From Australia with Love

BY NORAH RESSLER (MACLAREN, 1954-1959)

A friend of mine who lives on the Island sent me an article that was in the Cowichan Valley Citizen about QMS recently. I knew Miss Norah Denny and Miss Rachel Geoghegan. I started at QMS in 1954 and I now live in Sydney Australia but go back to Canada often. I keep in touch with about four QMS old girls and we have reunions when possible; Olwen Southworth, Jenny Thompson and Rosiland Coleman. I feel blessed to have attended such a great school.

I gained my passionate love of horses from QMS. Olwen and I became good friends with Gill Dunlop who was our riding teacher and we kept in touch with her (she passed away a couple of years ago). I carried my love of horses to Australia and have had two horses over 20 years. I lost my black mare two years ago and of course my thoughts turned to QMS and my love of Miss Dunlop’s horse Tullameen. Miss Dunlop caught her in the wild in the Tullameen Valley in B.C., and she offered to give her to me but I had nowhere to keep her. I am still riding horses out at the stables where I had my two horses.

I went on a world tour at 19 years of age with two girlfriends and we came to Australia and a girl who has also attended QMS, Bev Skene, met us at the ship in Sydney. Her dad was a dentist in Vancouver. I met an Austrian man here then went to London, England where I worked for a year before travelling to Europe to look up my boyfriend’s parents in Austria, then I went back to Vancouver. After a year I returned to Sydney and a couple of years later we went to Vancouver to get married. My parents and close friends were all there. After getting married we came back to Sydney.

I have studied French and German extensively and speak both languages, though my German is better than my French as I use it all the time. I have operated a real estate business for 29 years and am a certified NLP Practitioner. I have never forgotten the motto Servite Fortiter. I contribute to 18 animal organizations; six human causes and six environmental groups. I belong to Greenpeace Canada and Greenpeace Australia.

I always drop by QMS when I'm on the Island as it brings back so many wonderful memories. Last year I went to see Olwen in Victoria to go to her husband’s memorial and it was cancelled because of COVID-19.

I believe my experience at QMS greatly enhanced my character and certainly helped me in my business life. I was on the hockey team, won tennis trophies, and won ribbons on Tullameen in show jumping. I also spent a lot of time standing outside the classroom for being cheeky and spent numerous times picking stones up off the grass hockey field and had a few lectures from Miss Denny!