Creating and sharing the beautiful with others
Obituaries
Sr Rosemary Yelland OP (born March 19 1940, died June 28 2024).
Rosemary was born in Richmond Victoria in 1940 to Eileen and Henry Yelland.
The youngest of five children, she was educated by the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ), at Vaucluse, Richmond, where she was a weekly boarder.
She loved school, especially subjects related to literature and art and was always grateful that her teachers encouraged creativity, particularly her love of painting.
In her Intermediate year, one of the Sisters gave her a copy of the life of the foundress, suggesting she might like to illustrate some sections. Those remarkably detailed drawings were later kept in the FCJ archives.
On leaving school Rosemary was involved in Young Christian Workers at state and national levels while she studied at Sion Teachers College in Melbourne.
She met the Adelaide Holy Cross Dominican sisters who had been asked to take over the parish primary school where she was teaching in Ringwood, Victoria. There were 700 students, many of them Dutch migrants, 90 students in her classes and very few resources.
As she witnessed and participated in the transformation of the school, she decided to join the Dominicans in 1962.
She loved teaching – across all year levels, in four states, in Dominican primary schools and at Cabra Dominican College, St Mary’s College and Siena College, Findon, where she coordinated the Alternative Learning Mode for students who benefitted from a modified curriculum.
Later, a Masters in Creation Spirituality, studied in USA, gave her the opportunity to delve into areas she loved. She offered courses on the Western Mystics in the early days of Sophia and planned and established the Dominican Peace Gardens, in memory of deceased sisters.
Rosemary believed that beauty reflects the Divine. Throughout her life she remained deeply committed to finding, creating and sharing the beautiful with others so that
they might discover their own creativity.
It was simply a quality she brought to whatever engaged her energies: children’s liturgies, classroom activities, establishing gardens, working in neighbour-hood groups, creating a ‘home’ for foster children, to name a few.
As family, Sisters and friends gathered to celebrate Rosemary’s life with Eucharist in the Cabra Chapel on July 10, and later walked in procession to the Cabra Cemetery, the birdsong in the Peace Gardens was a fitting reminder that, in a beautiful place she loved, Rosemary was at peace among her Sisters and friends.
– Anne Dolan OP
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