EULOGY FOR EDNA SMITH

I had the privilege of being the host and the principal eulogist at the memorial gathering for my aunt, Edna Smith, on 30 July, 2004.  This is a slightly edited version of the words I spoke.  I’m posting it as a Piece of family history.

Welcome

Welcome everybody.  I am Gary Andrews, Edna’s nephew.  We are here today to pay our respects to Edna Smith, and to remember her as she was, and for what she was.  There are relatively few of us.  This is not because Edna was short of friends, but there was a loosening of the ties when she moved to Bendigo some years ago having lived in Williamstown for 34 years; and the reality is that, at 88, she had outlived many of her friends and acquaintances.  And Edna had outlived all the family of her generation, so her death is a poignant moment in family history.

Eulogy

Edna grew up as Edna Frances Joyce.  She was born at Waitchie in the Victorian Mallee country, to Agnes and Edward Joyce of Chinkapook, a little further up the line.  My grandfather, Edna’s father, was known universally as Teddy; but granny Joyce (although her grandchildren referred to her as Aggie – not to her face of course!) outside the family was always Mrs. Joyce.  Indeed I remember my grandmothers - when women in their late seventies who had known each other for forty or more years and whose children had married - addressing each other as Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. Joyce……such were the formalities of their times.  I mention this because it is a clue to Granny Joyce’s dour nature.  Pop Joyce was from Irish stock and, at least as I remember him when an old man, was a jolly joker, poking kids in the ribs with his walking stick, that sort of thing; never seeming to have a care, and generally quite irascible.  With his beard, and the twinkle in his eye, he rather resembled George Bernard Shaw. 

Granny Joyce, of Cornish ancestry, was a study in contrast.  Life for her was a serious matter.  I never saw her smile, not even for the camera, and I’m sure a joke – any joke – would have passed her by without recognition.  No discernable sense of humour.  However, she accepted life, and I doubt that she was a complainer – other than to complain that Teddy (at 85 mind you) was a lazy old goat, and why didn’t he go out and chop some wood for the fire.  But life could never have been easy for her, living with the hardships of life in the Mallee, becoming the postmistress in Chinkapook and taking in boarders when Teddy couldn’t make a living as a farmer, losing one child when a few weeks old, and bearing and raising nine others.

Edna was the last child but one, and she inherited, I think, more of her mother’s nature than her father’s.  Edna was not dour - she certainly knew how to laugh, and she had the sense of humour that her mother didn’t – but underneath she was a serious soul.  At stages of her life, particularly in Numurkah and in Sea Lake and later in Williamstown, she was a regular churchgoer, although she gave up attending the church in Williamstown after her husband Sid’s death, because of unhappy associations.  She would no doubt have entered “Christian” on the census forms, both from conviction and from a sense of propriety. She had the moral precepts of her generation, but with a sharp edge.  When my wife Anne and I were newly engaged, and we embarked on a country tour to show Anne off to “the aunts”, we arrived at Sea Lake to meet Edna and Sid and to stay the night with them.  Edna without any provocation announced that we had beds in separate rooms, and there would be none of  “that hanky-panky” under her roof! 

So the bright and bubbly ways of the Edna we all knew were possibly something of a veneer that she had developed – doubtless sub-consciously - to cover a more serious nature.  Edna and Sid were married while Edna was quite young, and perhaps she longed for the extra years of “freedom” that others had.  I say freedom in quotes, because Edna was constrained only by circumstances.  After marriage she was never in employment, so maybe she had an unfulfilled dream.  Who knows?  But she did express regret at never having earned a wage. 

Perhaps there was some resentment over economic circumstances.  In the early years Sid was bringing home a junior bank officer’s pay – not the stuff of dinners at the Windsor, but certainly nowhere near the bottom of the economic ladder.  Yet Edna was always so careful with money, so concerned to make do and to save, and I suspect that this was a reflection of her underlying seriousness. The carefulness with money stayed with her long after money should have been of no concern.

After marriage Sid and Edna lived in Chinkapook, Ballarat, Caulfield, Heidelberg, Numurkah, Sea Lake and Williamstown; and then Edna’s final shift to Bendigo.  The moves were triggered by Sid’s career. Wherever she moved Edna accumulated and cultivated a new group of friends, and she had a number of enduring friendships.  She was ever the loving and proud wife of Sid “the Bank Manager”, and mother of Fay “the Hairdresser”, and Sue “the Nurse”.  Sid didn’t live to a great age – retired at 65, dead at 71 - but during his happy years of retirement he and Edna travelled a lot around Australia, and they spent winter breaks in Queensland and northern New South Wales - a good time for them both.

Edna was a caring and community-minded person – and always busy.  Over the years she did work for many charities – the Red Cross, the Blind Auxiliary, Williamstown Hospital Op Shop, the Church coffee shop.  And she belonged to the Country Women’s Association, the Church Guild, the Williamstown Writers’ Group, and the ABC Poets’ Corner.  It is these latter interests that reveal a special feature of Edna’s middle to later years.  She had artistic talent, and it blossomed in Williamstown. She wrote poems and stories, many of which were published by the Williamstown Writers’ Group.  She completed HSC Art as a mature age student, and then attended art classes in Melbourne.  She became known for her pencil drawings, typified in her hand-made greeting cards.  She was proud of her talents, and rightly so, but was also self-deprecating – “not good enough”.  And in addition to these more formal artistic pursuits, no-one will be surprised that she filled her life with sewing, knitting, crocheting, pottery and gardening.

