954 after “many country dances, school picnics and square-dance nights”.
Admitting that was the beginning of “the biggest adventure” including Bob’s conversion to Catholicism, the Gibsons welcomed eight children while living in Spring Creek with “no electricity, no washing machine, no overhead lights and no lack of hard work”.
“What we did have was lots of laughter, shared social times with other families and lots of visits from my family and friends,” Joyce said.
“This was also a precious time for faith development within the family as we travelled the nine miles to Allora to Mass every Sunday, after milking.
“The children’s clothes and polished shoes would be laid out in readiness the night before.
“We prayed together each evening … and we trusted in God to see us through some really difficult times.
“Two of our children – Beth and Brett – had accidents which should have resulted in their deaths, but both were spared and each of these events drew us closer to God and closer to one another.”
While life on the farm offered such joy, for financial reasons the decision was made to move permanently to Allora in 1967.
Soon after, when their eldest child Jim was 15, the Gibsons welcomed their 10th child Angela.
As Bob worked seven days a week, Joyce’s “love of teaching resurfaced” when she was employed in the local kindergarten and was taking her youngest children with her.
Then, another decision evolved where trust in God was paramount.
“A position at the new Allora State Preschool was on offer but in order to qualify I would have to undertake a 26-week upgrading course in Brisbane,” Joyce said.
“I prayed, I cried buckets of tears, I sat with God, I spoke with the wise people in my life, including the Sisters of St Joseph who were teaching in our school, I talked with Bob and the children.
“We knew the sacrifices we would have to make, we weighed them up, we prayed together, and eventually decided as a family that we were prepared to take up the challenge as a family, and we felt that this was God’s will for us.”
This “difficult period” gave way to “deeper” relationships with one another, with others and with God, and even a holiday.
“There were other positives,” Joyce said.
“I had succeeded academically in the course and I believed in what I had studied.
“I remember beginning one of my first assignments with the words, ‘As a devoted believer in Christ and his teachings, I acknowledge the value of every human soul and the essential dignity and worth of every human being’ – so I was still speaking out about my faith.
“In the 25 years in early-childhood (teaching) which followed I came to believe that teaching for me was a ministry and that God had led me into it.”
Throughout these decades Joyce continued her on-going commitment in St Patrick’s parish, Allora.
“I had embraced the changes in the Church resulting from Vatican II and had taken to heart that our Baptism calls each of us to service,” she said.
“I also developed my relationship with God through prayer, listening to the Word of God, meditation, retreats and small-group Bible studies – some of these ecumenical.”
Joyce completed theology studies and was “drawn to Ignatian spirituality”, saying such Jesuit philosophies and practices “matched” hers.
Continuing to take part in “a daily Ignatian examen”, Joyce remains “on hand” in the parish to assist with its six-year reality of not having a permanent parish priest.
“Because we really wanted to maintain our own identity as parish and more importantly we wanted to keep our worshipping community together, we accepted the challenge of lay leadership and formed a pastoral leadership team,” she said.
“This team is visionary in purpose, leading our parishioners to a vision of what we want our parish to be and encouraging them to see themselves as the pastoral ministers who can help achieve that vision.
“We work in collaboration with our priest director who is parish priest of the neighbouring parish in Clifton.”
The team has succeeded in offering lay-led liturgies on the fourth and fifth Sundays of the month – at which parishioners, including Joyce, offer reflections on the scripture readings of the day.
Bob died in 2003, six years after Joyce retired from teaching, and she has also grieved the loss of two grandchildren.
Remaining in their Allora family home, a former bank building, and reflecting on the “adventure”, Joyce said “forgiveness is the quality that keeps families together”.
On the upcoming Easter weekend, 40 members of her family will enjoy each other’s company in Stanthorpe where daughter Elizabeth (Beth) has a winery with husband Andy.
Interestingly, Beth’s sister Marie has a neighbouring raspberry farm, prompting “the youngsters to make the most of bringing their swag and sleeping under the stars”.
“I will find my joy in seeing them together,” Joyce said of those who are hesitant to be labelled a “model” Catholic family.
“(But) there’ll be laughing, loving, playing together, accepting one another … (and) we’ll attend Mass together.
“I’ll be thanking God for how loved I feel by Him and blessed so much in my children and grandchildren.”
And with that the resilient, humble and sincere woman of faith resumed helping feed the latest addition to the family.
