‘Perfect Catholic parents’ and enduring love

In response to The Record’s 23 June front page inviting Catholic wedding photos, John Bryant brought in his parents’ 1934 wedding photo. He told BRIDGET SPINKS about how they wed in the 1930s and had a marriage that lasted a lifetime

John Bryant of Mount Lawley is one of three boys born in the 1940s to Veronica and Bill Bryant whom he says were “perfect Catholic parents”.
While he never married, John Bryant, now a retired former salesman for Ansett Australia before its demise in 2001, told The Record what it was like growing up with parents who loved the Catholic faith and passed it on with devotion.
Every night after dinner the family would pray the Rosary and several devotional prayers at the end.
“Fr Patrick Peyton, CSC came to Australia in 1953. As soon as he got the family Rosary concept going, we got going. ‘The family that prays together, stays together’,” Mr Bryant said.
“We always had umpteen prayers at the end, and the Litany and Memorare. We’d always say “Saviour of the world, Save Russia” – that was a catch-cry then,” he said.
Veronica, who was affectionately known as ‘Ron’ or ‘Ronnie’, met her future husband through her friend, Dan Quinlan.
In the mid-1920s, Ronnie was living with her family in Ucarty near Dowerin.  She had come to Perth to have her tonsils out and after spending some time in Perth to recover, Dan Quinlan gave her a lift back to the farm. But he had brought along a friend for the ride – Bill Bryant.
This meeting then became what Ronnie called “the longest courtship in history” – Bill was still at Perth Technical College on St George’s Terrace and he wanted to finish his studies first.
On her 26th birthday, on 14 November 1932, Bill proposed, she said yes, and two years later on the same day, Ronnie and Bill were wed. In 1940, Robert was born. Eighteen months later came John and in 1946, nearly four years later, Peter was born.
John admits that he and his brothers “weren’t that keen on the Rosary” and if they could evade the family prayers, they would.
But he has the utmost admiration, respect and love for his parents who would say it together, even when all their young men had gone out of an evening.
In 1941, Bill Bryant, a chemist, was offered a pharmacy in Geraldton. Bill, Veronica and one-year-old Robert moved to Geraldton where they settled and had two more boys. They lived there until 1953 when Bill sold the business and they moved back to Mount Lawley and took over the Rosemount Pharmacy in North Perth.
Robert, John and Peter went to Christian Brothers High School (CBHS) Highgate, before the CBHS merged in 1978 with CBHS Bedford and became known as CBC Highgate.
John recalled the days of CBHS and the drive home from playing away matches in New Norcia.
“My father was a friend of Br Williams, who was Head of Christian Brothers College in Geraldton. Then, a couple of years after we moved to Perth, he was appointed Head of CBHS, Highgate,” Mr Bryant said.
“My father would take us to away matches against St Ildephonsus College and Br Williams came with us and a Rosary was always said on the way home.”
Bill Byrant passed away on 1 January 1995. The year before on 14 November, Bill and Veronica celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. In 2001, Robert, who was a primary school teacher in Geraldton, retired and came home to live with John and his mother.
Veronica Bryant was 100 years old when she died on 12 October 2007. John and later Robert, too, cared for their parents at home in their last years.
“Mum and I cared for Dad who had a stroke in 1994 and died on New Year’s Day, 1995. Mum had a stroke in 2004, which left her partly paralysed. She had to be in a wheelchair. Robert and I cared for her till she died,” John said.
John said his mother had great devotion to Our Lady, St Joseph, St Anne, St Anthony, St Martin de Porres and the Novena. She never missed Mass on Sundays, Holy Days of Obligation or First Fridays, was a dedicated member of the Highgate branch of the Catholic Women’s League and a “great worker for the Daughters of Charity” in their secondhand clothing stores. “Mum always thought of others,” John said.
“Whenever All Souls came around, she’d give a list of dearly departed friends to be remembered in the November Masses. She’d always write at the bottom, ‘And for all those poor forgotten souls who have no-one to pray for them or to have a Mass offered for them.’”
John also remembered his mother’s great piety, particularly at the Consecration. “At the elevation of the host, Mum would always say, ‘My Lord and My God,’ and when the Blood was raised, she would say, ‘May the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ wash away all my sins and the sins of the world’.”
“Mum was also big on holy water,” John added. “’Have you got the holy?’ she’d say, or, ‘Don’t forget the holy’. And blessed palms too. She’d say, ‘Your house will never burn down if there are blessed palms in the house’.” When all Bill Bryant’s family were living in Mount Lawley, Ronnie could never understand why she got married at the Cathedral, John said.
John is now in his 70s and still a parishioner of Sacred Heart at Highgate. His brother Robert is a parishioner at Maylands and Peter is at Balcatta.