Alma and Anthony Baynie: from Lebanon to Australia. 

Here is their remarkable story…

After being born and raised in Bane, a tiny village high in the mountains of Lebanon, Anthony (Tannous) Baynie, 22 yrs, and Alma (Kharma) Mouhayet, 16 yrs, married at St Joseph’s Church, Bane on May 8, 1915. The church had been built by Alma’s great-grandfather Mikael Mouhayet.

During Anthony’s younger years, the Baynie family had been financially secure with sufficient land near the village to grow crops to sustain themselves. However, by the time Anthony was in his 20s, an avalanche of catastrophes for Lebanon, such as WWI, famine, the Spanish flu pandemic and political change, made for unsettling times in their homeland. With two young daughters, Emily and Adeaby and one on the way, the family made the decision to emigrate to Australia in 1925.

After a long journey by sea and a lost wallet and travel documents due to an unfortunate incident in Melbourne, the family arrived in Sydney on April 17 with little English and no money, but into the welcoming arms of the close knit small Lebanese community of Redfern. Some Lebanese families had arrived before WWI and established clothing and haberdashery businesses in Redfern which helped many new migrant families with a start. With the skills of a farmer’s son and a bootmaker by trade, Anthony quickly worked very hard to provide for his family. After a few months, the family moved to the Hornsby Shire where Anthony could provide for them as a boot repairer and a gardener, and they were able to establish themselves in their new community.

Their third daughter, and first Australian born member of the family, Mary Margaret Baynie was born at the Royal North Shore Hospital in August 1925. Between 1927 and 1936 Anthony and Alma would go onto have five more children, Margaret, Peter, Jean, Joseph and John.

After living in Wahroonga, Waitara and Hornsby for a few years, they managed to buy their first home ‘Roebuck’, in Central Avenue, Thornleigh in 1928. In 1930 they purchased some vacant blocks of land near their house and by 1943 they had purchased ‘Green Oak’ 247 Pennant Hills Road. They established a market garden on their land which was mostly worked by Alma and her older daughters. Their next purchase was a dairy on Sefton Road where they ran a small herd of cows and goats which provided milk, cream and butter for the family. In 1967 they then purchased ‘Somerset Park’ which was located next door to ‘Green Oak’ on Pennant Hills Road.

In the short time since arriving in 1925, they had progressed from being literally penniless to owning a small parcel of land which exceeded the entire family holding in Bane.

The family attended St Joachim’s Catholic Church at Thornleigh where Anthony and Alma met many new friends and improved their English over time.

Anthony applied for Naturalisation in 1932 and by that time he was economically and socially part of the Thornleigh community. He wanted to be recognised as an Australian British subject. He became an Australian citizen in 1979.

Through sheer hard work and determination by all members of the family, not only did they prosper, but they were altruistic and responsible for the migration of thousands of Maronite Catholics from Bane to Australia.

Mary (Baynie) and Frank Brown: Family, Thornleigh and a very charitable life…

Anthony and Alma encouraged and welcomed the relationships their children naturally formed with their non-Lebanese partners. They saw this as a wonderful way to develop their Australian cultural links. After love at first sight in 1943, Mary, the Baynie’s third child, married ex-soldier Frank Brown on February 23, 1946, at St Joachim’s Church, Thornleigh. Around 400 people crammed into the Thornleigh School of Arts for their wedding reception. The happy couple honeymooned in the Blue Mountains.

Mary and Frank built a shed to live in down the back of their block of land at 251 Pennant Hills Road, which was a subdivision of ‘Green Oak’, before building their family home at the front. They went on to have six children: David, Anthony, Josephine, twins Monica and Elizabeth, and Peter Brown.

Mary and her sisters Emily and Deaby were excellent sewers and in the early 50’s they opened a clothing factory called ‘Greenoak Manufacturing’ at the rear of the family property. Not only were these Baynie women very industrious for themselves, but their motivation included providing training and temporary employment for many of the young Lebanese girls who arrived in Australia. In the 70s and early 80s Mary also helped many Vietnamese women who had arrived in Australia to escape their war-torn homeland. Mary was known to loan some of these women an industrial sewing machine to use in their home so they could continue to earn an income while they raised their children.

Mary helped the new families find homes to either buy or rent and became a well-known personality to the local real estate agents and bank managers. Once her own children were off to school, Mary also assisted the mothers to enrol their children into school. At one time there were so many children of Lebanese background applying at the local Catholic school, St Agatha’s, that they set up a desk for her to handle all those enrolments.

She also helped them finding employment, completing immigration and government documents, etc, as well as finding them a doctor and a maternity hospital to have their babies. It should be noted that many young Lebanese girls were named Mary in her honour.

Mary fancied herself as a match maker, which in turn lead her to organising weddings and during the 50s to 70s, along with her sister Emily’s skilled assistance, created most of the wedding dresses, all of them without charge.

Mary’s reputation spread far and wide throughout the Sydney Lebanese community to the extent that many Lebanese migrants from other Lebanese villages made their way to her and the Baynie family looking for assistance. Mary Brown was considered a living Saint by the first-generation Lebanese in Sydney.

Mary was supported in her extraordinary outreach by her devoted husband Frank and their children. Frank was equally valued as Mary was by the Lebanese community, since they knew how significant his support of Mary and the household was in the charitable work she did.

Although Mary never visited Lebanon herself, in 2018 her son David made the pilgrimage to Bane to learn more about his Baynie family history. He was amazed how well his mother was still known and how her altruism was remembered and honoured. Although Anthony and Alma left the village over 90 years earlier, there were some who remembered them fondly as well.

As Cedars Grow