Pat Tyson is remembered as modern Griffith pioneer who left a legacy of care for her community

A dietitian, mum and sportswoman, Pat Tyson was farewelled by over 200 family and friends at Sacred Heart Church in Griffith.

She passed away on May 16, a week after her 89^th birthday.

The youngest child of Tom and Geordie Condon, one of the pioneering farming families of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Mrs Tyson was born in 1933 at Farm 393 near Yenda.

The farm on Condon Road, remains in the family today, and is one of only two of the original World War I soldier settlers blocks in the district remaining in original family hands.

Mrs Tyson's life was marked by a series of firsts, and she became a role model for many girls and women in her family and beyond while working in her profession and raising a family with husband Bill Tyson on their family property at Warburn.

Electricity had still not arrived in Yenda when Mrs Tyson was born and the impacts of the depression meant life was pretty tough in the early years. While there was plenty of lamb for meat, other staples were hard to come by and bartering with neighbours for fruit and vegetables was commonplace.

A sister to brothers Dick and Tom (both deceased) as well as her older sister Heather (Sertori), who just recently turned 91, Mrs Tyson could read before she went to school so was put straight into first class at Yenda public. She would get to school by riding her horse but sometimes scored a lift with her siblings in the neighbour's sulky.

Despite the relative hardship of the era, there were many happy times and the Condons would meet up with other local Yenda families, the Marriotts, McKissocks, Cains, Hamiltons and others for swims in the Southern Canal at 'The Willows' as well as gatherings for tennis on Sunday afternoons.

Her mother, Geordie, was a teacher and a firm believer in the importance of education in providing a stepping-stone in life, and particularly as an equal opportunity enabler for girls.

Mrs Tyson was sent away to boarding school in Goulburn at nine-years-old to complete her primary schooling but returned for her high school years at Griffith High. She completed her leaving certificate in 1949 and along with Philip Basonquet and John Drew was one of only three from that year to go on to university - the only girl.

She studied science at Sydney University and graduated in 1953. She then enrolled in a post-graduate course in the still relatively newly emerging field of dietetics and nutrition in Newcastle and worked as a dietitian at Newcastle Hospital for a year.

With her education complete, Mrs Tyson, with sister Heather and Noelle and Madeline Sertori, embarked on a two-year working and touring holiday abroad, living in London and touring through the UK, Ireland and Europe less than a decade after the end of World War II.

On the boat trip home in 1956, Mrs Tyson got word from the chairman of the hospital board in Griffith, Gus Phafflin, that she was to be offered the new role of dietitian at Griffith Base Hospital.

This would be the first appointment of a dietitian anywhere in Australia west of the Great Dividing Range.

With the discovery of cholesterol still some time years off, the early days at Griffith Hospital centred around diets for diabetes or making best use of food production in the new kitchen in the era of the strict and formal Matron Fox.

Despite being brand new, the kitchen was coal-fired generating heat for slow combustion and steam boilers.

The cooks were Venanzio Papoala (Pappy) and Barry Schaeffner. The sweet cooks Francis Foster and Mary Turner while Rosetta Stivaletto and Roy Violi looked after the vegetables.

Fruit and vegetables were donated or grown in the hospital grounds or delivered by local vegetable grower Ross Catanzariti in his horse and cart. Mr Catanzariti would later go on to set-up Rossies, his iconic store in Banna Avenue.

Egg drives were regularly conducted with famers and locals donating home grown eggs. Mrs Tyson was a firm believer in the humble egg as an affordable and excellent source of protein and vitamins and advocated strongly against what was subsequently found to be the incorrect labelling of eggs as a major source of cholesterol in the 1960s.

She married well known Warburn farmer Bill Tyson in 1958 with the occasion making the front page of The Area News under the heading, which was quite progressive for the time, Hospital Dietitian Married.

They were married by Archbishop Frank Carroll and she was attended by her sister Heather and Nancy Templeman, with whom she had studied dietetics, while Mr Tyson's groomsmen were locals Joe Cudmore and Russell Emery.

Pat and Bill raised four children, Cate, Peter, who now runs the family farm, 'Heywood', Brian and Des.

She was a keen tennis player and weekends would be dominated by travelling to neighbouring towns playing Cregan and Edwards Cups.

She also ran the local Saturday morning kid's competition for many years where a young Evonne Goolagong, would visit from Barellan. In another first, she later became the first female president of the tennis club where she oversaw the expansion of the club and new courts and became a life member.

This was a very successful era for the Griffith Tennis Club with Jack Shannon coaching no fewer than four state aged-champions in the one year, 1976 - Margot Dixon, Lynette Andreazza, Daryl Henderson and her own son Des. Des would later go on to become a professional and played both singles and doubles at Wimbledon in the 1980s.

Mrs Tyson finally retired from dietetics in 1997 after a 40-year career in which she had helped establish the importance of nutrition to the hospital community and across the MIA. She devoted her post career life to visiting and looking after her grandchildren or on occasion, travelling with her husband on holidays to various parts of Australia and the world.

She also became obsessed with bridge and joined the Griffith Ex-Servicemen's Bridge Club where she played for many years until she was diagnosed with dementia which slowly but surely stole her ability to play and engage with her friends.

Mrs Tyson is survived by her loving husband Bill, her children Cate, Peter, Brian and Des, her sister Heather, sister-in-law Jan (Condon), daughters-in-law, Kelly, Cath and Rose and grandchildren, Tim, Laura, James, Liza, Maddy, Sophie, Bethany, Mark, Ben, Ruby, Billy and Tommy.

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