Stella's Eulogy (Luke Kendall)
I first want to thank all those who have attended, or who have otherwise shown their respects today, and to Father Roger for holding the service here.
On the back of the Order of Service, you'll find some notes covering most of what you're supposed to cover, in a eulogy. As a historical reference, I hope Stella would approve. But it falls very short in telling you who Stella was. So with those other facts safely on record, in this eulogy I'll do my best to share my understanding of Stella the person.1 2 ←
I should say a little about Stella's health the last few years. She'd felt for a long time there was something going wrong with her memory. And as usual, she was right. By 2009 the decline was noticeable to others; and it was cruel, seeing her extremely sharp mind and remarkable planning skills whittled away. But it was a blessing in several ways; if not for that, in 2010 we wouldn't have discovered she'd developed lung cancer: early enough to allow surgery to remove it – all of it, we thought. But in 2012 we learned that it had spread. After some radiotherapy she was remarkably free of symptoms and needed no other treatment, and was in no real pain from it. And by then, CiSRA had allowed me to reduce to four days a week, and in the last year we had a carer, Anne, who'd come in to help her prepare some lunch, two days a week, and more recently, a very kind volunteer, Chris Barker, who'd visit on Tuesdays to encourage her to do a little gentle walking. So Stella managed this part of her life with her usual courage and pragmatism, and together we adapted and coped quite nicely, all things considered. And I think that's enough about her illness.
So I plan to share some stories. I'll start with one I only recently learned myself from her cousin Rosemary in England. Rosemary wrote that when Stella was about 12, the two of them stayed with their Grandma Fisher. The two young girls had been ordered by their mums to save some spending money so as to buy flowers for their grandmother when they left: but of course the two found themselves short when it came time to pay for the bunch they finally selected at the florist. Undeterred, Stella told Rosemary to stay behind her, and then pretended to be French and unable to understand what the woman was saying to them. In the end the florist got so fed up she just gave them the flowers and told them to get out! The flowers delighted Grandma Fisher, and Stella and Rosemary never let on how they did it.
She had bitter-sweet memories of her school days – somehow she never fit in properly, and she did say she was bullied at school. Though she herself could be quite a firebrand if sufficiently provoked.
She was a very adventurous person: in many ways much more so than me. She loved travelling and visiting new countries and experiencing new cultures, and hugely relished her early life serving in the R.A.F. Even if that meant being shoved down between the seats of a bus and hidden on the floor by the locals, to keep her out of sight when it was boarded by rebels during the Malay uprising; or ducking into a tattoo parlour to hide from passing MPs to avoid being discovered in an out-of-bounds area.
She met Paddy when they were both in the R.A.F, in Singapore, and they married in England and had three lovely daughters, who are all here today with their children, despite being dispersed around the country - in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Kangaroo Island.
I'll also tell you about a couple of very low points in her life.
When they emigrated here in 1968, Paddy got a job with Ansett as an aircraft engineer, in Dubbo. Stella would tell the story of their first barbeque in Australia, for which they'd been asked to bring a plate. Strange, thought Stella, they must be short of crockery, but they dutifully turned up with two empty plates, and no one was amused. Now, Stella would tell the story of that faux pas for a chuckle; but I wonder whether it had a bigger impact than that. I suspect it started them off on the wrong foot with the locals, and Stella really didn't fit in, in Dubbo. She told me she felt so out of place there that if she'd stayed, it would have killed her. I think for Stella, it was arid on too many levels. And she did suffer from bouts of depression – usually with no inciting cause we could determine – so I honestly think if she had stayed in Dubbo, her story would've had a much sadder and much earlier ending. Anyway, bearing a heavy load of guilt, she left Paddy and her three daughters, and moved to Sydney. Where, despite the guilt, she did indeed flower.
She rented a place at King's Cross and got a job at St Vincent's hospital – which she loved – working as a secretary to Professor Brian Dwyer. And after they discovered her artistic talents, she also worked as a medical illustrator, and she'd recount with relish how they'd occasionally plop down a liver or other organ in front of her and say “there, draw that.” She loved it. Likewise, attending an autopsy on a challenge, and not fainting as the instigator had hoped.
Stella was a quirky woman; perhaps you know of her 'sleeping stones'; or how she'd grow, harvest, and roast her own coffee in Marrickville. But she wasn't perfect: I'd have to say she had 'spotty' people skills; she missed nuances. For example, it may surprise some of you to know she worked in a brothel for a little while. But she worked there in all innocence, as a qualified masseuse. The Madame would use Stella when she suspected the client belonged to the police. If they did ask for “extra services”, Stella would indignantly explain “this is not that sort of establishment!” But she wasn't stupid, and did eventually cotton on. Her marriages, too, I think, were a bit hit-and-miss: I credit myself with being the cluey one of the two of us, in picking the right person to marry.
She was a practical feminist – she believed women and men were equal but different. That seems obvious now, but wasn't back then. Anyway, it was the people at St Vincent's Hospital who encouraged Stella to study at Sydney University, and it was there that Stella really blossomed.
To apply to enter as a mature-age student, she was told she needed to provide evidence she could learn. Now, they meant she needed to provide a document like the HSC results or equivalent. But Stella misunderstood. So she bought an Anglo Saxon dictionary, and set to work on her application. In due course the English Department received a most curious letter, inked on parchment, beautifully and painstakingly lettered Anglo Saxon – and they had to send it off to their resident expert, Bernie Martin, to actually read the thing! But it had a happy outcome: they did let her in; she graduated with Honours, and went on to work on a PhD. It was while she was doing this that she met and married Prof Ian Jack – her 2nd marriage, his 3rd - and which brings us I think to the 2nd major low point in Stella's life. The two of them were happy enough for some years, until one morning she rocked on in to the common room to be met by a slightly odd atmosphere, and to be casually asked “Have you read today's Telegraph?” She always said to me, that had been a cruel way to learn that Ian had cheated on her. The painful divorce came close to destroying her, I think – she sank very low. But she did pull through, in the end. And from my point of view, it was the greatest favour Ian could have done for Stella and myself; and possibly also for her great friend, Sybil Jack (Ian's 1st wife), and Ernest Ungar, whom Sybil met and later married. None of us would probably have met, otherwise.
