It is with sadness that we report the death of Patsy Thatcher on Tuesday 21st November 2024.
Patsy Thatcher was an anthropologist who was an active member of the East Timor Solidarity Movement in Victoria and a founding member of the Friends of Suai and active for over a decade. She was generous with her deep knowledge of East Timor and anthropology. Patsy was always a generous host. The Friends of Suai committee would often meet at her apartment in Marine Parade overlooking Port Phillip Bay and offered her home to the Covalima Community Centre members for long periods as well as other Timorese visitors to Australia. Patsy contributed generously to various Friendship projects and as administrator of the Oan Kiak Education Scholarship Fund for orphaned children she created an important connection for the Friendship to knowledge that led to a Scholarship Program in Suai that has led to education and jobs in nursing, teaching, mechanics and other fields for hundreds of young Timorese in Cova Lima. She wrote an important anthropology of the various language groups of Covalima in the 2010-2020 Strategic Plan.
In addition, since the early 1980s, Patsy has made a significant contribution to the Timorese community, both in Melbourne and in East Timor after she became involved with Timorese refugees in 1980 and, at their request, began researching their community in both Timor and Australia. At this time she began her association with the 2/2 Commando Association, of which she is now a life member, becoming involved as their conduit in developing and seeding grass roots projects in the areas of East Timor the veterans had known during WW2.
She undertook her MA thesis on the strategies refugees develop to handle their resettlement problems, using the East Timorese community as the case study. Patsy interviewed some 800 families of East Timorese throughout Australia and became a participant observer in their community.
Patsy interviewed all the men of the 2/2nd Company and researched World War 2 for a book about this chapter in the history of East Timor. Patsy has also extensively researched the Timorese in the diaspora in Melbourne. This photograph shows Patsy with Rufino Alves Correia and their Indonesian driver during a visit in 1981.
It was Patsy who sent me in search of Rufino in 2006. Rufino, so far as we knew at the time, was the last surviving criado in East Timor. As a result of her urging I interviewed Rufino and a series of recollections have been posted. Rufino served as a servant to Tom Nisbet who served in the 2/2nd Company of the Australian Army in East Timor in 1941-42.
