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Dr. Eugenie Cheesmond: A tribute to the life of a Grand Lady who touched so many lives
2007.10.19
1. Eugenie with Jana and Charles Stirton when she visited us in Wales in 2003. She was a great supporter of the new National Botanic Garden of Wales, which open in May 2000 and visited it regularly during its development phase with our mutual friend Ian Green. She was famous for her dyed hair and it was variously green, blue and red, silver and blue and multicoloured. She loved bright colours.
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2. The funeral car was bedecked in flowers and a cloth with her hero Nelson Mandela and in the ANC colours. Her cardboard coffin was carried in procession form the gate to the Chapel for the service.
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3. Eugenie Hilda Dorothy Cheesmond, aged 88 years, lying in her recyclable, cardboard coffin brightly decorated by family and friends.
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4. Eugenie as a child.
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5. Eugenie towards the end of her life.
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6. A simple message from the family.
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7. A choir of Zimbabwean singers led the congregation out of the Chapel to the accompaniment of drums.
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8. Well-wishers come to pay their respects.
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9. Family gather outside after the service.
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10. Flags flown during the service.
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11. A quiet, sombre, yet colourful exit.
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12. Eugenie's friend Ian Green, who chauffered her on many great jaunts across Britain, and Jana Stirton.
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13. A view from Eugenie's chair out to her small front patio garden.
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14. A cake of memory.
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15. One of the many photo collages in her house of Eugenie's many friends and family.
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16. My grandmother Nancy Inglesby (nee Markus) in the foregound, Eugenie's late sister Pamela Cheesemond on the right and her mother Dolly.
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17. Eugenie'shouse was big, bold and colourful just like herself. It was remarkable that she never locked her door during the day and there was always a steady stream of interesting people to visit her.
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18. Family and friends gather in the kitchen at the wake.
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19. Her friend Betty who did so much for her toward the end and her friend and lodger Alan who played so sensitively at the funeral.
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Dr. Eugenie Cheesemond
Everyone of us meets many different people during the course of our lives. Some people barely touch our hearts whereas others impact us in defining ways. There is also that very small group of people who impact everyone they meet. They have big characters, big arguments, strong beliefs, and big hearts. They are loved by their supporters and respected by their enemies. Dr. Eugenie Cheesmond, my mother's cousin, was just such a person. The world is a measurably better place for her having been with us. She really did turn people's lives around. One of her great heroes was Nelson Mandela.
Her funeral on Wednesday 17th October in Haslingden, England was a memorable, colourful, lively, songful African departure.
Feisty, forthright, a fighter for justice, she was one of the world's doers. She was also an accomplished mountaineer, climbing her last mountain after her 80th birthday. Apart from her work as a doctor she fought assiduously against the Apartheid regime in South Africa, was a life-long supporter of the African National Congress, started the Oxfam shop in Haslingden, opened her home to battered wives, and created one of the first charities to help drug dependents. There is so much more she did that I can only hope others will add to the picture.
I am posting this tribute so that friends and family can comment on her life and have a space to pay their own tributes.
Everyone of us meets many different people during the course of our lives. Some people barely touch our hearts whereas others impact us in defining ways. There is also that very small group of people who impact everyone they meet. They have big characters, big arguments, strong beliefs, and big hearts. They are loved by their supporters and respected by their enemies. Dr. Eugenie Cheesmond, my mother's cousin, was just such a person. The world is a measurably better place for her having been with us. She really did turn people's lives around. One of her great heroes was Nelson Mandela.
Her funeral on Wednesday 17th October in Haslingden, England was a memorable, colourful, lively, songful African departure.
Feisty, forthright, a fighter for justice, she was one of the world's doers. She was also an accomplished mountaineer, climbing her last mountain after her 80th birthday. Apart from her work as a doctor she fought assiduously against the Apartheid regime in South Africa, was a life-long supporter of the African National Congress, started the Oxfam shop in Haslingden, opened her home to battered wives, and created one of the first charities to help drug dependents. There is so much more she did that I can only hope others will add to the picture.
I am posting this tribute so that friends and family can comment on her life and have a space to pay their own tributes.
