Meet June Kent, June isn’t a self-professed green thumb, she didn’t even like to leave her room when she first moved into Benevolent. But that all changed, when her friend Mavis Phipps moved in right across the hall.
June and Mavis had known each other from their childhood years, they both grew up just north of Rockhampton at The Caves. As teenagers they used to play tennis together on the river at the Bonavista Tennis Club. As they grew up and had their families June and Mavis lost touch, but that was until they both joined our Benevolent family.
Mavis and June did everything together, until Mavis sadly passed away in June this year. June remembers Mavis fondly, “every morning when I used to open my door and Mavis would sing out. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Hang on a minute I’m coming too.’ We did everything together.”
“She had a motto: life is better with friends. Her sign is still in the garden today.”
“I didn’t believe it until she moved in, I stayed in my room mostly, but then she made me come out and socialise. Now I have all my friends at Benevolent and I enjoy all the activities.”
“Mavis was a green thumb and she loved gardening.”
“When she moved here she started gardening outside of Jack Fleming.”
“Gavin helped her do all of the digging, but she planted all of the plants herself.”
She used to say to me, “you just wait and see how beautiful it is when all of the flowers bloom.”
Mavis nurtured her garden while she was here, and now June takes care of the garden for her. Every afternoon at 4pm June waters the garden herself.
“I don’t have much of a green thumb, but I keep it alive for Mavis, I think she would be very proud of me for tending to all of her plants.”
“My sister comes and helps me, and Mavis’ friends and family still come and visit me in the garden, they were her friends but now them are my friends too.” “I do all the watering myself, but you’d be surprised who comes out and talks to me while I work.”
Mavis’ garden is a living legacy to a very special lady. The Phipps family even donated the twin-seat that June and Marjorie still enjoy, and Gavin made the signs in honour of the lady who gave us all the joy of her beautiful garden.
June and Mavis used to sit in together in the garden talking and laughing, today she sits with her friend Marjorie who also knew Mavis well.
“Mavis was a very lovely lady, we were all very lovely friends,” says Marjorie.
“We often say how much we miss Mavis, she always had a joke, just anything and she could make you laugh.”
“She was a very special lady, just ask anyone who knew her.”
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