Cecile’s family background is something she was acutely aware and proud of and it may also be of interest to Forbes people.

Cecile’s grandparents Auguste and Celestine Girot came from France to Australia on their honeymoon to meet Auguste’s uncle, Celestin Blanc, who reputedly had a goldmine in Forbes. He met them in Sydney and treated them to a lavish time (the best hotel and restaurants, driving everywhere in hansom cabs), so the story appeared to be true. However when they asked him for money to return to France, he told them there was no more money as he had sold his mine to come and see them. They then travelled with Celestin on the Cobb and Co coach to Forbes, where a number of prominent French families lived, and started their life in Australia, raising nine children to adulthood.

The second of Auguste and Celestine’s children was Jules, Cecile’s father. Speaking only French when he began school, he quickly learned English and thereafter only spoke English in response to his mother’s French.

Cecile grew up hearing their odd bilingual conversations and was aware of differences between her and other kids at school. There is little doubt that this led to her strong curiosity about, and affinity with, people whose backgrounds and origins were not Anglo-Australian.

The second of five girls born to Jules and Ruby Girot, Cecile was born in 1923 in a small cottage at Wyanola, where her father was sharecropping. She was the last baby delivered by old Nurse Lovatt, the midwife who had delivered her own father. She lived there for the first two years of her life until her father bought land on the Orange Road where he established the orchard Torig Park.

With the exception of six years away doing her nursing and midwifery training, she lived at Torig Park for most of her life. School holidays were not spent happily playing like most of her schoolmates. Along with her sisters Marie and Pauline, Cecile had to work on the orchard. Dressed in workmen’s overalls they would spend weeks grubbing out coddling moths from apple-tree trunks (this was in the days before insecticide sprays). They also picked and packed fruit, pruned trees, milked cows, made butter and jams, and preserved fruit.

At a time when most women did not have careers, Cecile chose to go nursing and took to it with a passion. She began her training at the Mater Hospital, Crows Nest just after the time when nurses paid to train. Instead she received 5 shillings a week. She told many stories of her nursing days, including how during the war they had to transport all patients down to the basement during an air raid (using only a tiny mesh lift and a narrow set of fire-stairs).

Cecile was a devout Catholic, and her faith sustained her throughout her life. In 1946 she intended to work as a missionary nurse in New Guinea, however her mother convinced her to return to Forbes before doing so. While there, a request came from the understaffed Forbes District Hospital, and she ended up working there for several years. It was through working there that she came to know Tom, her future husband. They formed a devoted partnership that lasted almost 67 years.

Cecile and Tom married and set up life at Torig Park where they share-farmed with Jules. Their five children were born over this time and brought them great pride and joy, but also tragedy when their eldest child John died of meningitis at the age of four.

It is impossible to capture 93 years in a short article, and it is easy to miss the extraordinary in the ordinary. It wasn't so much what Cecile did in life as how she did it that made her so remarkable.

Like her French grandmother, Cecile was a strong woman. She survived childhood deprivation, financial struggles, family bereavement, and especially the devastation of losing John, an event that has shaped her family more than any other. She survived major illnesses and operations, and years of disability. Until just over a year ago she was driving to the heated pool twice a week to do aqua fitness, as she had done for more than 30 years, to manage her rheumatoid arthritis rather than risking the side effects of medications.

But her strength wasn’t just physical. Cecile was famously strong in her opinions, with an honesty that was often mistaken for bluntness. Yet while these opinions were expressed with certainty, she did continuously examine her views in the light of experience and they never stopped evolving.

Cecile had confidence in and enjoyed her capabilities. Although she would never choose the word, she was something of a feminist. This began with choosing her nursing profession, but it was an identity she kept all through her life. In her mind women should be as free as men to do what they wished, and she instilled this in her family. She knew the dignity and value of independence, and continued to earn her own money even after being forced to leave nursing when she married. She used her capabilities all through her life, not just in bringing up her children and working on the orchard, but on occasion caring for babies of women who were ill, and ill friends.

Cecile enjoyed life at Torig Park with the changing seasons of the orchard. Summer was a particularly busy and social time, first with many pickers and packers and then with fruit sales. Itinerant farm work has been known to attract criticism for the abuse of workers. Nothing could be further from the truth at Torig Park. Regular workers returned year after year. Later, when international travel became more affordable, overseas travellers often provided extra labour, working and camping on the farm to save money for travel. Cecile loved their company, their stories, and their customs and in return they loved her. Long summer lunches on trestle tables under the fruit trees were especially memorable.

She was a loyal friend, passionate and diligent in maintaining connection with her extended “family” of dozens of people, particularly in Denmark, Poland and France, right up until the last. First by letter, then on two European holidays and finally with her much loved Skype. Her reach in friendship was cross-generational, international and lasting.

In 1997 Cecile and Tom retired from Torig Park and began a new chapter of their life in Bathurst Street. She joined a craft group and applied her persistence and perfectionism to many forms and styles. Her teddy bears found homes all over the world, and candlewick and patchwork quilts grace the homes of her family.

Cecile was curious and adventurous, rising to the challenge of new experiences. In her late 80s she walked to Cathedral Gorge in the Bungle Bungles in the Kimberleys. For her 90th, rather than a party she wanted to see the Barrier Reef, which she did with great energy and delight. Technology was always exciting. For example when everyone else had wringer washing machines, she insisted on an automatic one. In recent years she did brain training computer exercises religiously and loved email and Skype, a gift linking her to her beloved friends and family.

Perhaps it is through friends and family that we see Cecile’s most extraordinary gifts. Cecile loved being with people. Her experience of suffering and resilience enabled her to be present to others in their troubles, and she had a wonderful ability to embrace people. 

Even on her death bed she rallied remarkably when visitors came. When too weak to hold the phone she still enjoyed hearing from those she loved.

Cecile had two great loves, Forbes where she chose to live and her family. She knew how she wanted to leave this world: at home, at peace and surrounded by those she loved. As with most things that Cecile set her mind to, she achieved it. For this her family is extremely grateful.

Cecile leaves behind her husband Tom; her children Paul, Suzanne, Ian and Jennifer; her grandchildren, Elizabeth, John, Louise and Joanna and her great grandchildren, Lucy and Janie. She will be missed by them and by all of those she touched with her friendship. It is the best measure of a life and one that she valued immensely.

- Daughter Suzanne Doust