Edith Cavell Daley was born on the 8^th of November 1918 to Thomas George and Elizabeth Lavinia Stephens in the small western district town of Beeac. She was the youngest of nine living children.

Edith grew up in a household that loved books, music and telling a good story. With eight older siblings her early life was filled with family and helping out in the family grocery store.

Her first employment was as a telephonist but this was only as a stopgap until she could commence her nursing training. At 21 she began her three year training as a nurse at the Geelong Hospital, a career that stayed with her for many years. In those days it was customary for nurses to be addressed by their surnames, it was a short haul from Stephens to Steve. Steve remained the name of preference to her closest and most enduring nursing friends.

It was during her training years that she met her future husband, William Richard Daley, whom every one called Dick. Dick was in the Army and Edith was still training. They became engaged in 1942. They married at the Shenton Methodist Church East Geelong
on the 4^th December 1943. On the same day Edith received the news that she had passed all of her final nursing exams.

Over the next few years Edith settled into the role of wife and mother. She and Dick had two children Diana and Roger (also known as Bill). In the early 1960’s she returned to nursing, working for a couple of Geelong Nursing Homes, and the Geelong District Nursing Society where she not only became known as "Sister’ but also became a friend to many of her isolated house bound patients. In these roles she found great satisfaction in geriatric nursing.

One thing can be said about Edith she loved and honored her families Stephens and Daley. She was very proud of her family history, Celtic heritage and her siblings. That pride and love was extended forward as well; to her two children and to her three grand sons, Rick, Dave, and Tom. Although failing she was proud and excited the day in 2001she held her first Great Grand Child Tyler William Daley in her arms.

Give us , Lord, a bit o’sun,
A bit a’ work and a bit o’ fun.

Give us in all the struggle and the sputter,
Our daily bread and a bit o’ butter.

Give us health our keep to make,
An a bit to spare for other’s sake.

Give us, too, a bit of song,
And a tale and a book to help us along.

Give us Lord, a chance to be
Our goodly best, brave, wise and free.

Our goodly best for ourselves and others,
Till all men learn to live as brothers.

So as the "Old Prayer " says let us all go now, remember Edith and along our many journeys be sure to do our " goodly best ".

JOHN FRENCH STEPHENS

John was born at Beeac, in Western Victoria, on August 29 1915.  He was the ninth of eleven children of Thomas George Stephens (known as 'T.G.') and Elizabeth Lavinia Opie.

John grew up in Beeac, Maryborough and Horsham.  He and his brothers Bill, Tom and Hector, and sisters Vene, Dorothy, Hilda, Myrt and Edith, were a close-knit family, and the blood of generations of Cornish mining families gave them a strong Methodist faith and the love of singing that goes with it.

The Methodist Church choir at Beeac wasn't always up to scratch.   T.G. was a lay preacher, and when he preached he was want to sack the usual choir and replace them with a choir made up entirely of Stephens children.

John's mother was ill for a number of years and died when he was 16.

John was very close to his brother Hector and his sisters Myrt and Edith, who were near to him in age (Edith survives John.  She is unable to be here today but she will be able to listen to a tape of the service.)

Hec died of illness in 1943 in Malaya after twelve months behind enemy lines with Chinese guerilla forces.  It was more that fifty years before we knew the details of what had happened to him.  John then wrote and published a tribute to Hec and circulated it among the family.  Knowing how much Hec had suffered during that time in Malaya was something that helped sustain John through his own illness.

John's love of language and writing began at primary school in Maryborough and developed at Horsham and Colac High Schools.  His final school report in 1933 said he was an 'outstanding student with a gift for literature.'

One the other hand, he was weak at Maths and not much good with machines, either, particularly cars.  He had his first driving lesson in a 40 acre paddock with his brother Hec.  The paddock had one stump in it and John managed to pile up the family car onto the one stump.

Being a Stephens, he also sang.  As a boy, he had a beautiful soprano voice.  It turned into a robust bass baritone, and he took leading roles in school productions of gilbert and Sullivan, and, of course, sang in T.G.'s choir.

John began his school teaching career as a pupil teacher at Beeac State School in 1934 before entering Melbourne Teachers' College in 1937.  The college magazine for that year includes one of his poems.  He went on to the University of Melbourne, where he was active in student theatre, and he graduated Bachelor of Aets in April 1941.

Two months after graduating, he inlisted in the 2/6 Battalion.  He served in Syria, Ceylon, New Guinea and North Queensland until he was discharged in 1945.

Like many of his generation, John rarely spoke about his war service, although he did say once that he fervently hoped he had never killed anyone.  His letters home show a keen eye for his surroundings, a regard for his fellows and a wry humour.  Auntie Ede remembers him telling her that he and another soldier kept awake on sentry duty one night by loudly singing hymns and bits of Gilbert and Sullivan.   Perhaps that explains why they discovered in the morning that the enemy was, in fact, behind them, and their guns had been pointing the wrong way all night.

