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In 1977 he celebrated 50 years as a priest and in the Australia Day honours in 1978 was made a Member in the
General Division of the Order of Australia (AM). His final illness was long and painful brought on by a nasty fall.
He died among his family in Western Australia on 1 May 1979 but is buried at Port Keats near the church.
Personal information and Church records.
JOHN PYE, Vol 3.
DODD, MARGARET HEATHER BELL nee McKAY (1900–1987), teacher, was born on 20 September 1900,
at Wyndham, New South Wales, one of six children of Angus William McKay and his wife Lillian, nee Smith.
She was educated at small schools in the Wallsend area, where her father was a coal miner but was not permitted
to attend Newcastle High School along with her more robust brothers and sisters as it was at the top of a hill.
As a child she suffered from rheumatic fever, which left her with a weakened heart so that she attended the local
domestic high school. Due to the need for teachers during the First World War she was accepted into a one-year
teacher-training course. Thereafter she taught in New South Wales schools.
She married James (Jim) Jenkins Dodd, who was a ceramics engineer, in Sydney on 13 October 1928. Margaret
continued to teach for a few years when they moved to Queensland. A daughter, Heather, was born in 1941 at
Ipswich where Jim managed a brickworks. In 1949 Margaret’s mother, Lillian McKay, was very frail so the Dodds
accompanied her to Mainoru Station in the Top End of the Northern Territory to visit her sons, Jack and Sandy.
In the 1930s Jack McKay took over the property, which had been established by his uncle, Andrew Ray, and Billy
Farrer. The visit was only intended to be short but the family settled and Lillian eventually died at Mainoru in
1964.
In 1957 Margaret was approached by the Department of Education in the Territory to start a school for
all the children on the property. This school was amongst the first of its kind on a Territory cattle property.
The whole family was involved and lessons were given on the verandah of the homestead, which comprised two
Sidney Williams huts joined together. The early rolls show 16 girls, 13 boys and five preschoolers were regular
attendees.
A departmental inspection report in 1958 commented that the school was well equipped and Heather Dodd’s
‘enthusiasm and energy’ had produced a ‘very impressive school.’ The report continued that ‘clearly also the
children enjoy coming to school’. This was later verified in an oral history interview where Margaret recounted that
one youngster with an infant had informed Jim Dodd that he was to baby-sit as she had to attend school. A feature
of the school, and much commented on at the time, was that several young mothers, some barely teenagers,
attended with infants at the breast. The proof of any teaching is in the pudding and it was a feature of the children
whom Heather taught that they were known for their good command of English and excellent handwriting. Several
of the Aboriginal children at the remote Mainoru School became teachers themselves. Margaret Dodd was always
very concerned for the well being of all her charges and later policy changes distressed her as she felt there were
instances where white people were trying ‘to teach them how to be blackfellas’ where they had already broken the
tribal bonds.
The school in its early years could hardly be said to be well funded. The station was ‘impoverished’ and
children learned to write on pieces of board with lumps of charcoal and pieces of brown paper. Indeed it was later
claimed by the Dodds that the only contribution by the government in the first year of operation was ‘half a dozen
grade six arithmetic books’. Such was the population explosion in the area that by the middle 1960s there were
53 children on the roll—an awesome charge for just one teacher.
In time the family formally adopted, despite formidable red tape, a part Aboriginal girl, Shenee (Pixie) who was
born in 1950. Shenee’s mother, who was a member of the clan which traditionally lived in the area, decided that
if she was to lose her child to white society, in accordance with the policy at that time, Margaret should become
the new mother. Shenee, who had been delivered by Margaret, later recalled a ‘wonderful’ childhood. Shenee
considered herself very ‘fortunate’ to have had ‘the best of two worlds.’ Similarly she noted how her own son,
Jason, had idolised his grandmother and what an inspiration she had been to him and how much time she had for
all children.
Jim Dodd died on 9 February 1961 so Margaret took on the role of nursing sister. Jim, who was incapacitated
as a result of injuries received in the First World War, had usually dealt with all the medical work and managed the
homestead garden, which he laid out, while Jack McKay managed the property. The school operated each day and
teaching was in addition to the usual household routine, which included the monitoring of the radio schedule that
began at five each morning.
After her husband’s death Margaret was ill for a number of years but her brother Sandy McKay kept the school
going. In 1966 Jack McKay died, leaving the property to Margaret’s daughter, Heather, but by 1968 ‘death and
taxes’ had destroyed any possibility that it could be kept as a going concern. It was sold and Margaret moved to
Darwin but not to retire. Her acknowledged and widely respected teaching skills kept her in demand.
For some years she taught at a training school for paramedical workers in Aboriginal communities that was
then based at the East Arm leprosarium. At one time she was called on to teach part Aboriginal children at the
Rapid Creek School when urgent assistance was needed. Her help was frequently sought, both formally and
informally, though she never received any official recognition.
She was a small, slight woman and in her younger days was an A grade tennis player. She needed little
sleep but always had boundless energy and notwithstanding her heart condition could dance all night and then
cheerfully go to work the following morning. She loved the sea and missed it at Mainoru though the homestead
was attractively sited on a hill above a river. She was fortunate in having for so many years the company of