Catherine Jane Sergeant

Catherine Jane Sergeant was born at The Leigh, near Geelong, in 1859. She was the eldest child of William Foster Sergeant, a labourer, and Bridget McGuire.
She was perhaps working as a servant in Melbourne when she married Luke Knight Vail in 1881.
They had eight children, with one son dying in infancy and the last one dying soon after her in 1899. Her mother-in-law who lived with them and continued to care for the children wrote on the family portrait - "she died to enable another child to be born" - although the death certificate says that she died of pneumonia and heart failure.