Ruby was the youngest of nine children. After her mother died in 1904, she arrived by ship from Sydney then drove by horse and buggy out to Delamere Downs Station. She had came to the Territory to live with her uncle and aunt Mr and Mrs Paddy and Mariah Cahill. She moved with the Cahill family to Oenpelli helped with station cooking. During the five years in the bush, the teenager met John (Jack) Roney. They married in Sydney returned to the Territory to manage the Government Experimental Farm at the Daly River from 1916-1919. Having lost her first baby, she went to Sydney for their second child, Jack, born in 1919.
When the farm closed they went over to the Batchelor Experimental Farm until it finished. Then the Roneys, with their two sons, Terrence, born in the Territory in 1920 went on a holiday travelled south by ship for several months. They returned to live at Humpty Doo and in 1923 their daughter Monica was born at Darwin Hospital. After leaving Humpty Doo, the Roneys moved to Manbulloo and Willeroo Stations then Katherine. Her husband drank heavily and spent the income so Ruby made and sold bread, eggs, milk and meat from her goats and gave some away to other women in a similar situation to herself. Her husband died in Alice Springs, 13 December 1935. Ruby moved to Darwin and worked for the Commercial Bank.
When the war came Ruby, with her daughter Monica, were evacuated to Queensland by the American ship 'President Grant' two days before Christmas 1941. After the war was over they returned to live in Darwin.
Ruby Roney's horse Duncan won the Chloroform Cup. Source: Ogden, Pearl. Women of the Kath-rine. Winnellie: NT : Pearl Ogden.1994. p. 38.,
Subject
Women,
Northern Territory,
Related materials
Collins, Joy, "A Territorian's memories of a bygone era". Northern Territory News. 22 February 1965, p. 9.,