Patrick Burns and Maud Mary Smart
No photos available

 
No pictures available
 
Birth:                    25 Aug 1873, Hectorville, Adelaide, South Australia
Death:                   26 Jan 1918, Broken Hill, New South Wales
 
No pictures available
 
Spouse:                 (Selina) Maud Mary Smart
Birth:                    28 Apr 1874, Adelaide, South Australia
Death:                   27 April 1937, Forbes, New South Wales
Father:                  Charles Smart
Mother:                Jane Clemons
Marriage:             16 Oct 1895, Norwood, South Australia
 
No children
 
Patrick Edward Burns was born on August 24, 1873, in the family home in Hectorville, South Australia.  He was the ninth child of John Burns and Mary Callaghan.  He was baptized on August 31, 1873, by Fr. Mathias Kennedy at the Church of the Annunciation.  His godparents were James Joseph Kains and Mary Ellen Lawless Kains.  It is unknown how his parents knew the Kainses.
 
Patrick, who was named after his maternal uncle who had relocated to Okains Bay in New Zealand, had a similar upbringing to his siblings in the hamlet of Hectorville.  The two-room rammed earth house would have been a tight fit for the family of ten with another child on the way.  There was little or no privacy.  He grew up with no indoor plumbing, and the children had to bring water from the water main to Adelaide from the reservoir that was a few yards outside of town.  Water service did not reach Hectorville until 1895, after Patrick had already moved to Norwood and married. 
 
Patrick attended Mass every Sunday at the Church of the Annunciation, and he attended the church school under Sister Mary McKillop and the Sisters of St Joseph.  He would have worked in his father’s market garden where he learned the agricultural skills he would employ throughout his life.  Later in life, he would be a fruit seller. 
 
Somewhere along the way, he met Maud Smart. 
 
Maud Mary Smart was born on April 28, 1874, in Adelaide.  Some records state her name as Selina Maud Mary Smart, but it is unclear if this is the same person.  She was the second of the five daughters of Charles Smart, a plasterer from Bristol, England, and Jane Clemons, a first-generation native of Adelaide whose father was from Cornwall.  Maud grew up in nearby Kent Town, Norwood, in a Wesleyan family.  Not much us known about her early life, but, when she was 15, her father died in their family home on Capper Street.  He was 56 years old. 
 
Patrick and Maud married on October 16, 1895, at St Ignatius Church in Norwood.  He was 22, and she was 21 years old.  She must have converted to Roman Catholicism for this to occur.  
 
Very little is known of their life together.  They had no children and were never in the newspaper.  Only one Patrick Burns has been found in the South Australia Directory, and that was a clerk living in Parkside in 1909.  There is no way of knowing if this was our Patrick, but it is unlikely. 
 
In 1916, Patrick, who was too old for the military during WWI, moved to Broken Hill, NSW, where his brothers were.  He lived on Beryl Street off Bromide Street and was listed as single.  His death certificate listed his occupation as “fruitier.” 
 
Sometime during July or August, Patrick became ill with flu-like symptoms.  Patrick died on January 26, 1918, in Broken Hill.  The cause of death was listed as nephritis, which is kidney failure.  Nephritis was a recognized symptom during the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic, with reports mentioning "nephritis-like blood-streaked urine" among the recorded symptoms, so Patrick may have been an early casualty of the pandemic.  A direct causal link between the influenza virus (H1N1) and nephritis was not definitively established at the time, and it is important to note that diagnosing and understanding disease mechanisms were far less advanced in 1918 than they are now.

Patrick’s brother Joseph was listed as the informant on his death registration, and Joseph either did not know or was unwilling to give Maud’s name. 

Patrick was buried in an unmarked grave in the Catholic Section of the Broken Hill Cemetery, Grave L by Fr. H.G. Maguinness. 
 
It is unknown what became of Maud, though she might be the Maud Burns that died on April 27, 1937, in Forbes, New South Wales and is buried in West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide, in the grave at Road C Extension, Path 28N, Aspect E, Site Number 53.  This Maud Burns is buried with Myrtle Wilma Josephine Runge who was a widow from Allenby Gardens.  We do not know who Myrtle was or how she and Maud were connected. 
 
It is sad when a family member leaves such a small footprint on history.  Who knows what affects Patrick and Maud had on their friends and family.  Hopefully, some photos or stories still exist in other lines of the family just waiting to unveil themselves to us.