Time of Our Lives by Maggie Kirkman

Author:Maggie Kirkman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monash University Publishing
Published: 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

A Tripartite Life

Sharron Pfueller

(b. 1943)

It’s often said that things come in threes: bad luck, trams, blind mice, good luck, little pigs, sneezes. It seems to be in harmony with the universe that Dr Sharron Pfueller segments her professional life into three phases. She can identify the year each career began and the years the first two ended. Evident in all phases of her life from childhood are the three demands of self, relationships and occupation. Sometimes these demands have complemented each other; at other times they have necessitated difficult decisions. These decisions have been influenced by Sharron’s values, her desire to contribute to the world and serendipity.

Sharron’s father immigrated to Australia from Germany in 1933, living first in Melbourne and then in Sydney, where he managed the Holeproof factory before setting up his own business. Sharron’s mother was the daughter of a spirited divorcée who ran a boarding house in Sydney. Her parents met when her mother opened the door of the boarding house to her father. Sharron’s grandmother set an example that Sharron was proud to follow. ‘As a teenager, my grandmother had never learnt about how babies were formed because her mother had died, leaving her to look after her younger brother. This ignorance led to her getting pregnant. And then divorced because her husband liked other women. She wasn’t daunted and set up her boarding house. Later, she joined the Feminist Club in Sydney; she took my mother along to meetings and once I went too. My relatives provided examples of independent, strong women who tried to make the world a better place. This sat in my unconscious throughout life so that, when circumstances out of my control came along, I had the mindset to take up the challenges, take a different direction and create something new.’

Sharron’s father somehow escaped internment during the Second World War. The fate of most so-called enemy aliens was to be locked up in jails or purpose-built camps for the duration. But he couldn’t escape the hostility and suspicion of the populace. Despite doing everything he could to overcome his Germanness, he was abused by his parochial neighbours for naming his house ‘Bon’, his wife’s nickname, because they thought it referred to the German city of Bonn.

Persistent pneumonia and other respiratory problems meant that Sharron rarely attended school. As an only child she had the full attention of her very protective parents, who feared the outcome of every bout of illness. Sharron loved learning at home by correspondence during her early high-school years. Her parents’ support and encouragement were unremitting. They wanted her always to do her best but had no overt expectations of the kind of life she should lead. When she was well enough to leave home isolation, she attended the nearest school, to limit travel. It was a domestic science school, not at all to Sharron’s taste. She felt completely out of place. It wasn’t only her history of cerebral home schooling: her schoolmates knew her to be sickly, she topped her classes and she was tall.

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