Sometime before she passed away last month, Hannah Grace wrote the following note to The Echo:
‘Dear Echo people, I want this picture to go across two columns of the dead people section. Thanks a lot for everything. Cheers, Hannah xx’.
‘Ps: This photo’s the last chance I’ve got to show off! Xxxx’
Accompanying the note was the beautifully irreverent and unashamedly racy photo, pictured.
The request, one of Hannah’s last on this planet, encapsulates some of the qualities that made her such a loved and member of the Byron community since her arrival in the Shire nearly 50 years ago.
‘I think right from childhood, she was generally a bit of a rebel and a bit naughty,’ her son Tom Grace says.
‘She always had this rebellious streak. She was anti-establishment, hard-left, hated capitalism, and also a huge supporter of Indigenous rights and of protecting and preserving nature.’
Alongside this wild spirit was a gregarious and deeply social soul.
‘She loved and lived life to its fullest,’ Hannah’s close friend and neighbour, Brian Kiss von Soly, says.
‘People surrounded her, wanting to have a glimpse of the utterly divine Hannah Grace lens.’
Life wasn’t always a party, of course.
A few years after moving up to the Northern Rivers from Sydney in 1975 as part of the Aquarius generation, she found herself raising a son in a plastic-walled shack in Huonbrook, without electricity or running water.
Cash was scarce, but love definitely wasn’t.
‘She would love and support me with whatever I did,’ Tom says.
‘Times were tough, but she did the best for me that she could, working cafe jobs to make sure there was food on the table.’
Hannah’s incredible warm-heartedness was something that touched many in her family, her tribe, and the wider Byron community.
Hannah also loved and cared for many outside her closest friends and loved ones.
She was a volunteer with the local SES and the Brunswick Heads Respite Centre, and also crocheted blankets for people in difficult circumstances across the globe.
The volunteer work, like everything else Hannah took on, was done with wonderful wit, humour, wilfulness and deep insight into the human experience.
Hannah passed away peacefully in her sleep after experiencing some health challenges. A private celebration of her life will be held on July, 28. Those who knew Hannah well and would like to attend can email Tom Grace for details [email protected].
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