{"id":6320,"date":"2017-01-17T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T09:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/?p=6320"},"modified":"2022-08-04T12:38:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T12:38:48","slug":"vale-jill-roe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2017\/01\/17\/vale-jill-roe\/","title":{"rendered":"Vale Jill Roe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jill Roe 1940-2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is with sadness we heard about the passing of Australian historian Jill Roe late last week. During her life she made a significant contribution to Australian history. Through her passing Australia has lost a great contributor to our society, but her work lives on and enriches our lives.<\/p>\n

Jill Roe is best known for her biography of Australian literary icon, Miles Franklin. Stella Miles Franklin: a biography <\/em>is the book she is most renowned for, and for good reason. It is not only a literary biography, it provides a window through which we can understand what it was like for an enterprising Australian woman to work and support themselves during the first half of the twentieth century. Stella Miles Franklin<\/em> took Jill Roe twenty-six years to research and write. It is both highly regarded as an academic work and an engaging read for people wanting to read it for leisure. You can read the review I wrote of this impressive book in 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jill Roe dedicated much of her life to biography. She was the chairperson of the editorial board of the Australian Dictionary of Biography<\/a> (ADB) between 1996 and 2006. During this period the organisation won a substantial grant which allowed it to make the biographical entries freely available online. She is described in ‘The ADB’s Story<\/a>‘ as \u201cenergetic, decisive and knowledgeable\u201d and during her period at the helm observers noted she was an \u201ceffective negotiator\u201d. During her life she contributed twenty entries for the ADB<\/a> either as sole author or collaboratively. Just two months ago the ADB presented her with a medal for her services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Biography was by no means Roe\u2019s sole contribution to Australian history. She wrote about small religious groups such as the theosophists and was interested in the wider social history of Australia.<\/p>\n

Australian historian, Ben Wilkie<\/a> tweeted a fascinating interview of Jill Roe published by the Australian Humanities Review<\/em><\/a> in 2004. It is a lengthy article well worth reading as it gives some insights into Jill Roe\u2019s intellectual interests and work before the publication of the Miles Franklin biography. I want to highlight a comment she made about the\u00a0religious history of Australia.<\/p>\n

I have written quite a bit of religious history and I think that one of the problems in Australian history, not in Australia but in Australian history, is a failure to take religious behaviour and ideas seriously enough, no matter what you think of that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is a professional statement of the highest order. While Jill Roe no longer held the Methodist faith of her early life and did not believe in God, she still believed these histories should be told, and she did the work to ensure that happened. I admire that in her.<\/p>\n

Roe also made some comments that will ring true to readers of this blog. She was a great believer in the importance of a \u201cwell-stocked mind\u201d. \u201cReading is actually the most important thing that people can do to stock their minds\u201d, she said. \u201cA well-stocked mind is a well-read mind. I\u2019m not narrow about that. If people want to read in biology, that\u2019s fine. But they should read widely.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll leave you to find more gems in that interview for yourself.<\/p>\n

An Aside<\/h2>\n

I was never a student of Jill Roe\u2019s, so what I have written here is what I have learned through \u2018reading widely\u2019 both online and in books. But I did have a delightful impromptu encounter with her at a conference several years ago. It was the first Australian Historical Association conference to be covered on Twitter under the #OzHA hashtag. A small group of us who had got to know each other online were quite excited to meet in person. We were taking photos of our group when a small, lively woman asked us what we were doing. We told her we were taking photos so she immediately stood next to Brett Holman to have her photo taken. And that is how I have a photo of Jill Roe being ahead of her time, \u2018photo bombing\u2019 our group. I gained the impression that Roe was an Australian historian who loved to have fun. You can read more about that story at the bottom of my review of her Miles Franklin biography<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Jill Roe standing next to Brett Holman at the Australian Historical Association conference in Adelaide, 2012.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I mentioned earlier that Jill Roe\u2019s work lives on. You can still become acquainted with her work by reading her books and articles. Those who are participating in the Australian Women Writers\u2019 Challenge<\/a> this year should be able to find at least one book written by Jill Roe that they can enjoy. Her Miles Franklin biography is available in over one hundred Australian libraries. The Australian Women\u2019s History Network<\/a>\u00a0is seeking reviewers for their blog who can review books by Australian women historians. It would be lovely if someone could review Jill Roe’s books for that blog.<\/p>\n

Here are three books that Jill Roe has written for you to read:<\/p>\n

Our Father\u2019s Cleared the Bush: Remembering Eyre Peninsula<\/em><\/a>: Jill Roe\u2019s memoirs published last year by Wakefield Press<\/p>\n

Stella Miles Franklin: A Biography <\/em>(2008): <\/em>An Australian classic and available in over 100 Australian libraries<\/a>. If you need more convincing, read my review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beyond Belief. Theosophy in Australia 1879-1939 <\/em><\/a>(1986): Discover an Australia that you have not met before. A revised edition was published by Wakefield Press in 2020 under the title, Searching for the Spirit<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

And if you can’t access her books, why not read the small biographies Jill Roe wrote for the Australian Dictionary of Biography? Just do an Advanced Search<\/a> and do a search by author – the field is at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n

Obituaries<\/h1>\n

Even if you are not attending Jill Roe’s funeral, her funeral notice<\/a> is worth reading for its support of Australian writers, publishers and independent booksellers.<\/p>\n

This post by no means encapsulates Jill Roe’s entire career or Roe as a person. Find out more about Jill Roe from these obituaries:<\/p>\n