Melinda passed away unexpectedly after a short illness with the benefit of 98 years of wisdom and experiences.
A long-time resident of Bendigo, Kangaroo Flat and Darraweit Guim
where she was one of the last of a generation of families who made that town their own.
She will live long in our hearts and minds as we extol her virtues and live the values she has passed on.
Loved wife of Keith (Dec) and mother to Maryanne, Alan, Ian and Craig.
Mother in law to Ken, Jill, Jo and Lisa.
Maternal grandmother and great grandmother to Sam, Tina and Remy, Aimee, Harry and one on the way, Jessica, Rachael,
Cody and Kristian, Rebecca (Dec), Fiona (Dec), Leanne, Chloe, Max and Alice, Catherine,
Simon and Emily, Bradley, Daniel (Dec) and Lauren.
Grandmother and great grandmother to extended family of
Marika, John, Ethan and Ollie, Georgia, Deanne and Trevor and Tim, Bonnie and Harper.
Always loving gentle and kind, a beautiful memory you leave behind.
Lived at home till the very end – just the way she wanted.
A Service of Celebration for Melinda's life will be held in St Mary’s Anglican Church, 195 High Street, Kangaroo Flat
on Friday 24th January at 12.30pm (please enter the carpark from the street behind the church).
Following this service you are invited to stay for a light lunch in the Church Hall.
If you wish to join us at the service via livestream
please return to the home page of this website and click on the livestream button.
The service will be live approximately 5 -10 minutes prior to commencing.
24th January 2025 at 12:30 PM
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To Maryanne, Ian, Alan and Craig.
We are deeply saddened by the sudden death of Melinda.
What a unique Lady.
We will miss catching up with her on our trips over to Victoria for Christmas every second year.
Please accept our deepest condolences.
Pam, Marcus, Emma and Oliver Hall. Perth WA
Grandma was the heart of our family, a woman of quiet strength, infinite kindness, and unwavering love.
Her 98 years were filled with wisdom, generosity, and an indomitable spirit that touched everyone fortunate enough to know her.
She was not just a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother but a true matriarch, holding us together with her gentle guidance and enduring patience.
Her stories, rooted in the history of Bendigo, Kangaroo Flat, and Darraweit Guim, were the threads that wove generations together, keeping our family connected to the past while inspiring hope for the future.
Grandma had an extraordinary ability to make everyone feel special.
She nurtured all of us with her endless love.
She taught us to value family, to cherish simple joys, and to face life’s challenges with grace and courage.
Her presence was a beacon of light, and her absence leaves a void that words cannot fill.
But her legacy lives on in the values she instilled in us, the memories we hold dear, and the love she shared so freely.
Grandma, you are forever in our hearts.
Thank you for the beautiful memories, the life lessons, and the unwavering love you gave us.
Rest peacefully, knowing that you were deeply loved and will never be forgotten.
Leanne, Chloe, Max and Alice
Maryanne, Alan, Ian and Craig, my thoughts are with you, and I express my deepest condolences for your loss of a most remarkable mother, grandmother and mother in-law.
May she rest peacefully and perhaps even give Keith a nudge and a few jobs to do.
Ken Blacker xxooo
To Maryanne, Alan, Ian and Craig,
deepest condolences on the loss of your mother.
Fondly remembered as a kind and lovely lady growing up ‘back in the day’ at Darraweit.
Stephen Holgate
To dear Maryanne, Alan, Ian and Craig,
We are thinking of you at this sad time and remembering summer holidays at the farmwith Aunty Melinda taking such good care of us.
With love from Judy and Ken.
Mum, I am reminded of the deep and unwavering love you poured into every aspect of your family. You were the cornerstone of our family, a beacon of love,
strength, and unwavering support.
You were not only a dedicated mother but also a compassionate friend and a guiding light to everyone who had the privilege of knowing you. Your kindness knew no bounds, and you touched the lives of so many with your warm smile and gentle soul.
