Alice Crist

Alice Guerin Crist

Authoress

And the good old engine's singing, and our hearts are singing too,
While the magpies pipe a chorus, and the air's like sparklin' fizz.
And we're going to the races in the Old Tin Liz.

'Old Tin Liz' Alice Guerin Crist

Crist pursued an active literary career despite long years when she had to concentrate on farm work and the domestic care of her children. She was a prolific writer of verse and short fiction and published widely in the Australian press including the Sydney Bulletin, The Worker, Steele Rudd's Magazine, The Home Budget, Toowoomba Chronicle, Catholic Advocate and the Catholic Press.

Her devout Irish Catholicism was associated with democratic politics and in 1902 she became a member of the Socialistic Democratic Vanguard. Crist was a long-term member and Vice-President of the Toowoomba Ladies Literary Societv, a cultural association that has played an important role in the promotion of the literary culture of the Darling Downs since 1913.

Crist tended to write about her rural and domestic experiences and frequently celebrated the natural beauty of the bush and the virtues and struggles of Irish Australian pioneers. A marked Celtic influence is discernable in poems about the nostalgic homesickness of Irish immigrants and in the sprites and faeries that pop up at the bottom of the garden in her nature verse and poems for children.

Public Memory Toowoomba's Literary History – Alice Guerin Crist http://www.publicmemory.org/ToowoombaLiteraryHistory/writerCrist.htm Accessed: 07/06/2006

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