Eunice Lovell (Hyslop 1955 )

Eunice Lovell, a Wenonian from the Class of 1955, is launching her first novel on Wednesday September 10. Writing under the name of Anne Lovell, Connie's Secret is a gripping true crime, based on the murder that sent to the gallows, the last man to be hung in NSW. Congratulations Eunice!!

Description

On 4 February 1939, Connie Sommerlad was brutally butchered and her brother left for dead in their family farmhouse in rural Tenterfield.

It was a murder that would rock the tight-knit community; a murder made all the more shocking by the fact that their assailant was a local man working for the Sommerlads. Jack Kelly, who was to become the last person to be hanged in New South Wales, struggled to explain his awful crime even as he faced the gallows. Yet this was far from the only mystery to be exposed by Connie's tragic end.

What really happened to Connie in those lost years between her move to Sydney as a young woman and her fateful return to her home town? And what was the secret so shameful that, even as Kelly stood trial for her murder, the Sommerlads conspired to keep it from the public record?

Vividly evoking small-town Australia in the months leading up to the outbreak of World War II, Connie's Secret brings to life the story of a highly respectable family desperately trying to protect their talented but wayward daughter's reputation at a time when religion, virtue and maintaining appearances held sway over every thought and deed.

This fascinating insight into another era is written with the emotional force of a novel, but these events did happen - and their devastating impact continues to be felt by those left behind even today.

Sally Manion (Aldrich 1978)

Sally Manion is the Director and National Head of Financial Planning for ipac, a national personal financial advice company. Born in Sydney, Sally started at Wenona in 1973 in First Form (Yr 7) and left half way through 6th Form (Yr 12) in 1978 to attend Knoxville Central High in Tennessee, USA as an exchange student. She came back to Wenona into 6th Form in 1979 with the girls from the next year however she only lasted 3 weeks, "realising that I didn’t want to do medicine enough to do the HSC when I could get into uni to study accountancy with my American results".

Sally comes from a high-achieving family. Her sisters Cath Yuncken (Aldrich ‘82) and Jen Aldrich (‘84) also attended Wenona. Cath works in Sydney as Director, Investment Banking, heading Barclays Capital’s Australian Corporate Finance business. She has a son and her daughter who will be attending Wenona. Jen lives in London and is Senior Legal Counsel for Hutchinson 3G UK. Her baby is also a future Wenona student.

Sally went straight from Wenona to Ernst &Young Chartered Accountants, working for many years as a small business tax consultant, studying at night to get her degree and to become chartered. She then worked "as a financial planner, including running Seal Investments (which became Ernst &Young’s financial planning arm) and running my own planning business. Then, when client work was not fitting into the nanny’s working hours, I moved to be General Manager of State Super Financial Services which we managed to quadruple in size". From there she moved to ipac as Director and National Head of Financial Planning. Sally finds financial planning a great profession to work in, "providing tax and financial advice to people, who each have such different stories to tell, and whom we can really help and make a difference".

She has also been on several boards: Law Foundation of NSW and Wenona, and currently the Wenona Foundation, Macquarie University’s Robert Menzies College and AON Wealth Management.

"The song ‘remember the days of the old school yard…..’ about sums up Wenona for me. We did laugh a lot, we cried (well we were teenage girls), we talked incessantly and we were a pretty close group. I remember playing tennis with friends, ear piercing in the bathrooms at lunchtime (wouldn’t recommend it), huddling around the heaters talking, language labs and French ‘dialogues’ that we learned off by heart. Who could forget the marching music we marched to when entering North Sydney oval for the Athletics Carnival or the navy bonds cottontails inspections? We even did some work and were taught disciplines and life skills that I use today. I still can’t eat in the street, and we were well prepared for the environmental evolution with paranoia about ‘nasty plastic shopping bags’. Wenona was very good to me".

Sally remembers Miss Jackson "as a real presence and a leader who I think influenced every girl". The School had a "huge effect: it was our lives for six important development years and the origin of many friends and community. I am just amazed at the number of familiar faces who are also back at Wenona as mums, apparently the School currently has the highest proportion of Old Girls’ daughters in its history".

"Wenona is so different today: subject choices we would have died for, much improved facilities, the senior college, an extra verse of the school song etc. And yet it’s the same: the traditions, the same familiar prize names, Foundation Day, the fete, "ut prosim", the Houses (although used so much more constructively with the tutor groups now across every year), even some of the same paintings in the Hall".

Sally has been married to Marc Manion for over 20 years and they have two children, Penny, who is in Year 12 at Wenona, and Harry, who is in Year 10 at Shore. "For those who remember me, yes of course they have red hair, as does Marc! We live in Killara. It’s funny, I’ve travelled the world and thought I was ‘cosmopolitan’, and yet here I am, living in much the same area, sending our kids to the same schools, and we love it, the sense of community is strong and we really enjoy it."

She acknowledges she has had a very lucky life, and "yet as I’ve faced more and more of life’s realities, I have really relied on the old saying ‘you can’t control the cards you’re dealt, but you can control how you play them’. Unfortunate things happen, but we get to choose how we react to them and that allows me to face life in a positive way.

"One of the good things about Wenona was it taught me, and is teaching Pen, that women have the capability and opportunity to do anything, which is definitely true, and I have been lucky working in an area where there has not been a glass ceiling. I still struggle with the reality that we have children to love and nurture and they must be given our time. Being a working mum is tough, and I can’t imagine what it must be like for any working parent who does it on their own. I do hope that all girls understand both motherhood and career are valuable and valid contributions and they have a choice to do one or both or any permutation of the two".

