General News
17 April, 2026
Honouring a mother’s legacy
Maryborough’s Grace La Vella has continued to honour her mum’s service in WWII and her ongoing legacy
Last year, Maryborough’s Grace La Vella honoured her mum’s decision to enlist in WWII by wearing her medals for the first time.
“This is to let her know that I feel very proud of her. I’m very proud to be her daughter,” she said.
Peggy Rosina Bailey, later Mrs O’Flaherty, enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service in February, 1943.
At just five feet one and one quarter inches tall, it’s hard to imagine the almost 19-year-old as an intimidating sight.
Despite this, and the disapproval from some of her family, she’d go on to complete 1178 days of active service spent largely as a cook.
However, for much of Ms La Vella’s life her mum’s time in the army was a mystery.
“I want to honour her because I underestimated her as a young teenager,” she said.
“I have regrets about that because she was a very capable woman.”
What Ms La Vella remembers are fragments from a woman who didn’t like talking about herself.
“She was very much about self praise is no recommendation,” she said.
One of those fragments is why Mrs O’Flaherty enlisted.
“She always had the view, she told me, she wanted to serve her country,” Ms La Vella said.
It was also a time that women’s roles were changing, due to the demands of the war, from being purely domestic.
“I think a lot of it was the excitement because the army was built up as something women could do to start a career,” she said.
“In those days women and careers wasn’t the go, was it?”
Although she enlisted to drive trucks, after crashing a few, she was trained as a cook.
They’re skills that carried forward to her life as a parent of four kids and the excellent home cooking Ms La Vella enjoyed.
“She was always one to say anyone can drop in at any time, you can add another cup of water to the soup, in other words, anyone’s welcome,” she said.
However, she didn’t seem to be a woman stopped by gendered expectations either having joined the army and later working in male-dominated fields.
“She was an inspiration to me ... that I was never going to be suppressed as a woman,” Ms La Vella said.
“You can do anything you want to do if you really want to do it.”
Now a mother herself, Ms La Vella encouraged the community to ask about their parents’ lives.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask more questions because I would have learned more about her,” she said.
“I’d say to anyone ask your parents about their life.”
Ms La Vella said, when she arrived home after last year’s ANZAC Day, her photo of her mum in uniform had fallen onto the polished concrete floor.
It didn’t have a scratch.
“To me I felt that was mum saying thank you. I cried when I saw it. I felt so proud, so proud.”