Many parishioners will probably recognise Elizabeth but may not know her name. Well, here is our chance to get to know Elizabeth Ann Linsley (nee Shaw), or Betty, as she has been called since birth.
Twelve-year-old Betty – who was into dancing and acrobatics when she was younger – was featured in an article in a local paper, The Argus, photographed while in mid-air doing a somersault. She says that was the first time her photo had appeared on print. The second time is for this story.
Betty sees herself as being here, a member of our parish community, since forever. Her grandparents went to St John’s, her parents got married in St John’s in the 1920s, and Betty was baptised at St John’s in in the late 1930’s. Back then, there was only St John’s. Our Lady’s church wasn’t built until the 1960s. Betty remembers that the site where Our Lady’s now stands was just an empty lot where visiting circuses used to set up, and that the marble used inside the church came from an insurance building that was being demolished at the time. (If you look at the marble flooring on the altar, you will notice little crosses – Betty says those crosses are where the posts for the altar railings used to be, when people knelt around the altar when receiving Holy Communion.)
In the late 1960's, Betty got married at Our Lady’s, the only one amongst the four siblings in the Shaw family to do so. Betty’s two daughters also got married at Our Lady’s.
Betty has lived in Maidstone for over 50 years. In that time, she has raised three children and helped care for 10 grandchildren, whilst also doing paid work sewing dresses for Adler’s (until they closed) and then making priests’ vestments in the CBD after that, all the while doing unpaid volunteer work for the parish. Betty is one of our steadfast volunteers who help keep our parish community humming: initially helping out at the tuck shop at St John’s in the 1970s and then the tuck shop at Christ the King’s in 1980s, counting collection money in the 1980s, and washing and ironing altar linen since the 1990s – that’s more than 30 years’ worth of washing and ironing! Betty believes that we should all contribute towards the upkeep of the church, and this is her contribution. Plus, Betty admits to being a ‘washerholic’ and enjoys the work. She believes she has gotten more out of her volunteer work than what she has put in – such as lifelong friends. A wonderful lesson for us all.