Claire McLennan ( Peterson 1991)

From a professional standpoint post-Wenona, I've followed a marketing
communications path including working for public relations agencies, large
and small. The journey has led me to a passion in writing, which was
probably first germinated at as a Wenona Boarder, writing letters to my
family in the library during prep - when I probably should have been doing
my homework! I now have my own business, Verb, which provides writing
services to corporates as well as writing for the media when time permits.

My other world involves my family, my husband of six years, Hamish, and my
awesome kids, Angus (4) and Nichola (2). At this stage of our lives, this is
my 'main' job and I love it. Watching my kids develop a passion for learning
and exploring the world amazes me daily and makes me appreciate everything
I've learned... so I can teach them.

As my kids start school I hope to be able to develop my business a bit more,
but in the meantime, it's a great way to continue to use my brain, while
doing the all important mum activities.

Cheers, Claire

Charlotte Kate Nieland (Turnbull 1998)

I'm Charlotte Kate Turnbull and was at Wenona from Yr 7 (1993) to Yr 12
(1998).
I did a Bachelor of Accounting degree at UTS, worked at
PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Valuation and Strategy team in Sydney for
3 years, then transferred to PwC in Switzerland. I lived in Zurich for 3
years and returned to Australia just last September.

I married Andrew Nieland (Cranbrook 1996) on November 3, 07.

I now work at Transfield Holdings.

Chloe Hawthorne (01)

Just thought I would send news about my daughter, Chloe Hawthorne (01) who graduated last year as a Veterinarian with first class honours, from Sydney Uni. She is working in a mixed country practice at Cootamundra, where she is able to indulge in her passion for horses (in between call outs for cows calving at 3am!)
Regards
Melanie Hawthorne

Kylie Jennings (2000)

has recently completed a postgraduate degree in Midwifery after completing a degree in Nursing and is now a Midwife at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Mandy Chang (1981)

When I left Wenona, I wanted to be an artist or a writer. I didn’t end up doing any of those things, but making documentaries has enabled me to find a way to do them all. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without a good education. It was at this school that I received that education.

I thought I’d do my travelling and work in London for a year, get it out of my system, then come home, settle down and get a job. That was 16 years ago…and even though I come back often, I still live and work in London, making documentaries for television. 

In London I worked for a literary agent, in children’s television and then on a satirical news comedy. In Australia I’d worked on television dramas and feature films.

I knew I’d found my vocation when I went to work for a little documentary film company in London called Windfall Films. I worked there for 3 years on many different and fascinating programmes.

For the next 5 years I absorbed everything I could about whatever subject I was working on, from the secret lives of 7-year-olds, to country music’s biggest stars. I worked all over Africa, America and Europe, eventually coming all the way back to Australia again to work with the Australian writer Robert Hughes, on a series about his own country – and mine. On our research trip I met 3 Australian prime ministers in one day: Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. It too was quite an experience.

After a few years I applied to the BBC for a traineeship, faced a scary panel of people throwing tough questions as me, and by some miracle got the job and found myself working for the BBC Music and Arts Department.

When I left the BBC the first big challenge I had was in getting a sensitive series off the ground about teenagers with troubled lives.

With each new job, no matter how much experience I have, I still feel the same apprehension about whether or not I’ll do a good job. Every film is a challenge, so I don’t ever feel I can rest on my laurels. I suppose one might say that the highlight of my career was winning a Grierson Award for Best Arts Documentary last year.

Carolyn Weir (1996) 

I am living in Düsseldorf, Germany with my fiancé Christopher Adams. We've been here for just over a year now. He was transferred here for work and I have also been lucky enough to get work with the same company, in project management. The company specialises in IT software for the Hospitality industry, I am involved with coordinating software installations in hotels throughout the "EAME" region (Europe Africa & the Middle East). It's the LAST place I ever thought I would find myself but we're loving it here all the same!

Back to Sydney in March 2007 to get married.

Lalitha Banerjee (1994)  

After graduating from Wenona in 1994, I attended McGill University in Montreal, Canada where, in May 1999, I received a Bachelor of Commerce, with my majors being Finance and Marketing. I then moved to Washington DC and began working with the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) in September 1999; the CEB is a strategic, for-profit best practices research institution. I remained with the CEB for four years and left as a Senior Manager in the Financial Services Practice. I then decided to move to India; I left India when I was six years old and returned when I was 27! I decided to come back to India, since I always felt the country was my home. As well, I wanted to take a break from my corporate career and use my skills to do some non-profit work. I did non-profit work for about two years: I taught English and Maths at an orphanage for poor children and then went to work at a charitable foundation which did some very sincere work in the field of improving education in government schools, which often the poorest and most underprivileged children attend. My non-profit work ended in February of this year and at that point, I decided to return to the corporate world. I started working with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the capacity of building a knowledge management unit, doing practice development and also working on sector studies for the Retail and Consumer Industry Practice. I am part of a dynamic team and I have two wonderful managers. My parents live in the US and I live in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, with my grandmother and have no plans to live outside India since I feel most comfortable here!! I must add that I have some very fond memories of my time at Wenona and in Australia; my family and I moved there for four years and the people and the country are just so hospitable and lovely!!