This is a special message to friends of local woman, Maria Auzelis.
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Maria was born on 24th October 1932 in Staneschnitsch and died on 19th November 2014 in Parkes.
Friends are invited to say farewell at Bushman’s Hill entrance opposite Bushman’s Dam at 9am this Friday (28th November) when, in accordance with her instructions, her ashes will be placed and scattered.
Maria (nee Nuspl) was a free spirit not wishing for a funeral service.
She had a happy early childhood on the farm of her Germanic parents in an area close to the Danube River that was part of the former Hapsburg Empire.
During late WW2 it became under Tito’s control and then part of Yugoslavia, now part of Serbia.
But approaching teenage she suffered the witnessing of ethnic genocide of the Germanic minority by Tito’s partisans in 1944/5.
She escaped in 1946 through Hungary to Austria and thence to Munich during the post WW2 reconstruction.
As with relatives she settled there.
In May 1960, aged 28 years, she took opportunity of an assisted passage alone to Australia.
Here she met her future husband Alfred Auzelis, an immigrant from Latvia.
After marriage in August 1961 both worked in Sydney, saving and buying their own home in Canley Heights.
She was naturalised in 1965.
After divorce and in 1977, she moved to St Mary’s and came to Parkes in 1990.
She found her peace in Parkes over the next almost 25 years and bought land on the north end of Coleman Road, building her home and flower garden.
It was a walk away from Bushman’s Hill.
She was proud of her Germanic origins, and kept in regular contact by letter and telephone with relatives (including the Gerichs and Stephans) in Germany and people such as Martin Mesch, from the same town and time as her and now an elderly Sydney resident.
But it was the people of Parkes who she provided for in her will via the Salvation Army.
Old friends such as the late Wilga Bradley instilled that feeling of peaceful being within her.
So from July 2014 in Parkes Hospital, she accepted her fate of incurable cancer.
After care in Niola and then in Rosedurnate, she remained in good spirits and strong in mind.
Perhaps fortunately, a fatal heart attack saved her from having to endure uncontrollable cancerous decline.
She was organised with her departure notes.
So without pomp and fuss, her ashes will lie forever on Bushman’s Hill at 9am this Friday.