Pamela JACK Obituary

JACK, Pamela Avery:
Born 1931. After a fall, died on Sunday 26th April 2020 in the gentle care of the staff at Wellington Public Hospital.

A letter from Avery's husband Neil Pharazyn
Avery often told me of her love for her mother Ela. Her father Alex returned from war shell-shocked. Her brother Ian completed the family.
Avery grew up in Hawkes Bay. Her teenage friend Nola Bernstone is still her friend through life.
Avery was bright and caring. She came to Wellington and achieved a university degree. She then got straight into work as a small but powerfully compassionate social worker.
Through that time she had the pleasure of being part of the lives of Ian and his wife Peggy, caring for their children David, Elizabeth and Andrew as if her own.
She lived for some time with The Rev. Jack and Janet Somerville, and likewise cared greatly for their children John, Philip, Andrew and Robert.
Avery was appointed to Victoria University in 1969 as a Social Administration lecturer. She studied at the LSE in London on a Churchill scholarship, focusing there on Richard Titmus' links to applied social science. On return to New Zealand she committed to achieving the best administration of social welfare.
Her research reflected this. She was a well-known figure, called on by the likes of the Planning Council, when major legislative and administrative changes in the delivery of social services were contemplated, including the first national survey of disability in New Zealand.
As one of her contemporaries and friends, David Pearson, relates, he knew Avery as a respected and trusted academic who was well-liked by her students, although known to brook no-nonsense. He remembers her compassion, ready wit, and quiet authority and, not least, the fact that she was the best maker of pavlova in Wellington if not the world.
And so in 1978 Avery came to me. Forty three years we've been together. As Avery often said to me, "Lucky. Lucky, Lucky." I've shared her family as if my own. We've enjoyed the next generation as they've grown up to their current young adulthood: Matthew, Colin and Laura-Jane, Haydn and Eamonn, Eve and Alana, Conrad and Max, and Rosie and David. Avery loved too my brothers Robert and Andrew, and Andrew's children Ben and Rebecca.

Bless you Avery
Love Neil
There will be a celebration get together for Avery after the Covid19 lockdown is over. Text me your name and I will let you know when it is scheduled. Neil 021 137 8284.