St Mark’s JULY 2013 IN THIS ISSUE Inspiring legacies continue Distinguished Alumni recognised Scholarships celebrate student achievement S T MARK’S COLLEGE | THE UNIVERSITIES OF ADELAIDE | PENNINGTON TERRACE NORTH ADELAIDE BETTY LEWIS A REN’T WE LUCKY! EULOGY FOR BETTY LEWIS, READ BY MARGIE LEWIS St Mark’s is indeed very lucky to have had such a long association with Betty Lewis. The She was the firstborn child of Archie and Babs entire College community was saddened to Price. In the preface to Archie's biography, hear of Betty’s death in March 2012. We were Geoffrey Blainey described meeting him at a fortunate that Betty was able to spend her conference near the sand dunes of the Murray final days at the College, recalling to alumni of Mouth, the waves pounding the beach as all ages her memories of her earlier College they talked: "his interest in the ocean, land life and her 88 year association with St Mark’s. and environment - human or geographical - was intense. In old age, a deep curiosity Betty was very young when the College was one of his strengths." The biography opened in 1925, but she witnessed the infancy itself described Betty’s mother, Babs, as an of the College and had grown up with it. She exceptional beauty, Archie's equal in intellect, recalled, “my brother and I slept out on the and matching in a steadfast way her husband's open verandah of Downer House, open to driving energy. What was clear was that theirs the park opposite. My bed was just outside was a partnership, a team, and it was into this the window of the men’s dining room where I loving environment that Betty was born in heard some good speeches and much laughter 1917, followed soon after by the irrepressible but I never understood any of the jokes!” boys, Charles and Kenneth. Betty touched many people and organisations Archie became the first Master of St Mark's with her warmth, enthusiasm, genuine interest College, sleeping behind a curtain in his and vitality. Her constant refrain was “Aren’t study until there was room in the College for we lucky!”. the family to join him when Betty was aged seven. It must have been a strange family life: Betty was not permitted to talk to any of the students as she walked through the courtyard to school at Creveen up on Kermode Street, but could hear their laughter from the dining 2 | St Mark’s College hall from where she slept on the verandah friends. The Matron clearly thought the new of Downer House, although she claimed she recruits flighty, and naive certainly they were. didn't understand what they were laughing at. In those days, they learnt on the job. Betty recalls the day she and another nurse were By contrast with the mischievous younger laying out a patient who had just died. The brothers, Betty seems to have been a following morning the patient in the next bed golden-haired girl: she only recalls her father asked querulously where her false teeth were. reprimanding her once. She came top of the The two nurses looked at each other in horror state in History in Intermediate, though it took and raced to the morgue to retrieve the teeth. three attempts for her to pass Maths. Life after school at Creveen and Woodlands was There had been a number of marriage taken up with overseas travel with her much proposals (she thought perhaps half a dozen) loved Grannie Hayward and another trip with in the relatively carefree days before the war, her parents when Archie was researching but it was not until 1943 that she married Bob the Navaho Indians. There was also an Lewis and there began a devoted partnership attempt at Invergowrie, the mothercraft of nearly 66 years. Bob’s appointment as hostel in Melbourne, to overcome her lack of Vice-Master of St Mark's meant a renewed domestic skills, engendered by growing up relationship for Betty with her childhood home. in a university college, with no access to a It was there, from 1946 to 1967, they raised kitchen. There she learnt with some difficulty their four children, Diana, David, Trish and to separate eggs without breaking the yolks me. A brief sojourn in Downer House (that (apparently it took her 12 eggs to achieve verandah featured again as a sleeping place!) the required four unbroken yolks and the was followed by many comfortable years Invergowrie students had to have scrambled in the next door Lodge. Betty served as a eggs for breakfast the next morning.) Cooking gracious hostess to students, staff and visiting never became one of her strengths. scholars (how we children recall handing around her crystallized grapefruit to groups Then the shadow of the war came, and a of freshers year after year!) and she used