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Comments
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Emotive tribute to an exceptionnal lady. Thanks for sharing those moments, indeed important in a human life.
miclaud · 2007-10-20: 12:11
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Have no words for such a nice person, I would have like to know her. Thank you for sharing your thinkings-and photos- with us. I will also remember Dr. Eugenie Cheesmond.
iabela · 2007-10-20: 12:34
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Cool! Thanks for sharing!
tarhema · 2007-10-20: 14:23
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A fitting tribute!!
jetjackson · 2007-10-20: 21:29
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A touching testimony. Sounds like some I'd admire.
Cherax · 2007-10-21: 06:13
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what a lovely tribute
magpy · 2007-10-22: 19:24
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This is beautiful, thanks for sharing ....
DancingDolphin · 2007-10-25: 12:48
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Yes - Eugenie was incredibly special. I knew a little of her other interests and passions but mainly knew of her recovery work when she and I worked together at Lifeline in the early 1970s. That was a time when belief in recovery was low and the general view was that the best you could do was contain the whirlwind. Eugenie, a whirlwind in her own right, would have none of it! She was a passionate beliver in the ability of people to turn their lives around. She was a committed supporter of therapeutic community methods (she is one of only three TC pioneers to be included on the EFTC remembrance page - see the link below). She inspired a generation of ex-addicts like me to work in the field to try to make a difference. Thanks Eugenie.
Rowdy Yates · 2007-11-07: 05:51
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Even though Eugenie was basicly my great grandma,i only ever met her once or twice but she inspired me in everything i do and everything i will ever do. Now she's the person im doing my yr7 project on. I'm so pleased to have met her and to have had somthing to do with her. The pictures above are so true of Eugenie,Bright,Bold and careing. thanks Eugeniexxxx
hunsley swimmer · 2008-01-25: 14:05
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thank you so much! loved the decorated cardboard casket too. have heard a lot about the ceremonies but the photos help make it real and so fitting for eugenie!
ruth king / susser · 2008-06-10: 11:22
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Dr. Eugenie Cheesemond was also a visionary drugs activist who founded the Lifeline Project in 1971. I am grateful to Rowdy Yates (Senior Research Fellow, University of Stirling) for drawing my attention to a page of reflections on the European Federation of Therapeutic Communities webpages. null
Sevendipity · 2008-06-11: 08:12
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We miss her. Ian and Sabine
????? · 2009-04-24: 14:28
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My name is Julia Swain (nee Struben) and I was the daughter of Eugienie's sister Pamela. I would very much like to know who wrote this blog and perhaps to be in touch with you. My mother, who passed away in 1995, fell our with her sister and we lost contact completely. I would like to know what happened to Alistair as well.
Julia Swain · 2010-01-08: 15:10
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Oh yes and the pictures are indeed of my mother Pamela, her and Eugenies mother and my grandmother, Dolly and my great aunt, Dolly's sister, Nancy.
Julia Swain · 2010-01-08: 15:13
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I had the honour to know Eugenie at the time she was involved in setting up the Lifeline Drug Centre in Manchester . She left an indelible mark on my life and , looking back now my memory is of her with Polarity Bear , her dog , by her side sweeping up Moseley Street like a galleon under full sail . Although our paths never crossed again , seeing these tributes take my memory back to those days , a truly admirable lady and a great loss to this world . R.I.P. Eugenie .
????? · 2010-06-20: 16:58
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Eugeine....i used to go to the lifeline trust on moseley street, the only place people with drug problems where welcome....she was a brilliant woman, i was talking about her today to people in the Lifeline Project office which i now do some work with, they had never heard of her i am going to print of this story of her life and what she did for others.....how dare they forget her...thanks Dr Cheesmond for helping me get my life back...x
lynne stott · 2011-04-26: 14:10
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Thank you all for your messages in support of the memory of my relative Eugenie Cheesemond. She was my mother Liza Stirton's cousin and it is fitting this Christmas Eve that I remember her as my family and I spent a number of wonderful and memorable Christmas's with her in Haslingdon. If Julia Swain reads this and wants to get in contact with me contact me Charles Stirton in Bath, England. I knew Pamela quite well and admired her a lot. I was inspired to read the tributes by the Moseley Street contributors.
Sevendipity · 2011-12-24: 20:30
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