"Ma Webb" - Josephine Webb Wagg (nee Clancy)

"The last dance"
Ma Webb with son, Bob - May 1970

"Ma Webb" is my mother's mother's mother. My other great-grandparents died before my birth - between 1919 and 1950. Ma was the matriarch at the centre of Mum's family.  She died thirteen days after my twenty first birthday on Anzac Day 1974, aged ninety six. That was the first family celebration she missed!

Her parents were born in New South Wales to Irish Catholic immigrants. Born on St Joseph's Day in 1878, it's no surprise she was named Josephine. Ma lived with her parents and six siblings at The Rocks. 

A week after her seventeenth birthday, she married Hayden Webb Wagg, at St Thomas' Church of England, North Sydney. Her six children were baptised in the Church of England. Ma and Pa built their home at 14 Bray Street Mosman about 1902. Ma lived there for 72 years. Most of the family lived close by. We were 300 metres up the road. 

Ma and Pa's approach to religion was "catholic". We were a large happy family of Anglicans and Catholics by the time I came along. I grew up with gatherings at Bray Street most Sundays and on all special occasions. Bob and his wife, May, moved in to "look after" Ma when Pa died in 1950. In the late 1960s, May had to take on the catering but Ma was still close by as the "event manager".

Ma was the glue who united us with love and generosity. For birthdays, Christmas and Easter, we were all treated to ten shillings along with a handkerchief and card filled with loving thoughts. Then there was the green lolly tin in the pantry that Ma rattled as she walked towards us. She made fabulous Christmas cakes and puddings and delicious scones. 

The taller I got, the smaller Ma got as she suffered from osteoporosis and shrank below five feet. She did have a few little vices - smoking Thin Capstan cigarettes, enjoying a middy of beer or shandy and having a flutter on the pokies at the local RSL until her early nineties. 

I treasured the quiet times with Ma - sometimes by myself but often along with Mum and Grandma. I just loved listening to them chatter away. My special memory is sitting with Ma when she was in bed, sick or just resting. There was a putto set into each corner of the cornice moulding that she named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. She never failed to say they were watching over us as we shared a prayer.

Ma Webb - 19 March 1878 to 25 April 1974
A great-grandmother who holds a special place in my heart!

(This post has been written as part of a challenge for a blogging group I've joined.)

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