After living fiercely and independently for 96 years and one week Marion McLay passed away peacefully and quickly on April 27, 2020 -three heart attacks in quick succession the cause.
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Her passing was preceded in death by her husband Keith McLay, 22 years earlier. Theirs was a love affair characterised by Mother's entrepreneurial schemes and Father's moderation of those schemes.
Together they raised four children in Yetman, New South Wales - Roslyn, Ross, Margo and Sue. Sadly, their third child, Ian died aged 13.
Mother was born in the small Victorian town of Kerang, close to the Murray River border on April 20, 1924, the eldest of four children, the only daughter and a most beautiful baby with curly black hair and the milkiest white complexion.
After boarding at Canberra Girls Grammar School, Mother had to leave before achieving her senior certificate to afford her brothers their education; but this was not a deterrent for her career success at the Postmaster Generals where very quickly she was supervising a large team of telephonists.
At the end of World War II, she met and married Father who had left the Australian Navy (she claimed that she had lots of boys who wanted to marry her, but Father was the love of her life). The Commonwealth Public Service law precluded her from continuing her career because of marriage.
As a bride she was totally gorgeous, wearing a gown made from a piece of silk her eldest brother had bought home from Japan at the end of the war.
Throughout her life she was never caught short looking less than tidy nor without her signature bright red lipstick. Even in her 90s, I was often instructed to go shopping to find her a lovely silk blouse and I was always supplying her with endless sets of clip-on earrings and beads, to match the silk blouses.
She maintained a healthy vanity all her life and she certainly would never allow her grey hair to show.
After they were married, Father joined the NSW Police Force and was posted to Boggabilla and later to Yetman.
However, becoming frustrated with the pace of career progression with the Police, he left and pursued a career in business - becoming the local butcher, Elders Stock and Station agent, running the monthly Yetman cattle sales and later, with Mother, building a successful piggery in Yetman.
Mother was intimately involved in the family business. Their relationship was modern in a time when modern was often unusual. They would sit every night over a sherry, before the ABC News and discuss business and how best to progress.
Their roles were split;- Mother managing a herd of cattle and the animal husbandry side and Father buying stock and grain for the piggery. She was in that era where many women squirmed at being called feminists, but she absolutely qualified because she just got on and did things without question.
Together they both shared an eye for a good beast, and regularly took out the best ham at the regional shows. But it is Mother's independent character that stands out.
She was a genuine life enthusiast who lived an unapologetic life, 'occasionally' driving her family nuts with her bloody mindedness. Mother lived each and every day with purpose and intent, pivoting around her family, her local community and her businesses.
She was deeply interested in people and maintained many friendships. She was always organising bus trips or local street event parties, which continued well into her 90s.
She ascribed her long and healthy life to all the vitamins she'd prescribed herself since turning 60 and then later to some oxygen therapy (unproven) that she'd cottoned onto...anything to keep her going and extend her life.
She easily made new friends and she always made the people around her feel happier after they met. She was active in CWA, Gardening Club, Legacy, the local LNP, RSL and despite being the oldest resident in her street, hosting Australia Day parties and hanging Christmas lights until just a few years ago.
All her nieces and nephews and grandchildren regularly called to see what she was up to. After selling the Yetman farm and piggery, she moved to Stanthorpe and bought a house and proceeded to build the most magnificent garden full of roses and shrubs.
At around 80, she gained a gun licence and also a hotel licence (the oldest woman in Australia to do so) and bought the Codfish Hotel in Yetman and Oasis Hotel in Yelarbon.
She was passionate about making her pubs pivotal community meeting places for those little towns. Apparently, the local bank manager was a bit taken aback when he realised that his new client making a loan application was in her eighties.
Mother's father was a Gallipoli veteran so on her 80 th birthday she attended the Dawn ANZAC Day ceremony at Gallipoli. Mother has departed our lives leaving a legacy of being 'a doer'. Hope was not a strategy that she ascribed to. Her passing was typical of how Mother lived.
Single minded, decisive, and never mucking around wasting time. Notably, my last ever 15 minutes with her was all advice, counsel, and a warning about the impeding recession. No time to waste...we were under COVID hospital visiting restrictions.
More than anything, Mother hated people fussing over her and I'm convinced that once she knew that her heart was not going to be useful for much longer, it was her firm and final plan to say her last goodbyes and that was that.