Rutherglen lost a gracious quiet achiever last week in Dianne Boyd, a lady her devastated husband Alan described as one of the community's greatest supporters - but few knew.
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Mrs Boyd, 76, was hit by a car in Main Street on Thursday, March 28, and died in hospital the next day.
Retiree Mr Boyd, 79, said his wife of 50 years worked calmly but diligently behind the scenes for decades helping sick babies, handicapped children, the elderly and people seeking to trace their family heritage.
"Dianne was a quiet achiever, was always a giver more than a taker," Mr Boyd said. "If anyone was in trouble, or needed help, Dianne was always there to help.
"She would be pretty well known in Rutherglen because we used to run the servo, but I'm not sure that a lot of people would know how active she was, how helpful she was because she was never in the limelight, she didn't want that at all.
"Everything she did was always done quietly, in an unassuming way."
The couple had two children: Lyle a truck driver who now lives in Melbourne, and Hayden who is based with the navy in Sydney. Mr Boyd said he and his wife were fiercely proud of their children, but Mrs Boyd's efforts went far beyond caring for her own family's young.
"At one stage, Dianne went to Melbourne and trained and worked as a mothercraft nurse at the Royal Women's Hospital," Mr Boyd said.
"Later, when she was settled here, if people had illnesses, or were handicapped she'd be there to help, to go out of her way to help get them to doctors.
"She worked at the mother's club and even though we were running the service station, she'd take time off and go up to the school and work in the canteen - she loved kids.
"She did little bits of knitting to help people out, she spent a lot of her time after we retired doing knitting for the Royal Women's Hospital for handicapped babies. She used to knit all day.
"If we were at home having a quiet night watching television, she would be there busily knitting away."
The couple were married in Melbourne in 1974 and lived in Yarrawonga, where Mrs Boyd's parents lived, until 1984 when they moved to Mrs Boyd's hometown of Rutherglen and bought the service station on Main Street, which was a BP until they sold it in 2002.
"Even when we had the busy servo, she was busy helping people out, especially with her knitting - but I guess no one really knew about this," Mr Boyd said.
Mrs Boyd's expertise in genealogy research is reflected in the study in their Rutherglen home where folders containing decades of research sit on the bookshelves.
She started this passion long before the internet made lighter work of it.
"Dianne would put in a huge effort to help people trace their family past, writing letters, making phone calls, she'd have her head in old newspapers at the library," Mr Boyd said.
Mrs Boyd's passion for tracing family roots uncovered strong connections with her and her husband's own ancestors in the UK. The couple had planned a trip there next week which has since been cancelled.
"We were supposed to be leaving next Wednesday to go to England," Mr Boyd said. "We were going to cover England, Ireland, Scotland, because Dianne's family history studies found that our ancestors came from over there.
"She was just so adventurous, she did some travel when she was much younger and that stayed with her.
"Dianne had that amazing spirit of adventure, she just loved meeting new people, she would talk to anyone, she was genuinely interested in people."
Mr Boyd said his wife had requested there be no public funeral.
"Dianne's mother died last year and she had requested no funeral and Dianne told me she thought this was very fitting for her mum and said she would prefer the same thing when she goes," Mr Boyd said.
"We're just having a quiet family arrangement, nothing public, she didn't want a fuss - that sort of shows how she was."
