Career
She is best remembered for her legendary hospitality as owner and operator of Banka Banka Station, a cattle station and World World War II supply camp. In fact, she was known as "The Missuss of Banka Banka." Her short stature and delicate appearance belied her strength of character and confidence. By 1904, the family had moved to the Western Australian goldfields, living first at Kalgoorlie and then Coolgardie.
Mary began teaching at Tunneys State School in June 1915, and gained her junior cadet training certificate in September of the next year.
From 1918 to 1924 she taught at Kalgoorlie, Boulder and Carlisle. She was promoted to head teacher in 1924, and moved to Parkfield, Pingrup, Cottesloe, Wyering, Keysbrook and Latham before transferring to Wyndham, Western Australia in 1932.
After her husband"s death in 1959, Mary ably ran Banka Banka and the family"s other stations. She also owned a butcher shop at Tennant Creek, supplying it from a slaughterhouse on the property.
One of her cattle managers recalled that she spent money on the welfare of her Aboriginal staff – many of whom she trained in domestic and station duties – while economizing on repairs and improvements, and eschewing new management methods.
She was known to have dismissed white employees because of their ill treatment of Aborigines. She acquired five houses at Tennant Creek for her old retainers and, despite objections from the local town management board, arranged for construction in 1968 and 1969 of a large red-brick building to house former employees and their relatives. The "Mary Ward Hostel," as it was known in addition to the "Pink Palace," was later used for a range of community purposes.
Having no children of her own, Ward cared for the babies of her Warumungu employees.
In 1970, suffering ill health, Mary Alice Ward sold Banka Banka and moved to Adelaide, back in her native South Australia. She died on 27 July 1972, at her North Adelaide home, and was buried with Catholic rites in Centennial Park Cemetery.
