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发表于 19-12-2012 11:36:42
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012- ... dead-at-103/4411542
Early life
The youngest of three daughters, Elisabeth Joy Greene was born in 1909 and grew up on her family's Melbourne homestead, Pemberley, which was surrounded by an acre of gardens on Toorak Road.
She once said: "My world was my parents' garden."
Dame Elisabeth was spoilt by her father, Rupert, who encouraged his youngest daughter's ambition to join the circus.
Her father had a mischievous spirit, and even allowed her to puff on his pipe and chew tobacco.
But Dame Elisabeth's father struggled with gambling issues, which caused difficulties for her mother Marie as she struggled to keep the family fed and housed.
It was her mother's caring nature and concern for others that set an example Dame Elisabeth would carry throughout her life.
The Dame's compassionate nature was evident from an early age.
She was awarded a tour of the children's hospital after breaking its singlet-knitting record at the age of 16. Seeing howling babies emerging from operating theatre upset her so much that she vowed to do all she could to help children.
Marriage and children
At the age of 19, Elisabeth Greene first stepped out with the 42-year-old Keith Murdoch.
Melbourne's most eligible bachelor had spied Dame Elisabeth's photograph in a society magazine and insisted on meeting the young beauty.
Despite concerns from family and friends about their 23-year age difference, the pair were married in 1928, with the bride electing to wear her sister's hand-me-down wedding dress.
Mr Murdoch's wedding gift to his young wife was Cruden Farm, on the outskirts of Melbourne, in Langwarrin.
The property has been Dame Elisabeth's home for over 80 years and it was there she and her husband raised their four children.
I think Keith would have been proud. I haven't wasted a minute of my life. I've made use of all the time, I think.
Dame Elisabeth speaking in a 2008 interview
Cruden Farm's grounds are open to the public several times a year.
As a mother, Dame Elisabeth was the disciplinarian in the family, with her husband being prone to indulging their children.
She believed in "loving discipline" and recalled using the slipper to reprimand a young Rupert.
Dame Elisabeth gave Rupert the opportunity in later years to publicly tease his mother about "the beatings" she gave him.
She believed fervently in the importance of tolerance, understanding and caring - qualities she wanted to instil in her children's upbringing.
In a 2009 interview for ABC TV's The 7.30 Report, Dame Elisabeth said she and Rupert did not always see eye-to-eye but respected each other's opinions.
"I think (we disagree about) the kind of journalism and the tremendous invasion of people's privacy. I don't approve of that," she said.
Following Sir Keith's death of cancer in 1952 at the age of 67, Dame Elisabeth focused on building the new Melbourne Children's Hospital.
Her passion for the project, together with her influence, resulted in the necessary government funding and she had remained a benefactor of the hospital thereafter.
'Enjoying life'
Until recently, Dame Elisabeth was "hands on" in the gardens of her much-loved Cruden Farm.
When a hip replacement put an end to the digging and planting, she turned to a motorised buggy to get around, saying driving was her last outdoor sport.
"Although I am so old, really very old, people's assumptions are quite wrong. They don't realise that I still have the capacity to enjoy life," she told Andrew Denton in 2009.
Dame Elisabeth's number plates, "12", had been Sir Keith's when he had been courting her.
She found herself constantly discouraging young men who wanted to buy them, telling them: "I went to my wedding with these plates and I am going to my funeral with them."
During a 2008 interview when asked what her husband would have said of her life, Dame Elisabeth replied: "I think Keith would have been proud. I haven't wasted a minute of my life. I've made use of all the time, I think."
Dame Elisabeth is survived by three of her children - Rupert Murdoch, Anne Kantor and Janet Calvert-Jones - and by over 70 descendants.
Her eldest daughter, Helen Handbury, died in 2004. |
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发表于 19-12-2012 10:11:09
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发表于 19-12-2012 11:48:44
