Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Search for The Case Of, it's on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. When Margie Worrell was growing up in regional Victoria, the daughter of a dairy farmer and a runaway nun, she was told to aim high. And in her world, that meant imagining that one day she might have the chance to run a convent.
Margie wasn't sure what she wanted for her future, but she knew it didn't involve being a nun nor staying on the family farm. So she took off to the big smoke, first to Melbourne and then to America via the Middle East and Papua New Guinea. And in the States, she ultimately found herself guiding other people in making choices about their own lives.
And a heads up, this conversation includes reference to eating disorders, armed robbery and suicide. So you might want to keep that in mind if you've got kids in the vicinity. Hi, Margie. Great to be with you, Sarah. Tell me about the farm where you grew up in East Gippsland. What does it look like? Well, it is still there and I just left it yesterday.
It is a 220-acre farm of rolling hills, not that far from the coast. So it's actually situated between Lakes Entrance, which is sort of a fishing town that's busy in the summer, and another little village called Metung. And so there's no... There's no shops or anything like that.
There's a school and it's a really pretty farm and my brother lives on that farm now with his wife and raising their kids. How long has it been in your family, Margie? My dad's parents bought it when he was 12, I believe, and he's 90, 91 this year. So my dad, my mum and dad, Ray and Maureen Kleinitz, and yes, the Kleinitz name has been in the East Gippsland area for a long, long time.
Your mum was actually born in San Francisco to an Australian mother and an American father. When her dad died, she went to boarding school in Melbourne. And then when she was 16, she decided to enter a Catholic convent as a novice. Yes, she did.
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Chapter 2: What was Margie's upbringing like on the dairy farm?
And she said that about 30% of the girls from her class at Kilbreda went into the convent. I think a lot of those may not have lasted 12 months, but she always had a lot of nun friends. And she stayed in the convent. And for nearly nine years, when you're becoming a nun, you do vows every three years. And then at the end of nine years, you do your final vows where you become the bride of Christ.
And just short of that final set of vows, she left. And it's funny because I know you introduced me talking about the daughter of a runaway nun. And I'm like, I can hear mum up there going... I wasn't a runaway nun. She chose to leave the convent. Fair call. A thoughtful young woman who decided at the right time this wasn't the life for her. I appreciate that clarification.
It's interesting though, Sarah, she was always very sensitive. to making fun of nuns. You know how over the years there's been so many nun jokes and mum was always just, she didn't think they were funny. You know, it was always like she was super sensitive to people ridiculing nuns, making fun of nuns, all of that stuff.
Well, I guess this had been a big part of her life, an important part of her life. I mean, when she spoke about those nine years in the convent then, how did she talk about it? With a wonderful fondness and gratitude and I think there was immense love between these nuns, you know. I think there was a beautiful sense of community.
So she never spoke about it in any way that wasn't with fondness and warmth and appreciation. And so, yeah, we kind of grew up not knowing lots and lots of details but always knowing that mum really valued those years. And, you know, she shared with me I was probably maybe I was, you know, 12, 13, 14, kind of fascinated why she chose that.
And I remember her saying she had been in a girls' school her whole life, you know, since she'd moved to Australia as a seven-year-old, and she said it was the most familiar thing. When you're in an all-girls Catholic boarding school, the most familiar continuation of that is to go into the convent. And so mum...
I would say mum, she just wanted what was felt familiar and was very often intimidated by the world. And I remember years later, many years later, I was working as a, as we said in the day, a barmaid at the Meat Tongue Pub and, you know, and I was very comfortable chatting to men and
Mum said, oh, I just marvel at how comfortable you are because she was always just a little self-conscious around men. She had so little exposure to men until she literally married Dad. Well, one of the legacies of her time in the convent was how good she was at folding fitted sheets.
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Chapter 3: How did Margie transition from farm life to university?
Why is that? How is that the case? Yeah. Well, one of the things she did while she was a nun was the Sisters of Cluny. It's actually a French order, and she was actually based at what's now Werribee Park Mansion, which is, I believe, now a hotel and a function centre. You can probably get married there.
But it was a seminary, and while it was a seminary, obviously they must have, you know, had arrangements with some of the convents for the nuns to be there to do, you know, laundry and what have you. And so, yes, she was obviously responsible for doing laundry for these male seminarians. And growing up, she was just the linen cupboard.
I know this is a strange thing, but a few years ago, mum died in 2023. And I remember one day looking at my linen cupboard, which looked like someone had vomited in it, and just going, mum's never going to tidy my linen cupboard again. And I cried. No one's ever coming to just make my sheets, my folded sheets look as perfect as my, you know, fitted sheets can look.
