A priest and a fox-terrier called Dominie

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We revisited a few towns while we were away the last few weeks. One of them was Mullewa. For some years, this was the home town of Monsignor Hawes, a Catholic priest. Hawes had a very interesting life. He was born in England, qualified as an architect and became an Anglican priest. After spending some time in the Bahamas, USA and Canada, he converted to Catholicism and eventually made his way to Western Australia as a missionary priest. His first commission was to design the Geraldton cathedral. He was a prodigious worker, designing multiple churches at a time and doing most of the hard physical labour of the smaller ones on his own or with limited help. He spent 22 years as Parish Priest at Mullewa, arriving in 1916 and travelling many miles on horseback to serve his parishioners on the lonely farms and stations of the wider area. Mullewa is very proud of Hawes and his church. A walk trail of 590 metres has been designed with interpretive posts and plaques. One of Hawes’ quotes was: I never cared about being photographed except for the honour of being taken in the company of my dog or my horse. Hawes was a good horseman, finding time to breed a few racehorses. His favourite mount, Babs, won a Maiden race and carried him faithfully for many years. He was also very fond of his fox terrier, Dominie, which accompanied him everywhere. At the base of each interpretive post is a steel cut-out of Dominie in various poses. One of his favourite pastimes was trying to dig rabbits out of their burrows.