‘Epitome of grace’, Lady Anna Cowen was ahead of her time

Lady Anna Cowen was the widow of former Governor-General Sir Zelman, but her busy life of service was always much more than that.

Sir Zelman Cowen and Lady Anna Cowen. Picture: Melbourne University Publishing.

Lady Anna Cowen (nee Wittner)

Born Melbourne, July 5, 1925. Died June 10, aged 96.

-

There was so much more to the life of Lady Anna Cowen than the conspicuous facts of it: widow of Sir Zelman Cowen, the governor-general from 1977 to 1982, and mother of four. It was all the other days of her life that her family remember with such pride and fulfilment. She was the emotional ballast during the family’s long life of service, including those memorable years when she lived at Yarralumla with Sir Zelman as they helped heal the soul of a nation carved apart by predecessor Sir John Kerr in 1975.

She was remembered on Sunday by former treasurer and dear friend Josh Frydenberg as “warm and decent, humble and highly capable, Lady Cowen was the epitome of dignity and grace”. He recalled that when Sir Zelman spoke of his wife it would always bring a tear to his eye. He would say: “All this, and heaven too.”

Lady Anna, who was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2015 for “significant service to youth, medical research, educational, historical and cultural organisations, and to the people of Australia through vice-regal patronages and support roles”, is survived by 16 grandchildren and 34 great grandchildren, with another two due soon.

Sir Zelman died in 2011 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease for 22 years, during which Lady Anna cared for her increasingly incapacitated husband, enriching his life with her wisdom and humour and by accepting unending visits from some of the many friends they made over decades living in London, Armidale, Brisbane, Canberra, Chicago, Washington and Hong Kong.

Her daughter, Kate, said she was never defined by the Yarralumla years. “She wasn’t a marginal, shadowy figure. The (vice-regal years) were only a small component of a huge life.”

Lady Anna grew up in Melbourne and completed her combined arts degree and social work diploma long distance after her husband – whom she married at 19 – relocated to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.

“She described herself as an ‘incorporated wife’, but that was far from the truth,” Kate said. “She was a public wife – whatever position Dad had as vice-chancellor, vice-regal days, provost (head of Oriel College in Oxford) – she always had an active role and she immersed herself in whatever community she was in.”

The Cowens had four children spread over 15 years. “At one stage Mum had a child at university, a child at high school, a child at primary school and a child in preschool,” said Kate. The youngest, Ben, was 11 when his father accepted prime minister Malcolm Fraser’s offer of the role of governor-general, and her son was described by Lady Anna as “the best idea I never had”. The most dreadful punctuation mark in her life was when the clever and adventurous Ben – a lawyer and entrepreneur who co-founded outdoor and sports retailer Anaconda – was killed while paragliding on Victoria’s Surf Coast on January 7, 2017.

“She was a very philosophical and pragmatic person who absorbed things. She had a special relationship with him of course,” said Kate. Lady Anna launched her book, Vice-Regal Days, not long after, dedicating it to Sir Zelman and Ben.

Lady Anna was a progressive woman, embracing the ideas of American author Betty Freidan, whose groundbreaking 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, kickstarted the women’s movement. “She was also very interested in sustainability,” Kate recalled. “She was ahead of her time.”

In 1971, Lady Anna read Diet For A Small Planet, a then radical book that observed the wasteful impact of meat production, was critical of animal processing industries and recommended a meat-free diet, helpfully including recipes. “She started trying to convert the family to a vegetarian diet,” said Kate. “She was feeding us brown rice and making her own brown bread and making muesli and making yoghurt, and growing sprouts, before it was a thing.” This campaign failed after a “rearguard action” by her husband.

Lady Anna briefly worked as a probation officer and, in the late 1960s, when the family were living in Armidale, she helped revitalise the World Education Fellowship, whose ambition was education reform and a greater understanding between nations. “She was an enormously expansive and warm host,” said Kate. “All the houses we lived in absolutely pulsed with people all the time. We always had round tables, which she thought were elastic and we could cram in more bodies.”

Family friend Don Markwell, also a Rhodes scholar, said at the weekend that “infusing so many of my own memories is Sir Zelman’s profound love (for Anna), his pride in her, his awe of her and his gratitude to her”.

Lady Anna was pleased when the late artist Fred Williams commented that the Cowens had “set back the cause of republicanism in this country 25 years”.