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A Eulogy for Lorna Cameron 11/11/2014

Lorna Cameron was my hero. She lived a life of

simple dignity and service. She believed in

impossible dreams and she made them come

true. She changed and shaped lives and hearts.

She was a warrior for feminism; a friend for

the lonely, an aide for the dispossessed and a

champion of justice. She lived what she

believed and inspired people well into her

nineties. She loved, and was loved and supported by many great friends. She will be

terribly missed.

Lorna Yates was born in Gippsland in 1920. Her father had just returned from France; from the war

that would end all wars. A hero with a military cross; post-traumatic shock and a farmer’s settlers

block to work. Lorna and her three siblings grew up as farm kids and Lorna well remembered

milking cows, riding ponies to school; singing around the piano, playing tennis and picking fruit and

eggs in the familiar setting and rolling hills. Her mum was a teacher and loved words and

ideas ...Lorna absorbed and learned. Her dad was a practical man with resilience, perseverance and

courage. He built the farm, starred at cricket and checkers but over the decade of the 20’s watched

his wife’s deterioration with diabetes.

By 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Lorna entered the selective high school known as Mac

Robertson’s Girls High School. Academic girls from all around the country won scholarships for the

finishing years of their secondary education. Lorna was one of them. She loved the atmosphere and

wallowed in Latin and Literature and history. She dreamed of joining her classmates at university

and building a professional career.

By 1934 those plans were in tatters, as her sick mum had to be

brought to Melbourne for treatment. To the abiding distress of all

the family, life from then on was not rural, but urban.Typically of

Lorna, she simply enjoyed every aspect of the new existence and

helped the family through the toughest of times. From 14 she was

controlling the gates at the train crossing in Preston. She made

new friends and, for the sake of the family, revised her dream and

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won her way into business college with another scholarship. This, coupled with her

father’s sacrificial commitment to repetitive work at CUB, enabled the family to

struggle through the 30’s. But by decades end a new even more terrifying war was

upon them.

Ironically for Lorna this was to be her period of freedom and passion. From 19 years of

age the world came to her. She, of course, volunteered to help. She knitted socks, she

cooked puddings, and she also wrote letters to lonely soldiers. Like many other young

women of the time, she also worked at the Melbourne Telephone Exchange and

danced and heard beguiling stories of the exciting world that existed outside Australia.

And she fell in love, with an American marine. For twelve months he courted her, lived with the

family, made friends with Lorna’s brothers and recovered from his war wounds. He proposed, but

then he disappeared. Sent to Darwin to fight the Japanese in a time of great anxiety. Lorna was

devastated.

By the time the war ended she was 25 and aching for her own family. Her American lover had

disappeared. She accepted the next offer for marriage she got. Jack Cameron was young, energetic,

handsome, and most importantly, available. Seven years her junior but ready for a new life. Within

six weeks of meeting this bright air force veteran they were married.

By 1952 they were in St Albans with three kids under six, a war service loan, Jack earning tally wages

on a metal processing line and the struggle had begun. Her friends were mortified that she should be

living in such an area. But Lorna thought differently. The world had come to her. The reffos, the

displaced persons, the “10 pound poms”, the different religions, even the folks from “the other side”

in the wars. This diversity was to become her joy and her direction.

Essentially Mum was one of the first people to

recognise how underprepared our country was for

this wave of “new Australians”. But, Lorna was

ready. She spoke and wrote English. She had a

phone. She could argue that a family needed help.

And she did. A hundred times, maybe a thousand.

She arranged that a neighbour’s light or water be

connected; she harangued bureaucrats so the

migrants’ kids got school uniforms, breakfasts and books; and explained the local culture, she joined

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committees that set up schools and kindergartens. And most cherished of all, she helped start a

youth club.

Anyone who remembers St Albans from the 1950s will know what a time bomb it was. Gangs of

youth who had been raised on both side of the war were ready to fight at the slightest insult. Lorna

and the others knew that they had to become the peacekeepers. Among all the activities- the

building, the sports, the dances, the theatre and the music –the major goal was to make the peace

and to keep it. She knew that, and she did it better than anyone. Quietly, firmly and consistently,

calming anger, bringing laughter. She was better than Kissinger and she had no ego. She did have a

desire for a better world.

As the 50s came to an end and peace had been won Lorna and Jack

began to look forward to a better future. Now with 5 kids; Jack holding

a more creative job that fitted his personality; Lorna with part time

work at the local high school; her mother in law and Rosa both

fabulous supports; money was still short but adequate. St Albans was

considered the least desirable suburb in Melbourne, but rich with a

multi-cultural model for other communities. Just when it looked there

might be a calmer, easier future, Jack was killed. Only 35 years old and

dead in a car smash. Traveling home exhausted, victim to the struggle

to be husband, father, worker and man.