You taught us the true meaning of love and sacrifice. Through your actions, you showed us that love is not just an emotion but a noun—something we do, share, and give freely. Your love was the thread that held our family together, and your absence leaves a void that can never be filled.
You had an incredible way of making everyone feel special and valued. You were always there with a comforting word, a listening ear, and a heart full of understanding.
Your wisdom and guidance has shaped us into who we are today, and we are forever grateful for the lessons you imparted.
Your life was a testament to the beauty of selflessness and compassion. You never hesitated to lend a hand to those in need, and your generosity knew no bounds. You taught us the importance of kindness and the power of giving, and your legacy will live on through the countless lives you touched.
As a grandmother and great-grandmother, you extended your love and warmth to the next generations, creating cherished memories and imparting values that will be carried on through your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Your nurturing spirit and unwavering support have left an indelible mark on all of our hearts.
As we say our final goodbyes, we find solace in knowing that you are now reunited with Dad in heaven, where he has been waiting for over 20 years. Your love story continues in eternity, and I take comfort in the thought that you are both together once again, watching over us.
We carry your love in our hearts, and your memory will continue to inspire us all, every day. Thank you Mum for everything you have done for us. You will be deeply missed, but your love and light will live on in our hearts forever.
Rest in peace, dear mother, love always.
Ian
Melinda was my bridesmaid.
We started high school together and became good friends.
She went to work in a hospital and we went to the pictures when we could. After she left the hospital she went to look after children.
After that I did not see her as much for a while ….. then came her wedding while I was still working.
Later it became possible to see her more often, before she had her first baby.
We had many enjoyable visits to the farm. Then, after she moved to Bendigo, she’d come and stay with me for days at a time and of course those glorious visits to Townsville every winter, leaving the cold behind for a few weeks while being well looked after by Ian and his family.
There were also many long phone calls.
I will miss Melinda after knowing her for so long, even as my hearing deteriorated and she could no longer easily travel we still had many more long phone conversations.
She was always a practical no nonsense person full of good humour, good sense and wise advice.
A great friend to have.
Joan
Thank you so much for allowing me to have an input for Melinda, Nursie, who was so special to me.
Memories.
• She came to our family at the age of 19 and left when she got married. I was 2 when she arrived.
• She introduced the dreaded butterpat, to our bottoms. This was used in our family and hers.
• Marg and I would go with her by train, with much excitement, to Mundy Street.
• Just a joyous time with her parents. Her Mother was always baking and her Father was sweeping the backyard.
• We were able to watch the steam trains go by.
• Once, when we were walking down the paddock at Glengarry, she called to the man across the creek, who was working on the onion patch. Guess who?
• We all went to their wedding, in Bendigo. I can still remember the long tables, and I loved the wedding cake icing, and the tin to take a piece of the cake home.
• I would stay many times at Bucaan, when my parents went away, first before they had power. I was fascinated by the kerosene lamps and the Coolgardie safe.
• I remember her sorting the mail at the Chinton post office in her house.
• She used to take us for Sunday school at the Darraweit Presbyterian Church.
• She came to my aid at my primary school concert when we were lined up as the 7 dwarfs, and I refused to say I was Dopey. She comforted me after that.
• She used to walk me around the Melbourne Show
• In adult life she always sent me birthday and Christmas cards.
• I could not believe she sent me one the Monday before she died. This treasured card was in her own hand writing.
• Whenever in Bendigo, we would call in. The last time was last November. We had the familiar farewell, waving to us as we drove down the road, whilst she was on the footpath outside her house.
• She also insisted on this in July when it was freezing cold.
• I was lucky to have a few minutes to talk with her on Monday, to thank her for my birthday card. We were in constant contact, by phone, particularly for birthdays and Christmas and for special events. These were always long wonderful chats.
She was just the most loving, nurturing and warm person. I will miss her greatly, and I was very blessed to have her in my life.