Stella and I met in late 1984. A friend of mine, Helen Cram, was Stella's lodger, and we held a game there one day in the D&D campaign I was running. Stella was quite fascinated by the live story-telling and heroic questing aspects of it, and even more impressed by my cobbling a water conduit from a length of string, when the heavens burst and water started pouring down her inside walls. Soon after, she invited me over to discuss Proppian Morphology of the Folk Tale and how it might help create suitable quests for a role-playing game. This was in the afternoon, before the Friday evening's game being run by Jon Marshall. I didn't make it to the game that night.
Anyway, it very quickly became crystal clear to us both that we were kindred spirits, and an excellent match. Despite our 22 year age difference and wildly different backgrounds, I think we were more alike than we were different. We complemented each other beautifully.
I helped Stella with her thesis. Now, if you think computers don't have much to do with Narrative Form and Mediaeval Continuity in the Percy Folio Manuscript, you'd be right. Stella put in eight years of work on that, while I put in hours; along with occasional help from John Rosauer and Ross Cartlidge, who'd help out when Stella occasionally made some subtle error in her use of the Unix typesetting system's table macros that were beyond my skills to unravel. Her PhD was her master-work. It let her indulge her delight in solving mysteries, in digging to uncover the truth. And as a true scholar, she went to astonishing lengths to chase down a clue or to dig up a primary source; taking a kind of shocked pleasure each time she discovered some respected authority had not really sighted the primary reference he'd claimed, instead perpetuating an error from a secondary or even tertiary source. Though she never did unravel the mystery of the white willow wand which the Pirate William Barton would 'let down,' to the great fear of those who went up against him. But it was the experience that she gained on the computer side, and the deal we struck with my boss at the time – use of his equipment in return for Stella documenting the sign-writing system we'd developed – that led her to a very successful career as a contract technical writer. I still remember her delight when she modelled her very nifty yet professional black business suit and expensive black briefcase. Though she'd had to be pushed to do that by her 'head-hunter', Tom Marinov: she'd gone in to be interviewed by him in her usual jeans, comfy shoes, and jumper, and Tom had had to explain that the façade mattered, if she was going to win contracts to match her skills. And like many others who knew her, Stella is still vivid in his memory today.
Now, one of the things I noticed after we'd been together a few years, was how people tended to remember Stella, even after just a single meeting. She herself had noticed this, and pointed it out to me, but she never understood it. It's true that everyone is unique, but I think Stella was just kind of on another level when it came to 'uniqueness'.
We had an extremely happy marriage, and very loving and welcoming families on both sides. Through our relationship, I believe the two of us grew and developed and became better people as individuals; and by god we made a good team! Not to mention the many wonderful friends we had or acquired – Stella tended to gravitate to unusual and exceptional people. Some as unique in their own way as she herself, and now sadly missed: like Bob Stein, and Ernest Ungar. I think such people leave the world a much richer place than it was before they entered it.
Stella was always ready for an adventure. A friend taught me to ski, and I taught Stella, and for many years we'd go down to the NSW slopes with friends. We also both loved snorkelling, and even with her memory failing, she still remembered the strange crackling sounds made by a school of sardines we swam amongst in the aquamarine waters of Mana Island in Fiji. She loved the colour and energy of the street markets in Hong Kong, and we relished our visits there to Lou and Richard, and of course a very young Allie. I remember a nail-biting drive down to Jenolan Caves, the brakes failing just as we finished the descent to the village to coast out onto the flat; and later, the gruelling but exhilarating six hours crawling and climbing through underground caves. A hot air balloon trip; climbing the Harbour Bridge; tropical getaways; Stella patting tigers at Dreamworld; white-water rafting; climbing a 25-foot rock wall in her 60s at a CiSRA party, and encouraging others to have a go; the 'haunted' Sydney Quarantine Station; and before me: historical expeditions up to Cape York – Sam Elliot and The Wild Irish Girl, and making friends with an amazing bloke, John Hay; getting her private pilot's licence…. She lived life to the full, with gusto.
Like anyone, we faced trials and tribulations: but always together – none of our trials came from our relationship. We had a few fights, but you could literally count them on your fingers. In decimal.
I always had enormous respect for Stella. I was aware of her faults, which were few; and her strengths, which were many. She was a warm woman, a loving and kind-hearted woman. She loved animals in general and cats in particular. She loved to garden, to cook and host lavish dinner parties (each one documented afterwards!); she loved dancing, and books and reading. She loved to teach, and to share what she knew. She was hugely practical: I used to joke about “Stella's cobbles”, when she'd invent some odd way to solve some problem – but they worked! She anthropomorphised like crazy – when our 4.2L Cortina station-wagon of 15 years' noble service was finally destroyed by a driver making a right hand turn into us, clearly writing it off, we still had to visit it at the wreckers to say our goodbyes: where she had me crying alongside her. She was a brave woman, a strong woman, and a highly intelligent and creative woman, and I loved her deeply. I don't think we'll see her like, again.
1And I have a footnote here, to remind myself that if I tear up, I should just pause for a few seconds rather than try to choke the words out. I'm sure you'll all be patient with me.
2I also have a second footnote: if you notice people taking photos, that's as Stella requested in her will, so they can be added to her photo albums to complete the pictorial story of her life. A historian right to the end.