Owen Frederick Amore
1939-07-14 – 2016-03-09

 

Owen's schooling began at St Mary's High School in Mazagon, Bombay.  He continued his studies at St Mary's High School in Mount Abu from 1950, finishing after 7 years in 1956.  For all those years his class master was Bro G Bennett.  Owen was a very keen sportsman with interests in hockey, football and athletics.  His first love was hockey and he represented the school in the winning team for the Rajasthan Hockey Tournament in 1956.  He did not like cricket.  On one occasion when in to bat, he asked the opposing skipper if he could use his hockey stick.  Laughter all around but he scored several runs. His other interests were in the Wednesday and Saturday jungle walks with his air rifle to bag a pigeon or dove for roasting and 'sharing', one morsel each, with his mates!  In those days, when egg collecting was allowed, he built up an impressive and varied collection.  Years later, he donated the collection, enlarged with his elder brother, Ivor's collection, to Bro Navaro for the natural history museum in St Xavier's School, Bombay.

After school, he joined Mazagon Docks as an engineering apprentice.  Completing the course led to his wandering days as an engineer in various cargo ships, and he travelled the world.  He rose to Second Engineer.  In 1965 he met and married Rose Lillywhite. He continued ship life for a couple more years until they decided to emigrate to Sydney, Australia.  They had one daughter and two sons. Eventually, Owen was grandfather to 10 grandchildren and greatgrandfather to Emmett.  In Australia, Owen became an engineer in the Garden Island Port Trust.  Later he joined a firm selling and maintaining safety equipment.  For several years in a row he won best salesman.

After retirement, Owen and Rose followed their daughter to Perth.  He was proud of his home and garden.  Of special mention is the two mango trees he nurtured from seed into producing hundreds of juicy fruit annually.  They were so abundant that even after eating to their heart's content, making and freezing mango pulp, he had to give some away to friends and neighbours.  His love was cooking and freezing large quantities of various Indian dishes, all neatly labelled and dated.  His other love was to set out from home at 15:55 daily for his walk to the pub which opened at 16:00.  There he met his mates for a couple of hours.  He was not a big drinker and 2 half pints lasted the 2 hours.  He was the treasurer for his mates' Lotto syndicate.  Many of them were miners from the interior and sometimes were away for months.  Owen always paid for their stake confident that he would recover the money one day and perhaps a drink for his troubles.

His last few months were mixed with happiness and anxiety.  In Dec 2015 and Jan 2016, Owen and Rose holidayed in India where Rose still has family.  It was in India that his first signs of ill health appeared when he blacked out.  On return to Perth he blacked out again.  Tests were being conducted but the third heart attack was massive and also resulted in severe brain damage. Hospitalisation and surgery could not save him and he never regained consciousness.  Owen died on 9th March 2016.

Sadly, another Marian has left this Earth forever.  God Bless his soul.

— Bob Amore (1957)