With my very warm regards,
Hamish
Some musings of our time with Melinda…
• I recollect the day Melinda arrived as Dad and I then aged 4 went to Clarkefield Railway Station to collect her. It must have been June 1946 as apparently I caused her considerable embarrassment on the way home by constantly telling her Dad was 40. (He turned 40 on 10/6/46). Hence Melinda must have just turned 20. She had, I understand been doing Nursing training but it wasn’t what she enjoyed, so she withdrew.
• I can remember she could much more deftly shake the thermometer than my Mother!
• Melinda was patient and loving to us children notwithstanding that she was credited with introducing the butter pat as an instrument of corporal punishment but I don’t recall ever having been on the receiving end from her
• I had several trips with her to Bendigo to stay with her parents at 70 Mundy Street which I really loved.
Margaret Molineux
“I first met Melinda nearly 95 years ago in 1930 when we started as four-year-olds at Gravel Hill Primary School in Bendigo. I have a photograph taken under the gum trees where we used to make cubby houses. We used stones to make outlines of the rooms and always had a fireplace in the lounge. I suppose this prepared us for house making later in our lives.
I remember the ladies baths right in the centre of the Bendigo where we learned to swim. It was behind the Lyric Theatre which unfortunately burned down some time ago. It was only for ladies and the small pool was very welcome in summer.
I also remember going together to St Paul’s Sunday school. We knew if we were running late by the peeling of the bells. Quick Melinda, hurry!
In 1935 my family shifted to Melbourne but fortunately it didn’t break up our friendship. Over the years we regularly got together, particularly in the teenage years when Melinda came to stay with us at Christmas time and I went to stay with her at Easter time.
Easter time was great in Bendigo and on Easter Saturday we walked around and around the square of streets in the centre of town (Hargreaves, Pall Mall, Williamson and View). There were all sorts of stalls around the square with proceeds going to the Bendigo hospital. We particularly liked playing pennies on a table at one of the stalls where the penny had to land precisely in the middle of the square to win a prize. We always argued with the stall owner to say that our penny was not touching the side of the square.
The other trick we were very proud of was waiting in the middle of the road for the Easter Parade until the mounted police came along to make us go back. We were the last to move back and so we ended up in the front row and saw all of the procession.
To finish in style on Easter Sunday night we walked along McIvor Rd to the Orphanage by the light of the full moon. By that age we often had male company, and we thought that was so romantic. We were so excited that when we got home we talked until morning under the sheets and would be repeatedly told “it is time for you girls to be asleep!”
When Melinda came to Melbourne we liked to go into the Botanic Gardens all dressed in our Sunday best, complete with hats and gloves. We were warned not to speak to American soldiers but I can’t remember ever seeing any.
After Melinda left school she started nursing and used to ride her bike to the Bendigo Hospital. When they started her on night duty in the middle of winter it was far too cold and dark, and she decided it wasn’t the thing for her so she resigned. The next job I remember her having was looking after the children of the McDonald family at Darraweit Guim. Keith McKay was on his soldier settlement block just across the creek. Well we all know what happened then!
We were always close through the years and I was Melinda’s bridesmaid at St Paul’s in 1949. I think it was September. Melinda was my Matron of Honour at my wedding in 1950. The love was always there over all the years with babies arriving, then our grandchildren, and now our great grandchildren.
Wonderful memories.
How we were blessed with such a long and loving friendship”.
Lyell
Thank you Mum and Dad for providing us with such a lovely, safe and fun family life on our farm many years ago.
The four of us grew up with just enough money, lots of love and laughter in a strong and connected community.
I am (and we all are) beyond grateful for those gifts which have just continued to keep on giving.
Maryanne.
To Mum
We have an everlasting gift,
A gift we’d like to share,
A wish for you to know,
How much we all did care.
You have shown us how to live,
With compassion and with care,
In the world we live today,
These attributes seem quite rare.
Although your hard work is done,
And you have paved the way,
For others it’s just begun,
But we know you couldn’t stay.
Craig.