But, above all, Edna was focussed on family – husband Sid, her two daughters Fay and Sue and their families:  the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  And her sisters and brother, and nieces and nephews.  As one of those nephews I saw quite a bit of Edna over the years, especially while growing up.  My family lived in Richmond, and the Smiths lived in Heidelberg.  I can remember numerous Saturday afternoons when Gloria, my mother, would take my sister Margaret and me on a visit…….tram along Bridge Road, walk to West Richmond station, train to Heidelberg, then the long walk along Burgundy Street and then Cape Street to number 162.  The afternoon spent playing with Fay and Sue, our mothers chatting; Sid invariably toiling in his large vegetable garden.  And then the time I stayed for some weeks at Cape Street recovering from an illness, Edna always solicitous – although not so sympathetic that she didn’t hassle me to eat my greens.  I won.

From more recent years there are some special memories, in particular a couple of occasions when I was able to take Edna (with other family members) on a sentimental journey back to Chinkapook.  Edna’s brother who had died as a baby is buried in a bush grave in a public reserve not far from the Chinkapook township – a lonely spot, with a broken-down netting fence, known to few.  So we decided to place a commemorative plaque to identify the grave.  Edna, who had never known this brother, felt deeply about the appropriateness of the marker, and was so pleased to see it in place.  The knowledge of the dead baby brother had been with her all her life, and the plaque was for her, I think, the symbol of closure.

 

Some other Edna memories:  in addition to family and friends she loved blue glass, babies, birds, books, lollies and colourful scarves!  She really disliked smells, especially the odour of tom cats – so to deter them she placed mothballs around her front door…..but she had to give that idea up, because the grandchildren thought they were koolmints!

The great tragedy of Edna’s late life was the death last year of her daughter, Fay.  It is not in the natural order of things that parents should outlive their children, and the death of a child – of whatever age – must be the ultimate heartbreak.  Fay had been in serious ill-health for some years, and her death was not unexpected – and may, in a sense, have been a relief for Edna.  But who can judge how deep the pain?

Speaking of pain, I should like to read you an essay that Edna wrote some eight years ago when she was 79 or 80.  It is evidence of what a skilful and evocative writer she had become – notable for someone with so little formal education.  But more than this.  The piece is biographical, and harks back to Edna’s earliest recollections; and in hearing it you will, I think, learn of an early shadow, something which Edna became reconciled to, but which was nevertheless one of the threads of her life.  It is titled “A Special Bond”:

           

“On hot oppressive nights the brilliant moonlight poured through the open bedroom window, lighting the room almost as daylight.  I shared a huge iron and brass bed with my two sisters – we the youngest of a family of ten.  I was the middle one – the others three years each side of me, but somehow I was, or always seemed to be, the odd one out.  I hugged my side of the bed along the wall in my aloneness, for the others slept in the comfort of each other’s nearness – the older arm protectively encircling the younger body.  That is how it always was, and I suppose I was envious, maybe jealous, for I always had a protective love for my younger sister too.  The older one and I, well, we did battle often and never did see eye to eye.  But growing up gave us a better perspective and we became friends.

We all eventually married, became mothers and grandmothers.  In earlier days, though miles apart and living different life-styles, through our loving parents we always remained in close contact.  In later years the other two lived in adjacent suburbs, so their closer bond continued.

But sadly with the years came a reversal of roles.  For it is the younger that (now) keeps a protective arm over the older, who resides in a home for Altzheimer’s patients.  It is the younger who watches over with weekly visits and continues the loving bond, taking happiness and laughter to “the one that can’t remember”.

As I live on the opposite side of town and do not use public transport any more, I feel as though perhaps I am still on “the other side of the bed”!  But with the wisdom age brings I no longer feel the aloneness, for I know that, as the last of the family of ten, we three share a special something.  And I shall always be grateful and give thanks for the other two – as they were – on their “side of the bed”.

  

How fateful that the three sisters have died within 13 months of each other.

Several years ago, after much persuasion from Sue, Edna agreed to leave Williamstown and to move to Bendigo Retirement Village.  She loved the surroundings, especially the native trees and the bird life - the blue wrens and the wattlebirds who splashed in her birdbath.  She felt she was “at home”, or at least nearer to her original home, her much-loved Mallee.

More recently, with increasing short-term memory loss, and the need for care, Edna moved to Holdsworth Manor – not such a welcome shift.  But she was settling in…….when she had to go to hospital for three weeks; and then seven weeks’ rehabilitation to deal with leg and hip pain.  Unfortunately this experience caused a further decline in her condition, both physical and mental; but, thankfully, she was able to return to the very caring and supportive surrounds of her home at Holdsworth Manor.

Towards the end Edna still occasionally showed her sense of humour, her strength of will, her feisty spirit.  And her gratitude - to staff, to friends at Holdsworth Manor, and to friends and family who visited - also showed through.

Edna loved dancing, and once told Sue that she would have loved to be in a chorus line.  To farewell her we are going to hear some of the little swan music from Swan Lake, the ultimate dancing ambition; and Glen Miller’s “In the Mood”, music that perhaps long ago Edna danced to in the Chinkapook Hall.

Rest in peace, little Eddy.

Gary Andrews