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A guardian of Phillip Island history

16/12/2021

3 Comments

 
PictureGaye Cleeland: 1949-2021
By Pam Rothfield
 
I READ somewhere that friends are the antidote to the burdens of daily life. Gaye Cleeland was my friend. She was also my second cousin. She was a beautiful soul, highly intelligent with a gentle demeanour, yet fiercely independent.
 
We shared a passion, which was researching the stories and history of our ancestors and the local history of Phillip Island.
 
Gaye was born Gabrielle Patricia Cleeland in the Warley Bush Nursing Hospital in Cowes on St Patrick’s Day, 17th March 1949. This was rather a fitting day for Gaye – as she was proud of her Irish ancestry, being Cleeland. ​

She was the daughter, and first-born child of Harry and Peg Cleeland. For the first two years of her life Gaye lived with her parents in the family home, Woolamai House in Newhaven, now classified by the National Trust. Thereafter her parents built a home right next door, which became their new family home, where a further five siblings were raised.
 
Gaye went to Newhaven Primary School, before leaving the Island for her secondary education at Kilbreda College in Mentone, where she boarded. I, unknowingly, lived a mere 400 metres away from her boarding house in Mentone at that time.
 
After Gaye finished her education at Kilbreda, she studied fashion design at Emily MacPherson College of Domestic Science, which amalgamated with RMIT in 1979. She became an expert seamstress and adept at the fine art of smocking, according to her sister, Kate. It was in 1970s that she stumbled onto a course which would feed and satisfy her lifelong passion – her love of books – and she became a qualified library technician.
 
Gaye’s first job in her chosen field was at the Footscray Library, where she honed her skills, and her next step, which was more of a giant leap, was a position at the library at the University of New South Wales, where she remained for the next twenty years.
 
It was while Gaye lived in Sydney that our friendship began. Through family connections we discovered a shared passion in researching our ancestors and a craving to discover their stories. Our communication in those days relied on the telephone (with a handset and cord) and much use of postage stamps.
 
When Gaye moved back to the Island in the early 2000s our friendship strengthened – but now it was face to face.
 
Gaye would share her thoughts and theories with a quick wit as we both contemplated and hypothesized outlandish theories as to the “goings on” of our forefathers. My memories of Gaye will always include the fun we shared as we joked about our search for skeletons in our ancestral cupboard.
 
Gaye also gave so much to our community, becoming involved in a vast array of groups on the Island ranging from the arts to conservation to local history. She was a strong guardian of the Island’s history and a dedicated committee member of the Phillip Island and District Historical Society and Friends of Churchill Island and others, and also dedicated to the arts. Gaye performed with the Island Harmony Singers and we heard from her brother Bill that he had the proud experience of being in the audience when she sang at the Sydney Opera House in Handel’s Messiah.
 
I have received countless emails from her many friends and colleagues, expressing their shock and sadness at her passing.
 
She was a beautiful, gentle and intelligent lady who had a quiet and clever wit.
 
She has left a wonderful legacy for the future generations of the Cleeland descendants – as she moved towards gaining a genuine understanding of our ancestors and their behaviours, in the endeavour to piece together tiny fragments of the huge jigsaw puzzle of family history.
 
She has also left a wonderful legacy to the local community due to her persistence in preserving and protecting her family’s history which is intrinsically interwoven with that of the development of Phillip Island since European settlement.
 
We are all richer for having known her and her passing is a great loss for our community.
 
My life won’t be the same without her and I am sure many within our community feel the same way.

3 Comments
Greg Buchanan
17/12/2021 02:07:02 pm

Pam, such lovely memories of Gaye. The National Trust's Bass Coast Branch, based on the island, fondly remembers Gaye who was a member of our group for many years. She walked tall in island history and we are saddened by her passing.

Reply
Christine Grayden
18/12/2021 03:13:05 pm

That is a lovely tribute to our beautiful Gaye, thank you Pam. I worked with Gaye on several committees over many years and she was often the person most likely to think outside the box on a tricky issue. We also shared many pleasurable drives to and from Coal Creek every month while we undertook our community Museum practice course there over a decade ago. And how many people remember her as the gorgeous redhead, who became a prime suspect in the Offshore Theatre production some years ago? She did enjoy that theatrical experience although she confessed to me: ‘Lines? No, I can never remember all the lines!’ She certainly carried it off well though, as it was a perfect role for an elegant and beautiful woman. Circumstances have prevented me from seeing Gaye for 18 months. It seems inconceivable that we will never chat again. RIP dear woman.

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Tim Shannon
18/12/2021 07:09:11 pm

As I recall the sequence of events, it was Gaye’s suggestion to the Bass Coast Branch of the National Trust that led to Greg Buchanan asking me to write about the Art and Architectural history of the Islands of Western Port, on account of the 150 year anniversary of Settlement at the time, which led me to meeting Gaye where she suggested that I should look up the life and times of Dr LL Smith, for which I am forever grateful. Gaye understood how LL’s determination shaped the history of settlement and the lives of those brave and hopeful pioneers. My time with her was limited, but sufficient to understand what Phillip Island meant to her, and how much she had given back to it in return.

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