Helen Cox
A life lived for others
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WARRANDYTE is mourning the passing last month of Helen Cox, aged 71, former longtime resident and well known community market stallholder. Helen Dodgshun was born on March 18, 1937. She was educated at Deepdene State School and Methodist Ladies College. She trained as a nurse at The Alfred Hospital, specialising in midwifery. During her first trip overseas, to England in 1961, she chose to work among the underprivileged in London's East End, rather than taking any of the "fun" holiday jobs on offer. This set the pattern for the long life of service that followed. On returning to Australia, Helen was determined to apply her skills and energy to remote aboriginal and pioneering communities in the far northwest. She joined the Australian Inland Mission in 1964 and was sent to the remote posting of Kununurra in northern WA. |
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There she met John Cox, a pilot, and they were married on John's 35th birthday in 1966. Following a period in Kununurra where Helen helped run the AIM hospital, she and John settled in Wyndham where John ran his air charter business. In 1967, just prior to her 30th birthday, their first child, Christina, was born. Then followed Hugh, in 1968.
In late 1968, Helen and John decided to get out of the air charter business and travel the world. The family arrived in Edmonton, Canada--where Helen's closest friend Di had settled--right in the middle of a bleak Canadian winter. They travelled widely in Canada and across USA, returning to Australia in 1969 and settling in Shepparton, where David was born the following year.
They returned to Melbourne in 1971, and after a brief period in Mitcham, John and Helen decided to settle their family in Warrandyte. The house in Webb Street was finished in 1973--their home for the next 27 years.
Helen commenced studying for the ministry in 1977 at the United Faculty of Theology at Melbourne University. She was ordained as a minister of the Uniting Church in 1982 and was appointed to the Mulgrave/Wheelers Hill parish. She became ill and was a patient at St Vincents Hospital for seven months in 1984 and completed her first and only full-time ministry in 1986.
She travelled back to Canada in 1986 to spend Christmas with her dear friend Di. Following her return she commenced service as a "stand-in" minister in the Uniting Church, filling in between appointments of fulltime ministers. She continued in this work until 2000, serving at churches in Deep Creek (now Doncaster East Uniting Church), Nunawading, Wattle Park, Ringwood East, Boronia and Ferntree Gully.
Travelling widely between 1989 and 2004 she visited Europe, India, Canada, Fiji, China, USA and South America.
John Cox died in 1999. Helen was admitted to hospital with a bowel perforation in 2004 but was successfully treated.
Helen's sense of family extended far beyond her own. Daughter Christine said at her funeral: "'Family' to Mum meant everyone she cared about and she did everything in her power to help all those she came in contact with. Unlike the rolling stone that gathers no moss, Mum was a rolling stone covered in Velcro. … Mum's collection of special people became special to us, her children, as evident by the many 'aunts' we have--Aunty Di, Aunty Rosalie, Aunty Mary, Aunty Wilma, Aunty Gillie. All people who became part of our extended family."
Helen held her first cake stall at the Warrandyte Community Market to raise funds towards a family holiday. Son Hugh remembered: "We caught the train to Wangaratta, then cycled the 35km to Beechworth. Although the road was constantly uphill, Mum kept us going--Chris especially. … Mum quietly encouraged her, walking when Chris walked, pedalling when Chris pedalled and got us all over the line."
Helen Cox died on Tuesday, July 15, 2008.
As part of a life helping others, firstly as a missionary nurse, then as a serving minister of the Uniting Church, Helen Cox devoted herself to a personal struggle against injustice.
At her funeral, son David told the gathering: "Nothing incensed Mum more than witnessing injustice. Inequality, 'unfairness', discrimination--it just made her blood boil.
"I'm not alone in thinking that Mum was put on this earth to become an advocate for those with no voice, for issues with uncomfortable profiles.
"You could probably trace this passion to help those less qualified or armed to defend themselves to her strong Methodist upbringing, sense of place and identity developed through an extremely strong family connectivity and good old-fashioned, 1940s social values.
"But I think the kind of commitment Mum had to pursuing peace and justice transcended religion, upbringing and education. It was somehow part of her genetic makeup. Asking Mum to accept or overlook a 'wrong' was like asking her to fly."
Helen Cox is survived by daughter Christina and sons Hugh and David and their families.
