However, the story of Ned and Dan Kelly’s mother, Ellen, was a wealth of untold turmoil, grief and injustice.

Noelene’s decision to dig deeper into the history of the Kelly family matriarch’s life appears to have been a good one, with a large crowd at Forbes Library last week to hear Noelene talk about her book – ‘Ellen: a woman of spirit’.

While dozens of books have been written about the Kelly Gang and its notorious leader, Noelene was amazed that relatively few concerned Ellen.

She actually began researching Ellen’s life when coordinator of Beechworth’s historic precinct, in north-eastern Victoria.

“I was working with the Beechworth Courthouse at the time and it was decided there were not enough stories about the women who had been through the courthouse,” Noelene said.

“Her story just grabbed my attention, because of the injustice of the whole affair,” she said.

In October 1878, Ellen Kelly was sentenced to three years in Melbourne Gaol after being found guilty of the attempted murder of Constable Fitzpatrick, a police officer whom the Kelly family alleged had made unwelcome advances to Ellen’s daughter Kate.

She was still in prison when her son Dan was killed in the shootout at Glenrowan and her eldest boy Ned was subsequently hanged.

Noelene said the death of two of Ellen’s sons was just one of many hardships she faced in her 92 years.

By the time she died in 1924, Ellen Kelly had lost seven of 12 children, her first husband John ‘Red’ Kelly and her first grandchild.

Noelene said apart from the infamy of her sons, Ellen Kelly epitomised the tough pioneering women of colonial Australia.

“I think the pioneer women of that 1870s era were just unbelievably strong – they came out here, often from Ireland and the UK, from a cool country to the harshness of the Australian bush,” she said.

Noelene said she visited Forbes several times while researching her book, initially to find out more about the life of Kate Kelly - Ellen and John’s seventh child, who drowned in Lake Forbes in 1898 at just 36.

Noelene said Kate’s death was the culmination of a particularly rough time for Ellen, who lost another daughter Maggie, her grand-daughter and Kate within three years.

The author said while many people sympathised with Ellen Kelly at the time, she never received much recognition of the tribulations she faced.

“That’s what my book is for,” Noelene said.

“To give her the recognition I felt she had never been given, and to tell people her story and the injustices she had during her life.

“After everybody knocked her down, she just got back up again.”

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Advocate readers have the chance to win a signed copy of “Ellen: a woman of spirit’, published by NCS, by filling in the entry form in recent editions and returning it to the Advocate office before the close of the competition (2pm Friday, April 12).