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a careful custodian of her mother’s priceless collection, but also filled countless scrapbooks herself over many
years, ensuring that future generations would be better able to understand their heritage. Some of this material was
eventually lodged with the State Library of the Northern Territory for the benefit of all Territorians. Ever conscious of
the contribution that her own family and many other pioneering families had made to the Territory, Christa worked
very hard, over a long period to ensure that the gravestones and surrounds of the old Gardens Road Cemetery in
Darwin were maintained in a manner befitting the pioneers who rested there.
Once when asked about the changes she had seen over her time in Darwin, she was questioned about whether
she would have preferred it to remain as she remembered it. Christa replied, ‘No, I’m quite content to live my
old age out in comfort. We have our memories, no one can take them away from us, and we still have the lovely
beaches and sunsets. There are not many old Territorians left of my generation who were born here, but those who
are are still old friends and I think that speaks for itself. We are as a family.’
When Christa died in 1991 her funeral in Darwin was one of the longest seen for some time. She is buried in
the Gardens Road Cemetery in the same grave as her father.
B James, No Man’s Land, 1989; Northern Territory Women’s Register 1948–1988, Second Edition, 1991; Northern Territory Archives, oral
history transcripts; family records; personal interviews.
BARBARA JAMES, Vol 2.
RONAN, TOM (1907–1976), writer and pastoralist, was born in Perth, Western Australia on 11 November 1907,
‘the twenty-seventh anniversary of Ned Kelly’s execution’ to the adventurous cattleman Denis James Ronan (1859–
1942) and his artistic, city-bred wife, Minnie. At the time, Tom Ronan’s father was managing Napier Downs cattle
station and Minnie, who found the isolation and difficult conditions trying, remained in Perth with her two year
old daughter, Trixie, for the birth. Tom grew up on a cattle station near Broome. Minnie suffered from diabetes and
after six years of living in the bush, returned to Fremantle for medical treatment. After his mother died, Tom was
sent to boarding school in Perth at the Christian Brothers College. He left school at 15 and spent a year droving
with his father in Western Australia. Some of these experiences are contained in his novels, Deep of the Sky (1963),
which is a tribute to his father, and Packhorse and Pearling Boat (1964).
Ronan served with the Australian Imperial Force in the Second World War and married Mary Elizabeth (Moya)
Kearins (born 1917) in 1947. There were 10 children of the marriage, (three daughters, seven sons), but two died
in infancy. Ronan and his family moved to the Northern Territory where he managed Newry and then Springvale
cattle stations and he worked for the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation at Katherine from
1950 to 1957. While in Katherine Ronan grew vegetables and kept a goatherd. He set up a goat dairy to supply the
residents of Katherine with fresh milk but Ronan was no handyman and it is said he could hardly hammer in a nail.
The Ronans were a large family and well liked in the community. Locals remember that the Mass at St Joseph’s,
Katherine, was often late because the priest would wait for the Ronans to arrive before he began! Hugh Barclay,
then Director of Lands, described Ronan as ‘a tall thin man with a typical Australian drawl and a dry sense of
humour. You could not forget the fact that he was a typical cattleman’.
During this period Ronan wrote novels that described the Territory pre-war pastoral experiences including his
most famous, Vision Splendid, which was arguably his best. Ronan was awarded a Commonwealth Jubilee Prize
in 1952 for Vision Splendid and later received Commonwealth Literary Fund Fellowships in 1954 and 1963. Other
novels published that contained Territory content were Once There Was a Bagman (1966) and The Mighty Men on
Horseback (1977). He said in an interview in 1974 that Vision Splendid was his ‘favourite’ and ‘more truthful than
truth’. Ronan published 14 novels in his lifetime as a writer. All his novels explored aspects of outback life but he
particularly focussed upon the pastoral and pearling industries of northern Australia.
On 29 May 1954, Tom Ronan stood for election for the Legislative Council electorate of Batchelor as Labor
candidate against ‘Tiger’ Brennan and won by three votes. He resigned on 5 April 1955, unhappy with members’
conditions. In the subsequent election, Brennan was elected as an independent with a comfortable majority.
Ronan continued to act in public life, however. He was Chairman of the Northern Territory Tourist Board between
1963–1965. Ronan and his family returned to Adelaide in 1968 to further their children’s education.
Ronan died in Adelaide in 1976, survived by his wife Moya and eight children. It is said that Moya ‘typed,
edited, criticised and polished his manuscripts’. She published in her own right but usually under a pseudonym.
She was an Honours graduate in English and History from the University of Sydney and in Adelaide she lectured
at Technical and Further Education level until her own death in July 1982.
The ashes of Tom and Moya Ronan, together with their two infants, lie under a memorial at Springvale
Station.
Tom Ronan, writer and pastoralist, was strongly identified with the Northern Territory through his writing and
was, in content and style, the literary heir to Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia. Ronan wrote that the Territory was
perfect for writers. The region, ‘has atmosphere, character and a history. What more could a yarn-spinner want?’
H C Barclay, interview, Northern Territory Archives, NTRS 226 TS6; G Dutton, The Australian Collection, 1985; L Izod, personal
communication, 14 July 1995; Northern Territory Women’s Register 1948–88, second edition, 1991; T Ronan interview 14 March 1974,
H de Berg 749, Canberra, National Library of Australia; T Ronan, Packhorse and Pearling Boat, 1964, Once There Was a Bagman, 1966;
F Walker, A Short History of the Legislative Council for the Northern Territory, 1986.
MICKEY DEWAR, Vol 3.
ROSS, ALEXANDER (ALEX) (1858–1938), explorer and bushman, was born on 1 March 1858, son of
John Ross and Rebecca McKinlay, nee Afflack. A brother, John, was born on 17 October 1859. At the time of his