Mushroom survivor Ian Wilkinson attends wife’s memorial service
A still recovering Ian Wilkinson was surrounded by his family, but supported by a walking frame, in an emotionally charged service at Korumburra Indoor Recreation Centre.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson is far from fighting fit but he fought his way through his late wife’s 100-minute memorial service and then met worshippers for more than an hour outside Korumburra’s indoor basketball court 2.
Three police in uniform and a thank-you to the boys in blue at the end of the service for 66-year-old Heather Wilkinson, who died from suspected toxic mushroom poisoning, was all that distinguished proceedings from any other high church gathering in country Australia.
Except this was different, given the world has been looking at Victoria’s South Gippsland ever since three elderly people died after eating on July 29 a beef Wellington dinner that police believe was served up with death cap mushrooms.
For more than eight weeks, Mr Wilkinson, 68, had been fighting for his life after apparently ingesting the same toxic mushrooms that killed his wife of 44 years and tore through her near family – her sister Gail Patterson, 70, and brother-in-law Don Patterson, also 70.
For Mr Wilkinson, it has been a horror show as he faced off organ failure in the knowledge he would never be coming back to his hometown with his wife.
His son David, stalled regularly by emotion, praised his mother as a woman of rare patience and humour when he did the heavy lifting at the service on behalf of the family.
He said his mother and father were always united. “They were inseparable partners in love and life,’’ he said.
“As a mother, she was patient and kind. She was a great encourager. She was humble and didn’t want to be put up on a pedestal. She was empathetic and caring. She was small but she was strong.”
The family’s faith as committed Baptists was at the centre of the service, with US Southern Baptist Billy Graham even getting a mention in dispatches, as did Pentecostal minister and tennis player Margaret Court.
While the service eulogised Heather Wilkinson, who died on August 4, the day was every bit as much about Ian Wilkinson.
As much as you could tell, because he wore a black mask to limit the chances of infection, Mr Wilkinson had lost weight, looked Boo Radley pale but was otherwise of reasonable health for someone who had been hospitalised for two months.
Many had expected the patriarch would never have left Melbourne’s Austin Hospital, but he shuffled into the service on a walking frame and used it to sit through the impromptu meetings with friends and family after the memorial was closed out with Great is Thy Faithfulness.
After the service, Mr Wilkinson told the mourners of his love for his wife and his quite remarkable recovery, given the fate of the three who died within a week of eating a meal served by the Patterson’s former daughter-in-law Erin Patterson.
Ms Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson, Heather Wilkinson’s nephew, was at the service with family but there was no sign of his former wife, who police have named as a suspect in the deaths. Police also have kept open the option that the deaths were accidental.
Peter Biggins, a former principal of Korumburra Secondary College, where Heather Wilkinson had worked as a teacher’s aid, said she had been a beacon of light, devoted to struggling children.
“She always had time for everyone. She was a person of integrity,’’ he said.
Mr Wilkinson, a local Baptist pastor, was the fourth member of the luncheon party at Ms Patterson’s house in nearby Leongatha who fell gravely ill. Ms Patterson says she was also sick after the meal she had cooked but she did not require lengthy hospital treatment.
The service heard the four elderly people at the lunch had been kindred spirits since the late 1970s, the Wilkinsons on their honeymoon visiting the Pattersons in Botswana. The couples lived in the same town for years, raised their children together and, no doubt, celebrated together.
On Wednesday, Diamond Valley Baptist Church associate pastor Heather Dunning said religion was at the centre of Heather Wilkinson’s life for decades; they were great friends.
“We mourn for we no longer see her,’’ Ms Dunning lamented.
Heather Wilkinson, who had four children, had worked variously as a laboratory assistant, a teacher’s aid and in helping her husband run his maintenance business.
There were no obvious worshippers on Wednesday who emanated from the Victorian homicide squad. Detectives are still sifting the evidence, warning it could take months to decide whether charges will be laid.
Mr Wilkinson’s slow but steady rehabilitation has made their task a bit easier.
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