“A Tribute to an Extraordinary Woman”
We celebrate the incredible life of a woman who has touched our hearts and enriched our lives in countless ways.
As we reflect on her 98 and a half remarkable years, let us journey through the memories that define her legacy.
Melinda was born at home in Bendigo on the 3rd of June 1926. She was the first child of Fredrick and Gladys Lea and was soon after joined by a baby brother, William.
At the very young age of 4 she began a friendship that would last another 94 years. I speak of her friendship with Lyell who shared the same birth year and lived in the same street.
Primary school was spent at Gravel Hill school, just a short walk from her home in Mundy Street, in fact so close that she even walked home for lunch.
A few short years later and off to high school and there she was again, collecting friends. This time it was Joan with whom she started a friendship that was to last almost 90 years. Would you believe that collectively the three of them have been on this earth for a total of 294 years.
During her school days Melinda suffered from Scarlet Fever and both her mother and grandmother were very worried that she wouldn’t survive. But survive she did and what a life she made from that day forth.
On leaving school she trained as a nurse but the freezing cold nights and the long winter walks to the hospital convinced her that this was not the vocation for her although it appears she still covers favour for this role as when she was recently asked to provide her occupation she wrote “Nurse”.
Or maybe that was because of the nickname she was given when moving to Darraweit Guim in 1946 to look after the McDonnel children and their reference to her as “Nursie”. Those few years were extremely important for Melinda and she spoke about them for the rest of her life. She had a soft spot for Hamish of that there is no doubt but her wonderful friendships with Margaret and Hamish endured for around 80 years till the very end.
War years had passed and times were still tough but love was in the air when she met Keith when returning from Melbourne by train and sitting together on the mail cart travelling to Darraweit. As fortune would have it Keith’s new soldier settlement farm backed directly onto McDonnell’s property, separated by only a creek. So, when going for walks, where would she go, to the creek of course where they communicated by calling out to each other across the water. How romantic.
As history does show, they soon married and with that she moved across the creek to start the next phase of her life, a life as the wife of a farmer no less.
Life on the farm was quite tough and soon after it became even tougher with the arrival of Maryanne, myself, Ian and Craig between 1951 and 1960. Tough but memorable one could say.
Motherhood wasn’t easy in those days and a broken leg just before Maryanne was born surely tested her strength.
This phase of her life was all about building a legacy although I’m sure she wasn’t thinking that at the time. Despite the lack of modern conveniences, she raised four children with boundless love and resilience and countless trips to the Health Centre (the absence of which she decries to this very day) armed only with the butter pat to instil her level of corporal punishment.
Whilst here in Darraweit she was at it again, developing another life-long friendship, this one with Rita McLean. A wonderful friendship that endured until Rita passed away some years ago.
But motherhood alone was never enough. Running the Post Office, cooking for shearers and visitors alike, feeding the workers during harvest time and getting her drivers license were just a few of her other accomplishments. Oh yes and she also dabbled as a Sunday School teacher for a short while. She also opened her house to look after her father and an uncle in their dying days when they suffered the same dreadful fate that befell her in the end.
But there were good times too and she really loved her garden and when the dreaded dam was tapped and water laid on, her garden flourished which filled her with pride. I say the dreaded dam because it was always her fear that when any of the kids went missing, they be found in the dam. Fortunately for all that never occurred.
Visits by her Bendigo based parents to the Darraweit home were a highlight as she showed her own mother how well she could cope looking after a family twice the size of her own. There was a great sense of excitement when they’d arrive and an even greater sense of achievement when they’d leave and like Melinda, her mother was an avid reader and we’d know the duration of their stay by the number of books that she brought, measured by one book per day.
The verandah of the house was her saviour as it doubled for extended family parties and gatherings and a playground in winter for her kids and the visitor’s kids. Many a plant met its’ demise with a football or other projectile – but she seemed to accept that was the price for keeping kids active and safe.
For many years Christmas was always celebrated at Bucaan and you know what that means. She was always cooking and although sometimes we didn’t eat till 3, when we did tucker down it was always to the best food you can imagine.
