In love for life, they died on the same day
Tony Stephens
July 31, 2008
MARIE and Frank Cotton studied dentistry together, when she, the shining star of her year at Sydney University, tutored him. They married, raised a family after he returned from war, and set up a dental surgery together. They played tennis and built a court and gardens together.
The Cottons, of a famous Sydney family, did just about everything together. And on Monday, after 65 years of married togetherness, they died together.
In later life the Cottons had moved to a retirement village at Baulkham Hills, where they were together until Marie, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, went to a nearby nursing home three years ago. Frank joined her after a heart attack in March.
Determined to stay alive while she clung to life, he recovered enough to care for her. Marie was moved into Frank's room on Sunday night. She died early on Monday. He said he just wanted to grieve, then die. He had a heart attack a few hours later, was revived, but died on Monday evening.
Frank, who was 89, was born Leo Frank, one of five children of Frances, who died when Frank was 11, and Leo, a geologist who accompanied Edgeworth David on Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the South Magnetic Pole in 1908, married again and became professor of geology at Sydney University.
Frank's uncle, also Frank, was a physiology professor at Sydney University who invented pressured suits that limited the likelihood of pilots having blackouts - which the Americans developed as zoot suits during World War II - and established training methods for athletes, swimmers and rowers credited with bringing Australia Olympic gold medals.
One of Frank's sisters, Olive, was the photographer who worked with, and for two years was married to, Max Dupain. She took the photographs at Marie and Frank's wedding.
Marie Cotton, who was 88, was born Helen Marie, the only child of Edna and Owen Patison, of Longueville. Owen, blinded in the Battle of Pozieres on the Western Front, named her Marie after the French girl who had written his letters home to his fiancee, Edna. He recovered sight in one eye.
Marie had some schooling in Fiji and on Lord Howe Island before taking her Leaving Certificate at 16 at SCECGS Redlands, Cremorne, where she was dux.
Frank's home in Hornsby had a small orchard, tennis court, cricket pitch and darkroom for Olive. Uncle Frank's swimming pool was over the valley.
Young Frank went to Roseville Public and Chatswood and North Sydney Boys high schools. He was captain at North Sydney, represented Combined High Schools in rugby and cricket and won sprint and long jump titles at CHS and state schoolboy carnivals.
He "only just" matriculated, chose dentistry, and found himself in the same year as Marie Patison. She was one of two young women, with 57 men.
Frank won university blues for rugby and athletics and a credit in dentistry, doubtless due to having had a good tutor.
"The many evenings spent studying together (even if it meant missing the bus home) did a great deal towards helping me finally graduate," he said later. The good tutor, Marie, graduated with high distinctions, winning the prizes for every subject and becoming the first woman to take the University Medal in dentistry, in 1941. Both worked at the Sydney Dental Hospital until Frank joined the Royal Australian Navy at Garden Island, in August 1942. On December 19 that year, he married his tutor. Three weeks later he joined HMAS Platypus in Cairns and, in May 1944, HMAS Shropshire.
The Shropshire took part in bombardments along the New Guinea coast to Morotai and the battles off the Philippines - Leyte Gulf, Surigao Strait and Lingayen Gulf. Kamikazes narrowly missed the Shropshire, while hitting her sister ship, Australia. In February 1945 the Shropshire supported the airborne landing when the Allies recaptured Corregidor, the island gateway to the Philippines.
Back home, Frank and Marie bought a hairdressing salon in Lane Cove and set up a surgery. They bought a home in Longueville and built a new one on the site. Marie helped as bricklayer, concreter, stonemason, painter and gardener.
They built a tennis court, with lawns and gardens, where a young John Newcombe, later the tennis champion, played. They went snow-skiing, Marie and Frank teaching their children, Doug, Robyn, Pam and Nicky. They planted rose gardens in holiday homes at Jindabyne and Leura. The family went camping, often at Narooma.
Sometimes at night the children would watch their parents examining models of the human jaw and various dental impressions. Frank made models of the house they had built, and of a caravan, from dental wax and balsa. Marie's creativity was also expressed in tapestry, painting and collage.
Marie and Frank Cotton are survived by their four children, and 13 grandchildren, the youngest of whom is two. Their funeral will be at St Andrew's Uniting Church, Longueville, at 1pm today.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/07/30/1217097331289.html
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