Aunt Jo

We attended the funeral of my husband's aunt today.
She was a remarkable lady. Not content to wait for his return from a diplomatic posting to The Hague just after WW2, she took herself to Europe to marry her one true love.
They had three children and lived the exciting life of foreign affairs in South East Asia and the Middle East until he was suddenly killed in a Moroccan plane crash when ambassador in Cairo in the early 1960s.
The abrupt change in her circumstances brought her back to Sydney to bring up her children. She returned to her career as a social worker and learnt Russian to assist in her role helping the flood of immigrants from Harbin during that time.
Various other difficulties ensued over the years but she never lost her great enthusiasm for life and was a much loved member of the whole extended family.
Eloquent, articulate, the perfect lady and yet surprisingly politically incorrect at times, she was to me the epitome of Agatha Christie's "Miss Marple".