We knew at the beginning of this year when everyone was wishing everyone a happy new year, that for some it would be the saddest year of their lives. And so it has proved to be. A beloved wife, mother, grandmother  and great-grandmother has succumbed to the dread disease of cancer, a vicious form of leukaemia. Not only those relationships, but that of sister-in-law, and more than that, a good friend and work mate as well. We worked together and played together through our farming days.

It couldn’t have been easy for Carole when she married Neville and came into the Frear family. A city girl, who barely knew one end of a cow from the other, but prepared to take on this guy from the country. She was only “five foot blinky-nothing” as her father-in-law described her, but over the years she proved she had what it took to fit into the family.

After  their wedding day in May 1962, she became a farmer’s wife and learned to milk cows, and later on to muster cattle and then to sort them in the stockyards. The men could never learn the quickest way to sort the cattle in the pens, but Carole knew.

They had a runabout boat that gave them many happy days on the water, joining the other brothers and families in their boats, water ski-ing and just generally enjoying the boating scene. Later on, they bought a yacht, and ventured up and down the coast at times, taking others with them.

They would put in a full day’s work on the farm, milk the cows at night and then go off to the golf course over the road, and have a round of golf after everyone else had gone home. Carole beat everyone hands down at hitting the ball, she was just a natural hand at it!

There were the days out at the run-off farms mustering the cattle from those steep hills. Then the days on their next farm up in the hills, planting the big garden of different sorts of vegetables on the river flat there. To say nothing of working together at haymaking time…the women on the tractors, with Carole doing the tedder work, while the men picked up and loaded the hay into the barns.

Another thing that Carole excelled at was remodelling inside her houses. She did that at least three times, turning cramped living spaces into more roomy areas. The Christmas Days that all would gather together with the extended family joining in.

But that is only one side of the Carole that we knew. She had a deep faith in God which has stood her in good stead over the years, and seen her take these last few months with great peace of mind, knowing what was ahead for her. When she was a teenager, she had attended some girls’ camps and first heard there the Gospel story and made the decision which shaped her life from then on. She never wavered from this faith in God and helped run the local Girl’s camp for forty or so years, eventually taking the leadership over. This wasn’t the only Christian work that Carole was involved in, but she did Bible in Schools as well, teaching this for fifty years. In fact she was on her way to a class that fateful day when the doctor called her and said she would have to stop immediately due to what they had just seen in her blood tests.

Carole had many talents, one of which was icing cakes, to say nothing of baking them. No-one ever needed to feel embarrassed at arriving at Carole’s place at lunch time, because nothing ever put her out, and there was always plenty in the pantry. There didn’t seem to be anything that Carole couldn’t do and she was always involved in all the family’s doings, especially once the grandchildren started to arrive.

This, then, was the lady that we all knew and loved and she will be sorely missed.

Do Not Mourn !

 I did not know the way I’d go,                                                                                       If short and fast, or pain so slow,                                                                                I prayed the Lord would help me bear,                                                   Whate’er He planned for me while there;                                                               And now I’ve gone, I do not need,                                                                             A fanfare of my word or deed;                                                                                  All I say is simply this,                                                                                                         I’m with the LORD, in heav’ns bliss.                                                                           So my loved ones, no need to mourn,                                                                         Or feel bereft or all forlorn,                                                                                      There’ll be some things I’ve left behind,                                                                   Things lying round, you will  find,                                                                        But I’ve had fun, enjoyed it all;                                                                                   And now I’ve heard my Lord’s sweet call.                                                         I’m more alive than e’er before,                                                                      Enjoying life NOW, more and more !