1 - The origins of the Wild Bridgie legend (Bridget’s niece)

A photograph of the author’s grandmother holding a baby in a church. The author is the baby and it is the day of her baptism. Source: Author’s family archives [1].

This is me with my maternal grandmother, Cecilia.

For me, Bridget’s story starts when Cecilia was dying in 2002. We were going through old family photos, remembering better times, I suppose.  Someone told me my grandmother got emotional at the sight of an old photo of a pretty girl with brown hair and glasses.

That startled me.  Cecilia, my Ma, was a bright and stoic woman.  Tears were not her style.

Involving you in a caper to try to fool bureaucrats into thinking she was feeble-minded?  That was my grandmother’s style.  (Turns out, she was entitled to the tax credit anyway, bless her, but we had fun.)

Burying a husband and a son and then suffering bravely through a painful death?  That was vintage Ma.

Who could possibly make Cecilia cry?  Who was this girl?

Enter Wild Bridgie, or so one of my cousins christened her. The pretty girl with brown hair and glasses, was Cecilia’s, and our, murdered aunt. She’d run away with a terrible man and paid the ultimate price for her decision.

I remember looking at my mother in astonishment.  And some accusation.  This was the family who recalled and (and recounted with tedious clarity) feuds over loose cattle and other neighbourhood disputes from decades ago. 

“I didn’t know,” she said, looking as flummoxed as I’d seen her. “All I knew was that Grandma had two sisters and they both died young.  We never talked about it.”

Another cousin, Chris, hauled herself off to the State Library of Queensland and discovered Bridget’s fate among the old newspapers there. 

Bridget had been murdered.  Her killer had been tried in Brisbane and incarcerated for her death.

I’ve always loved Chris for that.  Something about understanding the circumstances of her aunt’s death - and that her killer was punished - bought some ease to my grandmother’s last days.

#WildBridgie

---

End notes

[1] Moulder, B. M. (2024), Picture of a grandmother with her grandaughter on the baby's baptism [Photograph], Brisbane, Australia.