Eulogy for Br Don Newton Given by Br Jeff Crowe We gather here today still numbed by the sudden and unexpected death of our much loved Brother Don and by the tragic circumstances of that death. We gather to celebrate his life, to console one another in our grief, and to pray for his peaceful repose with our loving God. Our sympathies go in a special way to Don s adopted cousins, Steve Glover and Chris Berry, and their families. Steve and Chris were at the centre of our anxious attempts to find Don when we realised that he was missing. We Brothers were so grateful for their assistance, even at a time which was so emotionally charged for themselves. We know that they have taken heart from the many posts on Facebook from Don s friends. Chris wrote, I am not surprised, but overwhelmed, by the outpouring of love, respect and grief, for the loss of this great man, mentor, councillor, and above all, friend, Brother Don Newton. It will take time for all of us to come to terms with Don s passing. We are all united by the love we shared for our friend Don and at this time we need to support each other. Our sympathies as well to Br Paul Bailey and the Brothers of the Daceyville community and members of his group. Also to Mr Dave McInnes, Principal of Champagnat Catholic College, Pagewood, the staff and students, where Don had been Chaplain over many years. Don was born in 1940 to George and Marie Newton. The family originally lived at Mosman in Sydney and Don even later in life would visit the old family home there, full of happy memories for him. His father worked for a time at Forbes and this is where he first met the Brothers as a primary school student. For secondary school, he came here to St Joseph s as a boarder and then on to the Juniorate in mid-1958. He revelled in the multiple activities of Mittagong. A few years ago Don prepared some notes in which he paid special tribute to three Brothers who were particularly influential in his life during his formation as a Brother - Ethelred and Owen in the Novitiate and Ronald Fogarty in the Scholasticate. They impacted strongly on his value system and on his work as a teacher. He learned from them our way of following Jesus as a Marist Brother as well as time-management skills, how to learn and the value of further education. His desire and dedication to learning can be seen in his record of higher education. He completed a teaching diploma at Bathurst through distance education while full-time teaching. In the early 1980s, he grabbed the chance of finishing his degree as a mature age student at Macquarie Uni. He went on to do a Masters in Pastoral Studies at Loyola in Chicago in 1989. 1 Eulogy for Br Don Newton Marist Brothers
Don started off as a primary teacher at Villa Maria, Lidcombe, Innisfail, Enoggera, Eastwood, with special appointments as a Demonstration Teacher at Dundas and as Primary Principal at Lismore. He was enthusiastic, creative and above all prepared. Joachim Fabbro writes, As a young Brother just out of the scholasticate he made a big impression on me. Don was supper organised in his preparation and management of classes. He was teaching in the Primary and mainly Year 7 in Innisfail, Good Counsel College. I subsequently discovered that he would print all the notes that his Year 7 would need for the year, at the start before school would begin. As a result, we novices in the teaching game had to make do with a few scraps of paper left after Don had used up all the year's supplies! He moved over to junior secondary teaching at Maitland in 1977 and continued teaching at that level later at Kogarah, Petrie (Brisbane), and Canberra. He thoroughly enjoyed his teaching and all of the communities. He was always a happy, naturally-gifted teacher and co-ordinator with a real flair for classroom innovation. One ex-student declared, You made maths awesome like no one else! Whilst doing his studies in Chicago, Don made a point of enrolling in courses that would enable him to work with adults in the area of spirituality on his return to Australia. When appointed to Marist Canberra in 1991, he set up a program based on Progoff entitled "Spirituality through Journalling". In 1995, spurred on by the positive feedback he had received, he designed a spirituality program based on the Enneagram that he ran first at Blackfriars and Marist College Canberra, then later at Mary McKillop Centre North Sydney, and Aquinas Academy in the city. There were many who benefitted from these programs and Don loved giving them. For the past 16 years Don has been a very visible and highly-valued Chaplain at Marist College Pagewood. He created the role around his own gifts, especially his genuine interest in the well-being of each student and staff member. 'Presence' is a key word in our Marist tradition and Don personified it. With his big smile, loveable manner and sense of fun, Don used to stand at the College gate each day to greet students and staff as they arrived. He strove to allow none of the quieter students to be lost in the crowd! He remembered birthdays with a card and a bar of chocolate. Indeed, many people cannot remember a year when they did not receive a birthday card from him. He gave beautiful prayer cards to those who had lost a member of their family. He made it a point of attending all the functions at Pagewood Parents and Friends, Parentteacher evenings, staff meetings, any social outing. On sports days he would snap maybe 500 pics to return home for hours of culling.to 300. The next day the students would scramble to enjoy the displays. He never missed the retreats for senior students at Mittagong or saying a prayer and giving encouragement as the HSC boys faced exams. There were a myriad of small helpful tasks he attended to. 2 Eulogy for Br Don Newton Marist Brothers