She just, as one of my friends, Anna, once said, your mother should have done training for people and how do you fold a fitted sheet so it It's so that it layers as beautifully. It's a specialised skill, that's for sure. Yes, yes. And I can't tell you, I'm sure she showed me and I paid very little attention.
But so as you say, Margie, she made what would have been a really tough and brave decision to leave this very familiar world at 25 or so. Did she know what she was going to do next? No, I would say she really didn't know, but she was trained as a teacher and she was assigned to a Catholic school in Sale. I believe it's called St Mary's.
I hope I'm not getting that wrong because there's a St Mary's in Bairnsdale. There's a good chance that it's called St Mary's in my experience. Yeah, she found herself teaching in Sale and I think that... that would have been, you know, quite the jolt for her. And she was just immensely shy. And mum was an introverted person, not an outgoing, certainly not a gregarious socialite at all.
And so for her, that would have been, I'm sure, quite a jolt and outside her comfort zone. How did she meet your dad, Margie? Well, my understanding is she left the convent in the October and that New Year's Eve, so just a couple months later, some of her cousins invited her to go to the St. Brendan's New Year's Eve dance.
And my dad, who is, so mum's 25, dad's 29, he's four years older than her, always wanted to marry a nice Catholic girl. He's a local dairy farmer, football, local football player, very good football player. He was just, he would have been praying hard to meet a nice Catholic girl. And then he must have seen this, you know, who's that?
And someone must have said, oh, she's recently left the convent. Bingo. Bingo. And he apparently asked her to dance and he recalls it that mum in the convent must have been bigger than some of the women or whatever. And she always took the male part, you know, whether it's the waltz or the foxtrot or the pride of Aaron, all those dances.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Margie face during her travels?
And it's funny, I have this really stark, vivid recollection. I just turned seven perhaps. And I recall mum struggling a lot and And sometimes she would just drop the dinner plates. She would just be, I think she was just overwhelmed. And I remember Dad saying to me, you know, Margie, help your mother. You've got to help your mother or she could end up at Hobson's Park.
It was, I'm pretty sure, a psychiatric hospital. And I just remember, help your mother or she'll end up in Hobson's Park. Like, God forbid, Mum have to go there. I think you think about mental illness now. I mean, there's still stigma, but there was... so much less than there was in those days. And what a powerful message to the daughter to kind of save the mum from that outcome too.
That's a big responsibility for you. Save the family from that. Save the family from the shame. What will people say? You know, I think I felt a strong sense of obligation, duty, responsibility to just help with that workload and
And I was the oldest and I definitely remember, you know, being acknowledged for being helpful and being capable and getting my little brother Stephen up from his nap and making him a bottle with the cast iron kettle and burning my hand a little bit and putting the, what was it, the pin, the nappy pin through my hair because you put oil on the pin and then you put it through the cloth nappy so it glides through and you put your fingers underneath so it doesn't stab the baby, it stabs your fingers.
And doing all of that as a six-and-a-half, seven-year-old And taking pride in it, just to be clear. I took a lot of pride in being so capable and helpful. So pride and capacity, clearly, but also a family pretty stretched. How did you react when your mum told you that she was pregnant with her seventh child? Oh, yes. Oh.
I tell people that and I think it sounds terrible, but it's just where I was at. So I was 12. I'd just started at Nagel College in Form 1 in Bairnsdale. And... Peter was, I think, three. He was the sixth child. And I was pretty sure mum felt it that, you know, after six we got a family portrait taken. Like, this is it.
I'm sure we wouldn't have got the official family portrait taken if there was more coming because those things cost a lot of money. And mum was really struggling. When he was a little baby, mum really had a lot of depression. And so I always felt, I think just as a personality type, I love autonomy. I love freedom of going places. And I felt so kind of stymied on the farm.
You know, I had to be driven. There was no public transport. So mum would have to drive me somewhere. And I was jealous of all my girlfriends in band style. I could go to the roller skating rink on a Friday night and I was stuck on the farm. And it's just how I felt. Some would say, you had space and horses, yes, but I just... You wanted the roller skating rink.
I wanted to be at the roller skating rink, yes. And I remember, yeah, Mum calling me into her bedroom and sitting up in bed and she said to me, oh, Margaret, I need to, Margie, I need to tell you, I need to tell you something. I remember just looking at her. I'm like, yeah. And she said, I'm pregnant. I can still remember standing there and I looked at her and I said,
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