John wrote a lot during the war.  One piece, about Christmas in Syria in 1941, shows how vividly he could write:

That Christmas the battalion was stationed not far from Damascus, though it seems so remote now, in these jungle-choked gorges, from the desolate heights of Anti-Lebabib, that I sometimes wonder if I were ever there.   Only now and then does my mind go back, making me see afresh the mountains of Syria, pink and grey and dappled with snow, and feel once more the black winds coming down the valley to jar the walls of the huts, making the loose iron on the roof screech and buck like mad stallions.'

After the war John began teaching again, at Camperdown in the Western District.  He always recalled Camperdown fondly, because it was there that he made his highest score in cricket (62) and met 'the best wife in the world', Bessie Campbell.

John and Bess were married in Ballarat on September 1, 1947.  Their son, David, was born in 1949 and their daughter, Jane, in 1952.

John and Bess moved to Box Hill, living first with Bess' parents in Clyde Street and from 1957 in Lexton Road.

Their home in Lexton Road took a long time to build because of difficulties with the War Services Homes beaurocracy.  John wrote an article for The Bulletin describing the problems.  When the house was at last finished, John wrote to his brother Tom: 'We moved in at the beginning of June and are gradually making a home of it.  I think we shall be happy here.'

And they were.  John taught at Box Hill High School, Bess took up her nursing career and built up their garden.  John became highly respected as an English teacher, developing new approaches to encouraging children to read widely, and writing two textbooks and a number of articles.

He wrote that the English teacher's main business is to give his pupils the beginnings of a civilized outlook.  This was 'an exhausting responsibility.  It demands from the teacher faith in his pupil, faith in the ultimate rightness of what we call civilization, and faith in his own capabilities.'

John's capabilities as a teacher were recognized by students and by coleagues in the teaching profession.  When Jane attended Teachers' College in 1975 she was surprised when her English Method lecturer declined to attend a practice lesson to assess her teaching skills.  The lecturer said, 'You're John Stephens' daughter - you know how to teach.'

John moved on from Box Hill High School to Mitcham, Bayswater and Wattle Park High Schools, before retiring in 1976.

When he retired, he said his two main projects were to defeat the oxalis in Bess's garden and to master the finer points of the roulades in Handel's Messiah.  He had rather more success with the Handel than with the oxalis.

John became a proud grandfather in his seventies and loved to see hi grand-daughters, Cathryn & Ellen.  He was proud of David and Jane as well, but most of all he was devoted to his wife, Bess, to whom he was married for exactly 48 years.  He became Bess's dedicated carer during her medical problems until she died last year.

After Bess died, John turned with great courage to building a life without her.  He made plans for the future, he travelled to Canberra to visit David and his family, he started some projects in the garden, he wrote, he took a season ticket for the Melbourne Theatre Company.  He kept fit by walking miles around Box Hill and Blackburn, and in the bush at Fairhaven last January.

When he went to visit his brother Bill in hospital last year, he got off the train and walked a mile in what he thought was the right direction.  When he realized his mistake he turned around and walked the three miles back to the hospital.

He liked to visit Jane in Carlton and see the sights of Lygon Street.  He loved the drawings of Michael Leunig and the writing of Kaz Cooke, and he thought Eric Bogle's song 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' perfectly expressed the futility of war.

John was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 and had treatment at that time.  He knew the cancer was likely to recur, and he had some continuing problems which he kept to himself while Bess was alive.  He was determined to the end not to be beaten by his illness and he kept his independence as long as he could.

During his time in hospital he was always courteous and undemanding with nursing staff, and cheerful with visitors.

One visitor was his niece, Pamela Stephens.  He was very much taken with a bunch of red and yellow tulips she brought him, and after that he asked always to have such a bunch against a window where he could see them.

John died peacefully in Cotham Private Hospital on the morning of July 18.  Jane and David were with him when he died, and on the table near his bed he had a picture of Bess, pictures of Cathryn and Ellen, and a vase of red and yellow tulips.

John loved Bess, his family, the English language, music and teaching.  Some of the music he loved - the hymns of the old Methodist Hymn Book and the folk songs of Britain - are part of today's service.  Some of the language he loved was Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and the poetry of the Great War.   One of these poets wrote:

Now to be still and rest, while the heart remembers
All that it learned and loved in the days long past,
To stoop and warm our hands at the fallen embers,
Glad to have come to the long way's end at last.

Now to rejoice in children and their laughter,
Tuning our hearts once more to the fairy strain,
To hear our names on voices we love, and after
Turn with a smile to sleep and our dreams again.

July 25 1996.