Jean Mahoney. Photo: Ash Long

Grand-daughter Tracy Joyce delivered this eulogy for Jean Mahoney on Friday (Sept. 27):

Some people come into this world who are special, they touch the lives of many and leave the world a better place.

My Gran, Jean Mahoney, was one of those people.

Always good for a laugh and joke, Jean Mahoney nee Phillips was born on July 20, 1918, at Seymour. Part of a family of six and she is now only survived by her brother Noel.

Jean’s father was a guard on the railways and was transferred to Yea, so the family moved from Wandong to North St in Yea.

After leaving school, Jean worked at MacFarland’s – a small green grocer and tea rooms located roughly where the current Yea Bakery is.

She married Pat Mahoney on July 29, 1940, and moved to Molesworth. They had two children – Jan and Barrie.

Pat’s parents lived next door to them and Jean cared for his parents in their later life.

In the early years of their marriage, putting food on the table was a challenge, but Jean had an unbelievable talent for head shooting rabbits, so rabbits and potatoes were frequently on the menu, but she ensured that her kids never went hungry.

There was a photo that used to hang on the wall of the Molesworth Pub, of Jean’s entire front fence covered in hanging pairs of rabbits – all head shot.

Pat Mahoney passed away in December 1974, aged 59. Jean was fortunate to have the love and support of not only her family, but close friends in the Morris and the Jeffery families.

Jean commenced working for Cath and Bill Morris in the kitchen at the local pub where she and Cath made what became famous meat pies.

Early on Jean became involved in the tennis club. At this time there was a district association as all the small communities had their own clubs.

It was an annual event for her whole family to join her during the Easter Tennis Tournament in Yea and they were a competitive bunch.

Her other sporting love was bowls. If she wasn’t home, then she was invariably off playing bowls and usually winning a trophy and she travelled near and far for those tournaments.

As Barrie and Jan grew up, they became involved in badminton. Jean encouraged their competitive streaks, she had their whites always ready to go the night before and was extremely proud when they clinched a final set by three points to win a premiership for Molesworth in the Alexandra and District Association competition.

You know after these competitions, there’s always tea and cake. And it’s no surprise to any of us to guess what Jean brought … sponge cake.

Jean made the best sponge cakes around … and not just any sponge cake – Ginger sponge cake. But then there were the biscuits, shortbread, jams, sauces, pickles, butterfly cakes.

You name it she could cook it and it’d be awesome.

The first thing we did as kids after getting a big soft hug from her was check out what goodies were in the cupboard.

This love of baking leads me to another enormous component of her life – the Molesworth Bazaar.

Jean and her good friend Muriel Perry, both highly community minded women, started the Easter Bazaar and ran it for 32 years. Jean ran the produce section – cakes, jams, preserves, vegies etc and Muriel ran the gardening section. Many locals baked or grew goods for the bazaar and its reputation grew.

There were people who travelled through every year on their way to Eildon for the holidays some of whom would stop just to buy Jean’s tomato sauce.

I know we had to get in early to get our share of her cakes before they were gone too.

In the months leading up to the bazaar, Jean’s house was full of boxes of jars, fruit for sauces and jams, the freezer was crammed with goods she made in preparation for the big day.

Fiona Gilbert, her niece, would come up the night before and get up at the crack of dawn to cart boxes and boxes of homemade goodies across to the hall to set up.

Sometimes there were people waiting to buy goods as she did this, before they’d actually opened. The bazaar raised many thousands of dollars each year for local community causes and Jean kept up this work well into old age.

Gran adored her family and was devastated at the death of her son, Barrie, on March 16, 1999 in a tragic accident.

Barrie left behind his wife Fay and two daughters – Kate and Sarah. They are now grown and Kate has children of her own – Paddy and Marnie.

More family for Gran to love and she did. She had a heart that overflowed with affection for her nieces and nephews, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I think that Gran’s spirit, her attitude to life, her joy, her community mindedness and her compassion and caring for those around her are examples to live by and while today is immeasurably painful we must remember that she is no longer in pain and that she is not gone.

None of our loved ones ever really leave, not while we remember them, and in the months and years to come each of us will find, often at the oddest occasions, that memories will flood back.

I know each time I drive past Gran’s house I immediately reminisce, and enjoy those moments those flashes of childhood fun, love and laughs.

For some of us it might be the homemade sauce or jam or … sponge that doesn’t quite live up to the perfection of hers or it might be something else that triggers those memories, but embrace them, tell stories, pass those tales on to your children, because that is how we honour a life such as hers and how we learn from life well lived.