Patricia Margaret Turner was born on August 7, 1926 and spent her childhood in Milton. She passed away on April, 10, 2017. 

The former Shoalhaven woman had two children; Carol born in 1949 and Alan born in 1952.

Mum had three granddaughters from her daughter Carol, and three grandsons from her son Alan. She also had two great-grandchildren.

Patricia entered local council on September  24, 1974 in C Riding. She was on Shoalhaven Shire Council from 1974 to 1978, when she resigned.

In 1976 to 1977 she was the first female deputy president in Shoalhaven Council.

Alan and Carol shared their respective eulogies recently: 

Alan Turner remembers his mother;

She was physically and mentally very strong. She was brought up on a dairy farm and was the youngest of three girls. Whenever possible she would be outside doing things around the farm. For extra pocket money during the cooler months when the pelts were best she would go rabbiting.

This involved setting traps after school in likely rabbit burrows and then returning first thing in the morning. She would dispatch the rabbits, skin them and stretching the pelt over a wire frame. At the end of each month she would send the pelts up to Sydney and would receive a cheque back in the mail.

When Mum was fifteen She once rode her push bike from Milton to Bateman’s Bay – that’s a round trip of 120 kilometres. She and three other girls took off early one morning and were back at dusk. What makes this trip even more remarkable was that in 1941 the road was mostly dirt.

During WW2 she worked as a cashier for the local council. Another of her duties that she shared with her mother was as a plane spotter.

This involved notifying Nowra of any plane that flew over Milton. She had to report the type of plane, the direction and time it was sighted. She admitted that there were not many planes to report – it was usually only the mail plane flying to Moruya.

Mum was a good organiser. With the war on, one of the ways to raise money for the war effort was to have dances. When there was to be a ‘young people's’ dance - and because most of the young chaps were away at the war, mum would ring up the naval base at Nowra and organise them to send a truck full of young servicemen for the local dance.

Also, during the war when mum was 18 she helped re-establish the Milton Cub Pack. She was their Akela. In fact her father (Pop Kendall) donated the land for the Milton Cub Pack.

Mum always did most of the driving. When we lived in Bendigo it was mum who drove to Milton to visit both sets of grandparents while dad stayed working. Mum was also the one who drove Carol to boarding school in Goulburn while dad stayed home working in their chemist shop.

With mums parents getting older and unwell it was decided that the family would move back to NSW to be closer to her parents.

It was mum who had the responsibility to drive to Sydney and purchase a house – sight unseen – dad never saw it before it was purchased. That it a lot of responsibility even though dad said she exceeded the budget by nearly double. 

One of my favourite and funniest memories of mum was when she was driving. There we were heading north over the railway bridge at Epping in Sydney, the traffic was heavy and an elderly male driver pulled out of a side street on our left and completely blocked both lanes of traffic heading north.

Well, Mum wound down her driver's window, shoved her head out and yelled “you bloody bird brain”. That in itself was funny but to see how embarrassed the elderly driver was; and how his wife broke up in laughter, was icing on the cake.

Mum was always busy and took on new interests with a passion. The first one I remember was the beautiful garden mum created at their home in Beecroft.

She also did a wood carving, followed by a leather carving and a flower arranging course. She also propagated many varieties of orchards in her orchard house, even importing some juvenile plants from America in small glass vials.

When our parents moved back down the coast to Milton mum with one of her girlfriends Enid Cole became very keen on fishing. It was then nothing for her to go fishing with her three grandsons or three granddaughters. Later on in Kiama she took up card decorating and bear making.

I will miss her - but on saying that I am relieved that she has now escaped her worn out 90-year-old body.

Carol reflects on memories of her mother;

Pat was a country girl. She spent all her childhood, adolescence and young adulthood in Milton, a rural village on the South Coast of NSW.

Almost 100 years prior to Pat’s birth, Pat’s great-great grandfather had come to live in this district.