But it was his cheerful presence and manner of relating that all appreciated. He always made time for people. He did not judge. The posts on Facebook reveal how many lives Don touched, especially in these later years. One wrote, You believed in me at a time when many didn't. You taught me the benefit of perseverance and inspired me to be a better person. A true champion and mate. Another, I wasn't the best behaved kid but you always had the time of day to listen to me. For us Brothers, Don was a great companion- a community live wire and story-teller. He was a joker and witty, his comments accompanied by his cyclonic laugh. At home at Daceyville, he was so supportive with ready compliments - The garden looks beautiful Luce. That was a very creative prayer session Des. Thanks. Brendan Neily gives us an insight into Don s capacity for building community when he writes, When Don arrived in my second year at Maitland, he taught me the meaning of that expression, Seize the moment. He brought a whole new life to the experience of living in the Hunter Valley. He introduced me to the Hunter region. We would go out and boil the billy and enjoy camping trips in the nearby countryside. We laughed for hours over stories about life back in the school and the various situations that we encountered. Sometimes tears would pour out of Don s eyes as he would retell familiar stories again and again." Over the years, he has created his own extended family, keeping in touch with ex-students for birthdays, weddings, and family functions. He had enormous loyalty and capacity for friendship. This in itself proved to be a very pleasant and rewarding pastoral ministry for Don, his ex -students and their families. A recurring theme in many of the memories is that Don enjoyed a beer or two with friends and the odd pub-crawl! One post recounts, The fact that we could have a beer 15 years after you gave me detention for forgetting my glue stick is priceless. So, who was Don Newton? What drove him to be the man he was? He was a man of faith. From his days as a youth, he was faithful to his daily personal prayer and prayer in community. He led others in prayer. He saw himself as an instrument of God's love. His life was dedicated to sharing his faith with others. A post reads, " My first day in your class back in 1996, the first question you asked me was "Where's your bible?" You introduced God into my life and the book that I never brought to class became the book that I can no longer live without. You were a great man, great teacher." A wonderful testimony. He was a man who mentored others, focussing on the good in people. Unlike most of us, he never spoke ill of people. It takes a brave person to enter into others' lives, to listen, advise or suggest next steps. Don earned the trust of people through his simplicity and by being down-to-earth. He stood by them in times of stress and distress. Des Murphy notes, 3 Eulogy for Br Don Newton Marist Brothers
"People Skills!!! Don could have written a best-seller on the topic. Open, smiling, in meeting, greeting and including and accompanying." He was a man of routine, of rituals. This was probably a survival strategy as well as a strong personality trait! His daily, weekly, yearly schedule rarely varied. He was always at the school gate at 8.30 and 3.15. He was obsessive about his health and fitness. He was the fruit-seller's best client wherever he went. From an early age, at the Juniorate, he had loads of potions, medicines, and powders. He was into exercise in a big way. He prided himself on his youthful looks and even indulged at one stage in a bit of hair-dyeing. He was a Marist Brother and proud to be in Marcellin Champagnat s band of men. Indeed he introduced a generation of Pagewood students to Marcellin in Year 7. A post reads, "You did so much for the Marist community, you were the epitome of Marcellin Champagat... a genuine, kind and caring bloke that gave everything to his students. We were lucky to have you Don, as a teacher, a mentor, a brother and as a man of God." He gave powerful even prophetic witness to being brother to all. How do we understand his final acts? With great difficulty and with deep emotion. To all who were close to him, he was his usual positive self in the weeks and days before his death, taking an active part in community, laughing and engaging with people and speaking of his hopes and plans for the coming weeks and months. He had just come through a second knee replacement and was making good progress in his rehabilitation. He had spoken to friends over the years about his dread of getting old and incapacitated. Despite Don s always happy exterior, he was an extremely private person. For sure, he had his demons like anyone else. We all cope or do not cope in unique ways. Something went very wrong for him that Sunday night. We will most likely never know exactly what. We have to let the question go. I can easily identify with the post, A great man who was always there for us. I just wish we could have been there for you in your last days. You loved all of your mates and we loved you too. Many of us will continue to wonder if we could have done or been more for him at a critical moment when it would appear that his judgement was dark and sense of hope disturbed. We would like to think that he would have reached out but he did not. This is a hard burden for us to carry in addition to our sense of unanticipated loss and grief. We need to talk about this to others. We need to learn from this event the power of love to support us in our darkest moments. We need the reassurance of God's unconditional love, beyond all our frailties, stupidities, self-doubts and anxieties. 4 Eulogy for Br Don Newton Marist Brothers
Don knows this love now as never before. That is our firm belief. That is why we are here today. Don, our brother, our friend, you will be terribly missed! Thank you for the wonderful gift you were to all of us. May you rest in peace. 5 Eulogy for Br Don Newton Marist Brothers