by Eric Coote
On 5 January 2021 we lost Evarne Coote, a long time friend of the OAS and the world of tribal art collectors.
Evarne spent her life serving people one way or another – firstly, her family of three children and seven grandchildren but also as a government officer in Papua New Guinea during her 8-9 years there, especially after PNG independence, when she served the highest levels of both the national and provincial governments.
Evarne and her husband Eric were resident in Papua New Guinea (PNG) from early 1974 (before it obtained Independence from Australian administration in 1975) to later in 1981. During her period in PNG, Evarne worked initially for Island Carvings, a private dealership, but subsequently worked for the new Government and became Morobe Province’s Business Development and Handcrafts manager.
It was an exciting time to be in PNG and her small office in Lae became a meeting place for all the local movers and shakers of this province on the north eastern coast including three subsequent Morobe premiers, four subsequent Prime Ministers, deputy prime ministers, one speaker of the House of Parliament and later PNG ambassadors to the United Nations and Japan. Despite her morbid fear of flying and her terror of drowning, she flew throughout the Morobe Province to dangerous half formed airstrips on mountain slopes and sides of volcanoes and made many trips in local tinnies and canoes to sponsor handcraft businesses in order to get money into the hands of local village people.
In 1979 she organised a reconstruction of a Tami seagoing trading canoe, a project sponsored by the Australian Embassy in Port Moresby and also found time to organise a representation of Morobe Province as part of the South Pacific Festival of Arts (SPFA) in Lae city. The PNG SPFA event was a triumph throughout all the Provinces and as a whole was probably the best SPFA ever; Helen Dennett was involved at the main Port Moresby end and will remember it well.
After leaving PNG, Evarne and Eric returned to Australia and moved to the Southern Highlands where Evarne ran the local cinema business in Bowral from 1982 to 1991. In 1995 they went on a World museum crawl to record Huon Gulf materials in all the major museums in Hawaii, USA mainland, Britain, the European mainland and Russia. On their return the OAS was formed.
As one of the founding members of the OAS, Evarne was elected as the first Secretary. However, this was only for a short time as she swapped jobs with Elizabeth Pryce who was elected the original treasurer but was less enthused by that job.
Being resident in Mittagong and also running a coffee shop in Bowral, Evarne found it difficult to attend OAS meetings that were typically held in eastern Sydney locations and often drifted into the late evening. However, she persisted as treasurer and as a committee member for many years but finally had to give up with the increasingly difficult late night travelling involved.
While neither Evarne or Eric have been active with the OAS in more recent times, her commitments with the CWA Bowral branch as an office bearer kept her busy and her struggle with metastatic breast cancer resulted in broken bones and considerable pain. Despite the loss of regular contact both Evarne and Eric were delighted in early 2020 to host a meeting of the OAS in their Mittagong house and appreciated the OAS sponsored dinner afterwards. She loved making contact again with old friends.
Throughout her roles in public life, with the OAS and CWA and in her commercial roles, Evarne excelled at contact with the public. She loved meeting people and assisting them no matter how fleeting that contact might have been. She was an advocate for important causes.
She is missed.
