Fairweather, Margaret Ellen,
Gardner, Margaret Ellen,
Mum Fairweather,
Name
Margaret Fairweather,
Collection
Territory Women,
HistoryNT,
Place of birth
Menzies (W.A.),
Date of birth
1915-10-26,
Occupation
Business Woman,
Community Service,
Date of death
2003-09-01,
Biographical notes
Margaret came to Darwin in November 1939, she loved wild and stormy weather with her ability to endure storms she was put to use when on a returning sea voyage from Fremantle on the Kolama1, the ship suffered a bomb attack at two o'clock in the afternoon of twentieth February 1942 out of Derby. She married to John Joseph Fairweather in 1948 they have a daughter and son. In 1962 John and ‘Mum Fairweather bought land on the banks of the Daly River where they built and operated a hotel/motel, Daly River Roadside Inn. The Inn went through two floods the first in 1974 and the second in 1977. They had to rebuild from scratch, using money borrowed from the bank she received no government assistance in 1985 she left the Inn. In 1963 Margaret was a co-founder of the Darwin Quota Club.
At seventy she decided to put all her energy elsewhere this included maintaining her activities with the Darwin Quota Club. She trained with the Red Cross emergency service and became a valuable Red Cross worker, with a sound knowledge of evacuation and air-raid procedures and after Cyclone Tracy in 1974 Margaret was called upon to help in the emergency operations- this time helping trace missing persons and delivering ‘Meals on Wheels'. In the late 1990s ‘Mum Fairweather' was the oldest Territorian to graduate at the NT University to achieve an associate diploma in fashion technology after studying for seven years. Margaret was profoundly deaf but that did not stop her from giving lessons in lip-reading and sign language for people with hearing disabilities.,
Subject
Women,
Northern Territory,
Related materials
Forrest, P. & S. "Farewell to old friends of NT", Northern Territory New, 30 December 2003, p.29.,