A BALLARAT MAN who almost became a Victorian premier and one who decades later did have focused on the great resilience in their hometown.
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Resilience, Mark Sheehan said, was a quality "without a doubt" that his father John proudly admired of how Ballarat can rally in tough times.
Mr Sheehan, backed by former Victorian premier Steve Bracks, acknowledged the horrid time the city had been experiencing the past three months with bushfires, a mining disaster and three high profile deaths of women alleged to have been killed at the hands of men.
He said his father always had faith in how the community stuck together to be stronger, and Mr Sheehan was confident this would set Ballarat people in good stead now.
Forty years have passed since John Sheehan's death and an event this week has marked his life story, penned by Mark Sheehan. What had started as a family history project was quickly realised by Mark as a Ballarat story and legacy worth reminding.
Mr Bracks launched the book at Ballarat High School, which boasts the JJ Sheehan wing, in an event hosted in the school's Peacock Hall.
The hall, with fresh stained glass windows unveiled in 2023, is steeped in the city's Anzac history that had been spared from becoming a gym or library in a campaign led by then principal-elect - as he called himself - John Sheehan.
Mr Bracks said John Sheehan was a great example of resilience and had long been a great champion for the city and its people.
Mr Sheehan was an active member of the Ballarat Returned and Services League, the lawn tennis club and trades hall. He was the inaugural Probus president and, as a WWII veteran, he led Legacy in Ballarat's post-war era as an education officer in helping ensure veterans' children received schooling.
And he could have been premier.
"When he first ran for parliament it was in the seat held by then-premier, the Liberal Tom Hollway. There was a three per cent swing but he lost then won the next election. John was all about resilience and giving back," Mr Bracks told The Courier.
"He was a great orator and very skillful politician but what took him out was the Labor Party split [in the 1950s] and the DLP [Democratic Labor Party] gave preferences to the Liberals. John could've been another Ballarat premier."
The parallels between their lives was not lost on Mr Bracks. They were both St Patrick's College alumni, embedded in the Catholic community, both stood for a Ballarat seat in parliament a couple of times - Mr Bracks was elected in the seat of Williamstown - and each developed careers in education.
Mark Sheehan was certain his father's understanding of government lobbying helped in achieving funding for this city - including successfully preserving Ballarat High's Peacock Hall for its true purpose as a war memorial.
Peacock Hall is where John Sheehan announced his retirement in 1976.
John Sheehan had been a pacifist in his university days but when war escalated in the Pacific, Mr Sheehan enlisted early and served predominantly in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. In returning to Australia, Mr Sheehan was based in Ballarat as an army education officer.
Mark Sheehan said his father had a "real affinity" for helping former servicemen; tradition and mateship meant a lot to him.
Diving into research of his father's life, Mark Sheehan found a wealth of history about his father at St Pat's and Loreto, which had been co-educational for young children - but he also found an old playbill in Linton Historical Society where his dad has written, produced and starred in a theatre production.
This was a man who, Mark Sheehan discovered, had been declared by Prime Minister Ben Chifley as one of the best orators he had heard.
Mr Sheehan said the playbill was further proof of his father getting involved in community life.
John Sheehan was born on May 9, 1916 and lived most of his life in Eyre Street.
His name can still be found on buildings across Ballarat for opening facilities in his role as Victorian Housing Minister, a position he held for a little more than two months in 1955, at the end of his three-year term in parliament.
