We had more sad news this month with the death of an old friend of Steve’s family, Norman Beischer, who died from leukaemia on the second of February.
He left a big legacy too in his field of obstetrics and gynacology. He wrote 180 published research papers, edited a journal for 17 years, co-wrote many editions of textbooks and lectured at Melbourne University, earning him (like his friend, Steve’s father) an AO.
In between all that, he delivered 10,000 babies. That’s just over one every two days for 60 years. Among these babies was Steve and his sisters. Imagine the weekends and evenings that he gave, and his own family missed, over a lifetime like that.
I met Norman only five years ago, and probably only five times since then, but I wanted to fly down to his memorial service with Steve to pay respect to someone I knew as a kind and engaging man, always with an interesting story to tell, who was effortlessly interested in babies and children. It was particularly reassuring before the girls were born to discuss twin births and to hear how multiple births are risk-managed, and why.
Blue-eyed like his sparkly wife Elizabeth, his white hair belied a vigorous curiosity and involvement in life. He was another person who lived a contributing life right up until the end, with his enduring passion being founding and running, with his daughter Anne, a medical research fund for research into babies and women. Indeed his life was a healthy mix of research and practical work, the one enriching the other. His practical bent (he was also a farmer and keen gardener) is illustrated by the story that he asked a patient with gestational diabetes whether she had a dog, and when told that she didn’t, he advised her to buy one and walk it twice a day to manage her condition.
Knowing he didn’t have long to live, he too organised a few extra things into the future, including writing a message to be included in the memorial service and overseeing the contents of the service. In this message he graciously omitted any mention of his career and instead focused on how he had been blessed with his parents, siblings, wife, children, daughters-in-law, and ‘the icing on the cake’ his seven grandchildren.
Reflecting on Norman’s life, he should have been proud of all of his family, including his three children, who all seem to be engaging and generous like their parents. But it is impossible not to dwell on the contributions of Norman’s wife Elizabeth, Steve’s mum, and almost all of the wives of their contemporaries when you reflect on Norman’s life. Even in the mid sixties when they started having children, these women didn’t earn the money but they ran the households, they were there for the most challenging and often unappreciated task of raising children, and they gave up their own careers and their own independent intellectual stimulation to make the family work and support their husbands.
Not only did these husbands get the rewards of engaging with interesting work, they supplemented this with invigorating exercise like squash, which Norman and Nigel played together twice a week for around two decades, and golf. Their wives enabled their husbands to be the best that they could be, and to make significant contributions to society, but what could our society have been had these women had the opportunity to make their own contributions as well.
Norman’s life then, to be fair, is a tribute to both him and Elizabeth in equal measure. Norman has been acknowledged by the obstetric and gynaecology community for his legacy, and no doubt will also be remembered by those 10,000 babies and their families. I, as one of them, will not forget him. Let’s not forget their wives either.
For more information or to donate to the Medical Research Fund for Women and Babies that Norman founded:
www.mrfwb.org.au