But Lorna would not unravel. Completely stoic, she gathered the family, and proceeded to guarantee

her kids what she had missed; that elusive university education. This woman, composed dreamer of

big dreams, of course, achieved her goals. With the help of the community she had supported she

also worked to make sure that every kid in St Albans might get a fresh chance.

As the 70’s slipped round she also had a fair bit of help from Gough and the ALP. She loved the vision

and the passion of that man. She was pleased to have met Gough and Margaret and she advised Jim

Cairns and Barry Jones on local topics, and she, and her life time friend, Col Thorpe helped shape a

local ALP that understood and cared. These were great days when change was all around and Lorna

and Col (amongst many others) were at the centre of this. Bringing vital change to community, to

education and to health and welfare.

But after the Dismissal in 1975, exactly 39 years ago today, she

resolved to stop “working for the man”. With a phalanx of smart

and sassy women …Evelyn, Marion, Linda, Elfie, Chris, Edna and

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many others impassioned by feminism and social justice as their guides. Mum resolved to support

women (and men) through child rearing; through retraining; through confidence building. Lorna was

at the centre of that. Always looking for a way to help or find the right person or place which could

help. A true advocate for social justice, she supported any program or project which encouraged

involvement, activity and outcome.

As the children left, she also filled the rooms of her home with those who needed shelter for days

and sometimes years. Young people finding their way, women and men in transition from one place

to another, school teachers who were new to the area or to the country and young immigrant

families getting on their feet. She must have had 150 people stay. There was laughter and tears,

there were problems and fabulous successes but always there was Lorna offering another chance

and another way.

And there was unfinished business. By 1983 her family was settled; her

kids had grown up and all had jobs; some had their own children and it

was time to visit America. The primary purpose was to see Elaine, her

daughter who had married an American and had been settled in the US

for six years and had produced three grandchildren.

Totally by chance, and certainly by serendipity, she heard the name of

that lost US Marine on the radio. By that stage she knew that her

mother had burned his letters and blocked his phone calls in a desperate effort to keep her in

Australia way back in 1943. Forty years later she found him. He had never married. He had kept her

picture on his bedside table for every one of those lost years. The reunion must have been poetic.

She might have stayed, her marine might have returned, but there are many pathways. Instead

Lorna returned to Australia in 1984, calmer, more confident, happier, and more introspective but

just as committed to St Albans and her community.

She tirelessly volunteered her days to consolidating the community outreach and advocacy service

and developing a program that was welcoming and accessible to all. Her nights went to articles for

the local newspaper, submissions and letter

writing and meetings…in between basketball

matches and babysitting her grandchildren.

She took any opportunity for trips to any

theatre or arts activities on offer.

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The last forty years of Lorna’s life have continued to be full and rich. She had the pleasure of

grandchildren and great grandchildren; activities and memories of things achieved; she also had the

pain of the death of family and friends.

Loss of hearing and then sight had taken away her

consummate skill at Scrabble and crosswords and her

ability to concentrate on the stories of human

endeavour and challenge. But to the end she was telling

and hearing stories. She was encouraging and

courageous. She was still dreaming impossible dreams

and helping making them happen. Whether it was her

water exercises, her gardening, her capacity to see the

best in everyone, her humour or her wit everyone was

transformed by meeting or watching her. Most of all she inspired us by her ability to change when

one of her senses failed. The option of doing nothing was not on the table. In the garden and the

outdoors – with fading eyesight, sitting in the sunlight, rugged up if necessary…still being able to

identify a weed to be plucked or a geranium that needed to be cut back. Enjoying the smell of

lavender and roses straight from the garden. The nature strip garden created all those years ago

now a tourist attraction. The Youth Club garden now established as a community open space.

So this is a story of one fabulous woman surrounded by many fabulous women and a number of

good men. It is a life story of being positive and seeing hope in others. Trusting first and always

believing that a human is perfectible. Lorna Cameron was as simple and complex as every one of us.

She faced huge hurdles and surmounted them.

She was an inspiration. Long may her name be spoken.

She is survived by what she regarded as her greatest gift, her children and her beloved grandchildren and great grandchildren. May she rest in peace

In closing, I offer a footnote -

Her mother, our Gar, taught me this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow when I was about 8. It

seems to fit our Mum so well.

A PSALM OF LIFE

…….Lives of great women all remind us We can make our lives sublime,

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And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked sister, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labour and to wait.