Bereavement Services4739 1999

Thank YouWe thank you most sincerely for your prayers, comfort and presence here today.

After the Funeral Mass the cortége will proceed to Macquarie Park Cemetery North Ryde for interment.

After which, you are invited to join us for refreshments in the Banksia Function Room at Macquarie Park.

Rare sighting of Ethel at Blue Lagoon Beach.

“How far you go in your life depends on your being tender with the young,compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving,

and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your lifeyou will have been all of these.”

George Washington Carver.

Mass of Christian Burial for

Ethel Josephine Darvall

10.2.1924 ~ 11.9.2011

Our Lady of the Way Catholic Church Emu PlainsMonday 19th September 2011

Presiding Priest ~ Fr. Robert Anderson

On January 8th, 1949, Ethel and Tony married at the Catholic Church at Bondi. They lived at Lidcombe over the laundry that Tony managed. Ethel provided dress making and alterations.

They built their new home at West Ryde where they devotedly raised their 5 children: James, Ken, Phillip, Catherine and Patricia. Ethel was a fulltime homemaker creating extraordinary dishes out of mince meat, wonderful chocolate sauce puddings, homemade cakes, ice cream and making her children’s clothes.

In her early 40’s Ethel won a car full of groceries. Great excitement - the children introduced to a variety of “exciting canned food” and an opportunity for Ethel to learn to drive.

As her children grew up Ethel returned to the workplace doing a variety of jobs and having a variety of experiences. As children married and had children, Tony and Et delighted in being grandparents.

Ethel retired not long after her husband and they made a serious commitment to travel. In 1980 Tony and Ethel sold their home at West Ryde and retired to their newly built home at Bateau Bay. Tony died at home after a battle with cancer in 1985 and Ethel continued living at Bateau Bay until 1998. Never a beach goer, Ethel instead enjoyed the view of the ocean from the kitchen window and the trees.

Ethel, sharply aware of her change in status as a widow, nevertheless, embraced life and activity studying culinary courses at TAFE and undertaking training to support children in the local school with reading and catechism. Ethel undertook all her activity with great enthusiasm and commitment.

Ethel, following in her mother’s footsteps, continued travelling the world with inheritances she had the good fortune to come by.

In 1998 at age 74, Ethel moved down to Albion Park to be near her daughter Cathy and her growing family. Cathy and Ethel had a lot of fun and morphed into Kim and Cath before our very eyes! Cathy became Ethel’s primary carer and looked after Ethel with great care as Ethel’s dementia slowly started to manifest.

Ethel entered into the age care system in 2006, first with supported low care and finally high care at Emu Plains.

A brief biography(little) Ethel was born the youngest of 3 children to (big) Ethel and Ossie Harrison on the 10th February 1924 - a beautiful Aquarian! - in Sydney.

Her mum, was one of 10 children of the O’Learys from Milthorpe. Her dad hailed from New Zealand.

Little Ethel and her siblings Cliff and Peggy grew up in cake shops. Ossie was a pastry cook and big Ethel looked after the shop (2 in Drummoyne). This heritage was responsible for Ethel not having a taste for “bought cakes” - they would never match her dad’s - and a keen taste bud for distinguishing whether real butter had been used in cooking and not settling for less than real butter!

Little Ethel and her siblings were raised by housekeepers while her parents looked after the shop. Sunday was a big family day out in the Buick and long drives.

Ethel and her sister also had a short time boarding at the Catholic school at Five Dock in their early primary years. The children often went for stays with their beloved grandma, Delia Mary, at the farm in Milthorpe. Here the children delighted in time with the O’Leary clan and schooling at the local Milthorpe convent. Ethel remembered vividly at age 8, the day her beloved grandma died.

A major milestone for Ethel was passing her intermediate in 1937 at the age of 13 at her local Catholic school. Ethel was actively dissuaded from sitting for the exam and sat next to Mercia, a young woman of 17 which made the victory even sweeter!

At aged 14, little Ethel’s parents separated and her father returned to New Zealand. She remembers farewelling him with her sister and his tears on her suede gloves. Her brother Cliffy, by this time also trained as a pastry chef went with his father for support.

Her mother, a woman ahead of her time, got her license, a car and established herself as an independent business woman running a boarding house and in later years, with the return of her son, cake shops in Bondi.

Ethel went on to study dressmaking, pattern making and designing. She had a successful career in the “rag trade” and looked fabulous in her dresses and hats that she designed and made.

Ethel met her future husband while on a bus tour with her mother to Adelaide. Anthony also from Sydney was on a different bus tour. They met in the barn dance at the Adelaide Town Hall on New Year’s Eve. A courtship continued on the trip home, with Ethel & Tony reuniting at each tour stop to the delight of fellow passengers.

continued on the inside back cover…

The Irish Funeral PrayerDeath is nothing at all,I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am, I, and you are you.Whatever we were to each other,That we are still.

Call me by my old familiar name,Speak to me in the easy wayWhich you have always used.Put no difference in your tone,Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughedAt the little jokes we enjoyed together.Let my name be ever the household wordThat it always was,Let it be spoken without effort,Without a trace of shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.It is the same as it ever was;There is unbroken continuity.Why should I be out of mindBecause I am out of sight?I am waiting for you, for an intervalSomewhere very near,Just around the corner.

All is well.

Canon Henry Scott-Holland

“If we weeded our minds like we weeded the garden, we would be much happier”

“Never mind… look on the bright side!”

“I remember I put it in a very safe place…”

“When your knees start knocking, kneel on them”

“I bloom where I am planted”

“I have had a good life”

“It’s a dull day when you don’t learn anything”

“It’s a good day when you are breathing”

“I’m never alone”