Soroptimist International is saddened by the news of the
death of Mary Whitehead, founding President and Honorary Life Member of the
Soroptimist International South West Pacific Federation, on Saturday 1st
March. 

“Soroptimists
must recognise her outstanding commitment and dedication to our global
organisation”, writes Soroptimist International Presdent Ann Garvie in a letter of condolence to SI South West Pacific

“The passing of Miss Whitehead is
a huge loss to our Federation”, says Siew Yong Gnanalingam, President of SI
South West Pacific.  "I found that she was
a wonderful person, very warm and a dedicated Soroptimist. She will be remembered fondly for
her great contributions to SWP as the founder of the youngest federation . The
fact that we have been able to grow the federation [to 13 countries], from 3
countries at the start, speaks a lot about the foundation she laid for the
organisation. May she rest in peace.”

A mathematical scientist by profession, Mary Whitehead became
a Soroptimist in 1957 as a member of Northern Districts of Adelaide (now SI
Torrens).  She quickly became involved in the advancement of
Soroptimism in South Australia and beyond.

Clubs in Australia and New Zealand were, at that time, part of the Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1971, the first SI
club started in Fiji.  At the Conference
of Clubs of the South West Pacific in 1976, an overwhelming majority of Clubs
voted to apply to the International Board for their own Federation and Mary was
installed as President of the C.S.W.P.

As the Federation of the South West Pacific officially came
into being on 1st January, 1978, Mary became its caretaker President,
seeing to the preparations and supervising the administrative machinery for the
new organisation, until the Charter was presented to Her Excellency,
(Australian High Commissioner to Nauru) Maris King, M.B.E., on 24th
March. Afterwards, Mary set out suggested criteria for the
formation of a future Federation to avoid the many problems she
encountered.  This resulted in major changes to  the  rules for the formation of new Federations
greatly changed to make things easier in the future.

Mary’s curriculum vitae published in the Soroptimist
Newsletter of South West Pacific, September 1977, reads as follows: –

“After graduating in Arts (with mathematics and statistics
as major subjects) from the University of Melbourne, Mary joined the
Commonwealth Public Service in 1938 as Assistant Librarian in the Bureau of
Census and Statistics and later became Librarian at the Patents
Office.   After four years in the Army (VAD and AAMWS) she joined the
Department of Labour and National Service as a statistician.   In
1949 she went to Adelaide to what is now the Weapons Research Establishment, to
work on data analysis of the trial of weapons and research
vehicles.   The work involved liaison with the armed services and
also taking part in the trials at Woomera.   She was in charge of the
production work of the first scale computer (at WRE) where many early
programmers received their training.   She then returned to the
trials work and more recently has been doing computer programming.”

SISWP Federation Secretary Ann Gover reports that Mary Whitehead continued to be consulted on many matters for many years after  her official role as Immediate Past President of SISWP ended, participating in Conferences where her intelligence and wisdom were greatly
appreciated.  Even after she found distance travel rather
difficult, she would attend Club and Region Meetings regularly and took a
keen interest in all Soroptimist activities. 

SI South West Pacific Federation