Ann and Lucy Rowan on faith, food and family

Ann Rowan and her 12-year-old granddaughter Lucy love cooking together. ‘We cooked a pavlova the other day,’ Lucy says with a smile. One of her earliest memories of her Nana is of being given cauliflower with cheese sauce to eat at a family celebration. ‘At first I was like, “What is this? I’m not going to like this.” But I ate it, and it was really good. Now I still like it, because it reminds me of Nana.’

Ann, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday, is a mother of nine, and Lucy (named after one of Ann’s grandmothers) is one of her 21 grandchildren, aged from 10 to 25.

Ann is also a lifelong parishioner of St Mary of the Angels Parish, Geelong. She married her husband, Patrick, there 54 years ago. Lucy and her family worship at St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Corio, along with some of her aunts, uncles and cousins. ‘We’ve become very much a two-parish family,’ Ann says. ‘Corio has been absolutely thriving.’

A love of good food and their Catholic faith are just two of the things that Ann and Lucy have in common. Family, of course, is another.

Recalling the first time she saw Lucy, Ann says, ‘She was the most gorgeous little baby you ever saw, as fair as can be, as she still is today. And she’s always been the sweetest thing. I think every baby brings this amazing love and joy with them. It was just a delight because, I don’t have to tell you, I love babies. My children and grandchildren are the greatest joy. I love them to death.’

She clearly enjoys Lucy’s company, describing her as ‘an absolutely delightful personality’. She is particularly pleased to see the way Lucy is developing in her faith, saying, ‘I get great joy out of that, because that, to me, is the most important thing, and Lucy reflects that. I’m very proud of her.’

Nana teaches me to do the right things ... She’s always looking out for other people and making sure that they’re happy.

As well as cooking—mostly ‘cakes and stuff’ according to Lucy—Ann and Lucy enjoy spending time together on the tennis court. ‘Nana’s really good at tennis,’ Lucy says. They also like card games, Rummy Poker being a recent favourite.

Lucy and one of her cousins sometimes have sleepovers at their grandparents’ home. ‘It’s really fun because we eat things together and say the Rosary before we go to bed.’

‘Nana teaches me to do the right things,’ Lucy says, before pausing and adding with a grin, ‘like correcting me on my grammar.’ She also appreciates her Nana’s wisdom and guidance. ‘She guides me through my spiritual life with God, which is very helpful.’ Her generosity is another thing Lucy admires, saying, ‘She’s always looking out for other people and making sure that they’re happy.’

Ann, a teacher by training, has strong school connections with her granddaughter, having completed all her schooling at Sacred Heart College, Geelong, where Lucy is now a Year 7 student. ‘That was the only school I ever went to,’ Ann says. ‘In those days, they went right through.’

After school, Ann studied primary teaching at Mercy Teachers’ College at Ascot Vale, going on to teach at St Andrew’s, Werribee, then at St Robert’s, Newtown (where Lucy would later go to primary school). Ann returned to Sacred Heart College as a teacher in 1969, before leaving to marry and raise her large family.

‘Faith is extremely important in our family,’ Ann says. Participation in parish life is one of the strong family traditions that she and Patrick have handed down to their children and grandchildren.

Christmas time is just unique. We spend it all together for about three or four days ... and it’s all one big celebration. Everyone contributes.

Every Sunday, Lucy’s family, including her two brothers and younger sister, attend Mass at Corio. Most Sundays, she says, Mass is followed by morning tea, often expertly prepared by one of her aunties. And every second Sunday she attends youth group, which alternates between a prayer night ‘where you say the Rosary and have a bit of quiet time with God’ and a night of games and other activities.

Along with her school and parish commitments, Lucy enjoys dancing and playing soccer, ‘and I’m also pretty good at running,’ she says.

Another thing she enjoys is spending time with her extended family. Every year in the lead-up to Christmas, the family get together for celebrations lasting a few days. They gather at a large house that sleeps about 30 at Eastern View on the Surf Coast, made available to them by dear friends, and food plays a central part in the festivities.

‘Christmas time is just unique,’ Ann explains. ‘We spend it all together for about three or four days. We have lots of fun, don’t we darling?’ she says to Lucy.

In recent years, she says, they have joined tables together on the big veranda, ‘and it’s all one big celebration. Everyone contributes. I do the plum puddings—always the plum puddings—and the hams.’

As well as bringing the family together, good food plays an important role in the way the Rowans live their faith, serving and offering hospitality to others, particularly through the not-for-profit Bay Leaf Community Kitchen, co-founded by Ann’s son, and Lucy’s dad, Martin Rowan and Andrew Costa.

Ann explains that Martin volunteered for the St Vincent de Paul Society for about 10 years and, through that experience, ‘saw an enormous need’ to provide meals and food boxes to people as they struggle with illness and financial hardship.

Food is a language which communicates love and kindness. It is not judgmental. It’s about conveying a feeling of friendship and love.

Believing that ‘food is a language of love’, he wanted not only to ‘give people food and help, but to give it with unconditional love and make the people feel good about the fact that they’re receiving it, not humiliated at all,’ Ann says. ‘That’s his big thing: to give it, he says, as Jesus would give it.

‘Food is a language which communicates love and kindness. It is not judgmental. And giving the best of food—they give home-cooked meals and boxes of goodies as well—Bay Leaf aims to convey the love of Jesus through generosity and inspiring joy.’

It’s as much about conveying ‘joy and peace’ to those they interact with, she says, as about ‘giving them food. It’s a feeling of friendship and love, and the food is the means they use to do this.’

Central to their approach is a commitment to offering the best quality food they can. In the early days, generous businesses at Melbourne’s wholesale market in Epping began donating leftover produce, for which Bay Leaf was very grateful. Eventually though, according to Ann, Martin approached the business owners, saying he would rather have ‘one box of your best’ than six boxes of poorer quality produce. And they agreed. ‘So people are absolutely amazed at the quality,’ Ann says.

With the council and racecourse giving Bay Leaf the use of some land, and with donated appliances from the Geelong Football Club, Martin and Andrew have built a storeroom and kitchen, where they and their volunteers produce 300 home-cooked meals a week, including dessert. The meals are included in boxes of produce that are distributed every Wednesday night all over Geelong and beyond.

The kitchen has become a hub of family activity, with many family members among the army of volunteers who keep it running. One of Martin’s sisters, according to Ann, makes a particularly important contribution. ‘A mother’s praise is no recommendation, but she is the most amazing cook you would ever find … It’s nothing [for her] to cook up to 60 kilos of chicken. The volume is just extraordinary.’

It is in giving you receive more than you give. It’s a great feeling to be able to give these people the food, but also to connect with them.

Lucy also enjoys volunteering at the kitchen and recently brought a school friend along.

‘We cooked banana bread and helped make the chicken, and we packed boxes of fruit and veggies. We also helped restock mushrooms and just tidy up the place. After you’ve done it, you get a nice feeling that you’ve done something good.’

With the need only growing bigger ‘as more and more people are enquiring and needing help’, Ann observes that ‘it is in giving you receive more than you give, and Martin would say that very much. It’s a great feeling to be able to give these people the food, but also to connect with them.’

This capacity to give and receive is, for Ann, one of the great joys of being part of a big family—particularly as she was one of only two children herself. Sometimes she has a sense of living in the ‘reflected glory’ of her children and grandchildren. ‘They give a lot to each other; they gain a lot from each other,’ she says.

Clearly, they have gained—and continue to receive—a lot from her as well.