her move to nurse at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, nursing training to act as an unofficial matron along with some who were to prove lifelong for sick students. St Mark’s College | 3 BETTY LEWIS CONT... Bob’s work as President of the National Trust Perhaps, then, it was no surprise that her final meant the continuing pleasure of visiting weekend reflected so fully her various interests. statewide groups, in this case the National Trust Until late on Friday night at the 30th anniversary country branches. They each became Patron of dinner marking Women in St Mark’s, Betty was Old Government House, and life members of the in sparkling form. The next morning she drove Nature Foundation. In 1985 Betty was elected up to the Adelaide Hills to the AGM of The a member of the St Mark’s Council, only the Friends of Old Government House (“because I second woman to be so, and in 1995 was made hadn’t been to that for a while”, she said), then an Honorary Fellow for her lifelong contribution back to St Mark’s to regale them with stories to the College which had been, and was to of early days in the College’s life. Church on continue to be, such a large part of her life. Sunday, a drink with Ann Price that evening and then, as far as we can tell, gently dying When in 2002 Bob and Betty reluctantly the next morning, having done her Monday moved down to town, an article in the Mt morning duty of fetching in the newspapers Barker Courier heralded their departure: for herself and the neighbours. As her nephew “Passionate environmentalists leave their mark James Price said, “What a fabulous way to go.” on the Hills.” A difficult wrench it was, but on Hard as it might be for those of us left behind, the evening after their move, Betty sat in her I believe she was becoming conscious of her new dining room and said yet again “Aren’t we faltering memory, and she had so hated seeing lucky” (this time because the removalists had her friends and family diminished by old age, been “such nice men”!) she would I think, if asked, have repeated her usual refrain: “Aren’t I lucky!” It was the beginning of a remarkable final ten years. As Bob became increasingly Betty joined members of the College frail, Betty’s stamina and dedication were community on 2nd and 3rd March to celebrate extraordinary. She undertook a constant round 30 years since women were first admitted to of medical appointments to enable him to live the College – a fitting celebration for Betty. his life more fully. The final two years of his life, when his deafness and frailty meant she Her daughter, Patricia recalled, “We can’t be had lost the companion she so much adored, certain what the secret of her long and happy were hard to bear. life was, but we can feel confident that many factors played a part. When Betty was in Betty herself tended to ignore the gradual Melbourne and came to have lunch with my encroachments of old age. Astonished a few work colleagues recently, one asked her “What years later to find that she was unable to get is the secret of your long and happy life?” up from the sand at Chiton beach without assistance, she went off to weekly classes She replied in her unassuming way ‘It is to keep up her strength and fitness. Aged because I have been loved all my life’.” 92, she capped a lifelong love of travel with a trip to Rome. “It’s a long journey: don’t She certainly was. expect her to have energy for sightseeing,” her ever-supportive doctor, Bill Britten-Jones The St Mark’s community wishes to thank warned. She arrived armed with a list of the Lewis family, particularly Betty’s children, places she wanted to see and kept suggesting for their ongoing support and interest in more throughout the fortnight as she re-read the College. Michelangelo’s biography. 4 | St Mark’s College T hree alumni were recognised with 2012 D r Ratomir Antic (Alumnus 1960 – 62) was BIRTHDAY QUEEN’S Queen’s Birthday Honours, with two accepted awarded an AM for service to thoracic as members in the general division (AM) and medicine as a clinician, administrator and one a companion in the general division (AC). mentor, and to people affected by asthma. Friend of the College, The Hon David Hawker was also recognised for his work. D r James Muecke (Alumnus 1982 – 87) also received an AM for service to ophthalmic The Honourable Robert Murray Hill (Alumnus medicine, to the provision of eye health 1965 – 66) was awarded an AC for eminent services and rehabilitation programs for service to the Parliament of Australia, Indigenous and South East Asian communities, particularly through the development and to professional organisations.