Anne Macarthur turns 80 next month but is showing no sign of slowing down.
Mrs Macarthur was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Australia Day honors list for her service to the Red Cross and East Gippsland community.
The award is an addition to her Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), with which she was bestowed in 2007.
Mrs Macarthur told the Advertiser she received an email advising her of the AM last month.
“I was totally surprised and in shock,” she said, as she sipped her coffee in the kitchen of her farmhouse overlooking the Lindenow Valley.
“I’m accepting it on behalf of all those who have helped me over the years because no one does things on their own,” Mrs Macarthur said diplomatically.
“I just don’t want to be picked out, other people do so much and I’ve always felt I’ve been part of a team.”
Mrs Macarthur first became involved with Red Cross at the age of 10 when she was sent from her parents remote New South Wales family home to St. Catherine’s boarding school in Melbourne.
“The first organisation I joined was Red Cross,” she said.
It was in Melbourne that Mrs Macarthur met her future husband, Donald Macarthur, and moved to East Gippsland in 1961.
For past 40 years, Mrs Macarthur has lived on a grazing property the couple purchased at Hillside.
Sadly, Mr Macarthur succumbed to cancer about 20 years ago and these days Mrs Macarthur leases the land to vegetable growers.
Following her husband’s death, Mrs Macarthur became virtually a full time volunteer for Red Cross and has been a member of the Lindenow branch since its formation 50 years ago.
She recalls the 1965 bushfires in the area and baking fruitcakes and delivering them to families affected.
A similar situation ensued following the Black Summer bushfires in 2019, but this time Mrs Macarthur was delivering Red Cross teddies made by branch members.
“It wasn’t just kids hugging the teddies (also known as trauma teddies) but adults too,” she said.
“They gave comfort to people of all ages.” For as long as she can remember, Mrs Macarthur has been one who door knocks in the Lindenow area during the Red Cross annual fundraising drive.
“It’s traditionally in March but a lot of people don’t have cash now,” she says, with plastic replacing the spare change people normally carry in their pockets.
Mrs Macarthur became the first female chair of Red Cross, after 100 years of male dominance, and chaired the Victorian Red Cross Board for six years.
“I’m quite proud of that,” she said. During the coronavirus lockdown last year, she had to learn how to chair an online meeting from her kitchen table.
When she’s not chairing meetings, baking cakes and rattling tin cans, Mrs Macarthur can be found swimming laps at the BARC in Bairnsdale.
“Keeping active and thinking of other people I think is the recipe to a happy life,” she says before dashing off to deliver meals on wheels to community citizens less mobile.
IMAGE
Hillside resident, Anne Macarthur, has devoted her live to Red Cross and was recently made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). K24-9373