And then she’d back up again on Boxing Day when the Leas arrived. (That’s her brother Bill and his wife Merle plus young Steven and Graham.)
As time passed though, all the kids grew up and left the nest and started families of their own. This meant the family grew by four, Ken, Jill, Joe and Lisa, arriving at different times.
What this meant to Melinda though was the emergence of Grandchildren and ultimately great grandchildren and it won’t surprise you to know that the first born, Rachael, was cared for by Grandma at the Darraweit home.
Retirement from the farm heralded in the next chapter of her life.
With the sale of Bucaan and moving to Kangaroo Flat, not too far from Mundy Street where her Mum still lived, Melinda was able to care for her in her latter years and on one occasion take her in when Gran had fallen and broken both wrists. Both arms in plaster – can you imagine that.
A new garden began and she thoroughly enjoyed toiling away for years on end and once again it was her pride and joy to behold.
Annual trips to the northern states in winter had begun when they lived at Darraweit but this now became a real holiday as no need to rush back to the farm. This enabled her and Keith to explore the northern regions as well as dropping in to various locations to see friends and relatives alike. Yes, this is how retirement should be spent.
With free time came the opportunity for personal pursuits. She took up Thai Chi, went to exercise classes, joined a walking group, became a Probus member, assisted children with their reading at the local state school and helped provide breakfast as well. Mind you she was in her eighties by then but she loved helping the children and was thankful for the opportunity. Keeping her mind active with crosswords and the cryptic crossword in particular were important to her and for a bit of fun she’d go to the Bunnings gardening lessons. Mind you, she could probably have taught them a thing or two about gardening.
She was also very active in this very church in her early days both in an official capacity and as a member of the congregation.
In 2003 she lost her soulmate when Keith passed away at the age of 88 and a new way of living started once more. She wasn’t going to be moved from her home and she stood strong on that till the end – and good on her for doing just that.
It won’t surprise you to hear that strong friendships also grew in Kangaroo Flat with neighbours across the road, next door, up the street, down the street and from all around – they have all became part of the tapestry of her life. Now it might be a little unfair to single out one or two people but without Margaret across the road and Ann next door, and their respective families, Melinda’s latter life in particular would not have been as fulfilling and rewarding as it was. She was so fortunate to have such good neighbours and neighbours she was super proud to call her friends. There she goes again.
Another notable friendship she had was with her sister-in-law Merle after her brother passed away. Although they had known each other for many years they lived in different parts of the state so it was only when Melinda moved back to Kangaroo Flat that the relationship blossomed and for a long time they would catch up every few weeks until Merle passed away just a few short months ago.
As the years passed and the body could no longer do what it once used too, she depended on the visiting folk to help her out. The cleaning, the shower, the physio, the podiatry, the gardener, the hair dresser and hair setter, the bin collector the paper delivery, the coffee drinkers – they all helped he stay in her own home.
Melinda, like her mother before her was an astronomical reader of books and most nights and many afternoons were spent engrossed in a book of some type and this was by far her favoured form of entertainment, although Vera did get a mention now and then.
I’ve talked a lot about friendships today but I can’t finish without emphasising the importance of family to her. She was a beacon of light and strength to us all but what she got back was a stimulus for life. Phone calls, visits, cards and the occasional Zoom meeting enabled her to keep in contact with the family no matter where they lived and she thoroughly enjoyed any conversation she had. Attending birthdays, weddings and any special occasion was always high on her agenda and everybody received a birthday card every birthday right up till the end and although one may occasionally be late, she never forgot when armed with her trusty birthday book.
The first, second and third generations can all learn from her strengths and can go forward knowing they each represent a small part of her for evermore.
May we honour her memory and carry forward the love, strength, and wisdom she bestowed upon us.
Her legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of all who knew her.
Rest in peace, dear Mum.
Your light will continue to shine brightly in our memories and our hearts.
Alan