The Rev Thomas Kendall had been granted 1280 acres of land by the Governor in 1828. Even today, members of the Kendall family still live in the district.

Pat’s parents were Dorothy and Aubrey Kendall. Aubrey was a dairy farmer (as were his father and grandfather before him).

Dorothy worked in the home, and when the children were older, in many voluntary organisations, such as the Milton Hospital Auxiliary and the CWA, of which she was the inaugural president.

Pat had two older sisters; Dorothy Eleanor, who was five years older and Lesley Amelia, three years older.

Pat was an energetic child who loved the outdoors. She was the ‘son’ her father never had. Some years ago Pat wrote down her memories of her childhood, some of which Alan will speak of in his tribute.

About 1938, Claude Brown, a 14 year old orphan, joined the family as a foster son and brother. Claude was 18 months younger than Lesley, and two years older than Pat, so he fitted into the family well. Pat and Claude become good mates.

Pat was educated at Milton Public School from age five to 15 years. Whilst there, she got up to lots of scrapes, and spent some time in the corridor outside the classroom.

She received the Intermediate Certificate in 1941 and left school. Her first job was as a typist/clerk at the Ulladulla Municipal Council.

Her teenage years coincided with those of WW2, 1939 – 1945. During this time she did various voluntary jobs – she was a plane spotter; trained in and practised first aid regularly in case there was an air raid attack; and knitted socks, scarves and jumpers for the troops.

In 1948, at the age of 22, Pat married John Turner. The young couple moved to Sydney so John could complete his pharmacy studies. I was born the following year, and three years after that, Alan was born.

Pat and John moved around a bit during the 1950s. They went to Richmond, north of Sydney, Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, and then Bendigo in Victoria. Finally in the latter part of 1961 they returned to Sydney as Pat had had enough of moving house.

In all of the pharmacies that they owned between 1957 and 1970, Mum helped Dad by serving the customers, creating the window displays and doing the accounts.

In 1970 John and Pat bought a farm in Milton and moved back to the district Mum had grown up in. They farmed beef cattle, and later dairy cattle. Mum helped on the farm, and then in 1974 stood and was elected as a local government councillor for the Shire of Shoalhaven.

She held this position for four years, the last two years as deputy shire president. Pat was the first woman in the Shoalhaven Shire to have held the position of deputy shire president.

Sadly, in 1977 after 29 years of marriage, Pat and John separated. Pat resigned from council, and moved further up the coast to Kiama.

As she had been interested in growing plants all her life, and had a “green thumb” her next venture was to open the “Ladybird Garden Nursery” at her home in Kiama. She specialised in indoor plants.

After a couple of years, Pat retired and moved to Windang, near Wollongong. This period of Pat’s life was still very busy. She did voluntary work for various organisations including the Wollongong Hospital. It was also the time when she embraced her creative side.

Pat sewed and knitted clothes for her family, especially the six grandkids. She did tapestries, made bark pictures and painted in oils and watercolours. Making of birthday and other occasion cards was another activity, but her most favourite craft was teddy bear making.

Always one to approach a project with enthusiasm, Pat made her first bear and called him Archie. Each bear she made thereafter was given a name starting with a letter of the alphabet. They started at A and went all the way to Z, so there were at least 26 bears made, and probably more. We all lost count.

When she was 81, Mum had a severe illness which resulted in her being in hospital for several months, and then, in being assessed as unable to return home.

In December 2008, Pat moved to Canberra to live at Ginninderra Gardens (later renamed Bill McKenzie Gardens). She remained here for over eight years, living in Room 107, being cared for by the staff until her death last week.

I will remember my mother as a fun-loving, kind person- one who was very generous to her family and friends.

She was reliable – if she said she would do something, she did.

She could be very outspoken, and we didn’t always see eye to eye.

She worked hard. It was her destiny she used to say, because she was born on a Saturday and as the old rhyme says;

“Saturday’s child works hard for a living”.

So, no more hard work now, Mum. It is time to RIP.