BARBARA ANN HOPKINS January 21, 1938-July 9, 2022

Obituaries are usually published about people who have acquired a degree of celebrity. They are regarded as having achieved excellence in some field of human endeavour; exceptional in their lives therefore honoured in their deaths.

However, there are others who lead remarkable, constructive lives whose efforts are known to relatively few. They work quietly and without fanfare, acknowledged by those whose lives they touch and those who share with them in the volunteering they do, but are otherwise anonymous and unknown. They contribute to creating and maintaining the fabric of a humane society so their stories are also worth telling and celebrating.

Barbara Hopkins, who died on July 9, was one such person. Her life might be seen as ordinary in many ways, but there is no doubt that both by the warmth of her personality, and by her efforts to improve the environment and give aid to those less fortunate she had a lasting impact. She did indeed make the world a better place.

Barbara was born in Perth, Western Australia, the elder of two daughters of Kathleen Temple and Douglas Bell. Her father joined the RAAF in 1941 and after training was posted overseas. Days after her fifth birthday, he was reported as “missing, presumed killed” in the Pentalian Sea. It is known that he and the rest of the crew survived the crash but how he and some of the others disappeared was never satisfactorily explained. It was a major regret of Barbara’s life that she had no clear memories of her father.

She remembers her childhood as happy, growing up within an extended family then moving with her mother and sister into a war service home. A good student she was the first from Victoria Park to pass the entrance exam to Perth Modern School where she clearly held her own in a pool of very bright students being appointed a prefect in her final year, as well as serving as co-editor of the school magazine and representing Mod at netball.

Barbara Hopkins

By the time she matriculated she had decided she wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, an expensive pathway in WA at that time, beyond the means of her war-widow mother. She accepted advice to train as an infants’ teacher. Later in life, she came to reject the assumption that there was little difference between pre-school and prep but at the time it seemed to be wise counsel.

In February 1956, she started studies at Graylands Teachers’ College discovering a talent for acting she did not know she had. In both first and second year she was cast in the leading female role in the costumed play readings that were a central feature of the curriculum. In the first, her leading man was Alistair Hopkins, who was to become the love of her life.

They married in January 1960, Katriona was born in December and two years later they moved to Melbourne so that Alistair could study theology, Sieglinde and Fiona were born during the three years they spent in Eltham and Meredith at the end of their first year in Ballarat. When Jacinta arrived on January 1, 1970, they had five girls just before their 10th wedding anniversary. While a boy would have been welcomed had he arrived (and a name selected) this was not a determined effort to have a son,

While Jacinta was a happy baby, it became clear that her development had been affected by a virus that Barbara had contracted during pregnancy. The first sign of that was that she could not see, her eyes had not developed properly. Her parents began to prepare themselves to bring up a disabled child but after several months other problems began to emerge. At nine months she died suddenly in her mother’s arms. Barbara showed great strength in coping with this tragic event, but it left a wound that was with her for the rest of her life.

In 1971, the couple bought their first house in East Doncaster. While living there an opportunity arose for primary school teachers to retrain to work in kindergartens. It enabled her to fulfil the ambition she had on leaving school 19 years before and led to a long and satisfying career as co-director of the new Panoramic Heights Kindergarten in Donvale.

Four years later they moved to Boronia where they still were when Barbara breathed her last surrounded by Alistair and her daughters. Over the 47 years she lived there she transformed the house and developed what had been a virtually bare block into a native garden; it was her ‘home’ and she loved it.

Nick, her first grandchild, was born in 1989 followed over the next 12 years by Shai, Daisy, Madison, Luca and Jack. She was a wonderful grandmother, loving and adored in return by all of them.

While in Ballarat, Barbara had joined the local branch of Community Aid Abroad the start of a commitment that lasted for more than 50 years and only ended when ill health made it impossible to continue. She was attracted to the philosophy of CAA – that of mobilising the resources of an Australian community to provide developmental aid to people elsewhere in need of help. While accepting the economy of scale and the increased reach that resulted, she regretted the loss of immediacy when CAA became part of Oxfam.

She had helped to organise Ballarat’s first Walk Against Want around Lake Wendouree and the annual Walk became a major focus when the family returned to Melbourne. Again, she was attracted by the concept – of people not simply donating money but doing something that indicated solidarity with those they were seeking to help, for example, the women in parts of Africa who had to walk distances to obtain water for their families.

While Oxfam took up much of her energy and time, it did not represent all her volunteering. In the 1980s, she read about a proposal to form the Friends of FTG National Park. She attended the inaugural meeting, joined and for the 25 years it operated devoted a Saturday every month to re-vegetating former building blocks within the park, eradicating exotic plants. She also worked for some years with AMES, in that time mentoring three migrant women from different backgrounds in their efforts to master English.

She delivered the local community newspaper, Neighbourhood Watch newsletters, and as part of her membership of Basketmakers of Victoria helped regularly with gardening at the cottage in Wattle Park. The list of causes and organisations she supported is long, including Reconciliation Victoria and those working to help refugees, all done in her quiet unassuming way.

Her approach was never that she had skills or talents to offer but rather that if there was a job to be done she would rise to the challenge and find the resources within herself to do it. So, without any bookkeeping background she in time became the very efficient treasurer, then, when the need arose, again without the background skills or experience, added the role of secretary of the eastern suburbs Walk Against Want. It was a huge commitment.

A common thread in the many tributes paid to her is that she enriched the lives of those she met. There is no question that the world was a better place for her being in it. She leaves a rich legacy and will be sadly missed.

Alistair Hopkins was Barbara Hopkins’ husband for more than 62 years.

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