Their husbands fought in wars decades apart — both are helped by Legacy

WIDOWS Florence Stuart and Melissa Dryden share the bond that ties all women married to the men who went to war.

Changing Face of War Widows

WIDOWS Florence Stuart and Melissa Dryden share the bond that ties all women married to the men who went to war.

Their husbands fought in wars nearly a hundred years apart that were vastly different but no less deadly.

The sacrifice of the Australian men who fought in war and the women who supported them is remembered on the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1 on August 4, 1914.

Ms Stuart, 83 is one of the last of the Australian women who married a soldier who fought in the Great War.

A veteran of the 32nd Battalion that fought in France, Egypt and Greece her husband Eric fought in a war still dominated by the bloody close combat of trench warfare.

World War 1 saw a significant technological advancement with the use on the battlefields of tanks and rocket launchers and grenades while for the first time aircraft played a role in the hostilities.

It may have seemed highly sophisticated then but the combat was still light years from the theatre of war Ms Dryden’s husband Shane saw as a weapons analyst during the second Iraq conflict.

It was a vastly different front line in Iraq, where the combatants often never sighted each other, but through the use of bush-button technologies saw laser directed “smart” bombs and missiles hit their mark with incredible precision.

They lost their husbands five decades apart but Mrs Stuart and Ms Dryden, have both leaned heavily on Legacy, the organisation set up after World War 1 to look after the families of deceased servicemen.

After marrying her war hero — a man over 30 years her elder — in 1949, Mrs Stuart was widowed just seven years later at the age of 25.

She raised four young children in the 1950s and 1960s in difficult circumstances at the family’s tiny Brompton cottage.

Legacy staff would regularly drop by with supplies for the family with anything from toothpaste to furniture.

Now cared for by her second son, the organisation still keeps an eye on her.

“They ring me up now and then and I speak to them,” Mrs Stuart says. “If I want anything then get it for me and send it out.”

Mrs Dryden is one of the new generation of widows whose emergence has given new relevance to the Legacy organisation.

She met he husband while he was based at the Edinburgh before he was sent to war in Iraq.

He was later killed in a car accident in Brisbane.

“Legacy have been wonderful,” Mrs Dryden said. “My legatee, Andy, is superman, the kids just love him. He’s an amazing person, full of energy.”

One of the first things Legacy did was to replace a draughty window, a simple handyman job she found difficult.

“He’s my go-to person,” she said.

As a modern Legacy widow she gets together with other women, some of whose partners may be suffering depression or incapacitation. They form friendships and bond over the problems of sole parenting.

“We have dinners and I get to feel like a human being again,” she said. “We recently had a dinner and got a taxi to and from, all supplied by Legacy. It’s not something you do very often, especially with two young kids. It’s very special.”

Legacy today still does the same job but is more attuned to the needs of modern families, like school uniforms and money for school camps. Young children are supported until they are 25 or have completed tertiary studies.

Legacy is almost entirely funded by the community and supports servicemen and women from all theatres of war, including WW1 and WW11, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf and Iraqi wars, East Timor, Afghanistan, and peacekeeping missions in Somalia and Sudan

Originally published as Their husbands fought in wars decades apart — both are helped by Legacy