Joyce Fitzpatrick

Marjory Joyce Fitzpatrick (née Cawte, 15 July 1922 – 21 January 2018) was an Australian education advocate, author and a flight sergeant with the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force.

Fitzpatrick is credited with helping institute reforms in South Australia which enabled parents to have more input in how their children's schools were managed.

Early life
Fitzpatrick was born in Torrensville in the western suburbs of Adelaide, her father being a school headmaster. During her childhood, Fitzpatrick's family moved around South Australia living in such places as Streaky Bay, Waikerie, Solomontown and Plympton.

She attended Adelaide High School but left early to pursue employment as a secretary.

World War II
In 1941, following the outbreak of the second world war, Fitzpatrick joined the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force and relocated to Melbourne initially to assist with the shortage of male telegraphists.

However, she rose to the rank of flight sergeant with the Z Force unit.

Education reforms
Fitzpatrick married Ron Fitzpatrick, a Rat of Tobruk who she had met at a Melbourne railway station in 1942.

With her husband becoming a school headmaster, the couple moved around South Australia and lived in various communities such as Whyalla, Coonalbyn, Bowman, Moorak, Port Augusta and Morphett Vale.

Fitzpatrick began lobbying for parents to have a stronger role within the schools their children attended, and ultimately became the president of the South Australian Association of School Parents Communities. In 1975, Fitzpatrick was one of the delegates who spoke at a rally of the Southern Eyre Peninsula Schools Welfare Association where she argued for a new scheme to assist high school students who were required to leave the local area for the final two years of secondary education.

Fitzpatrick is credited with instituting sweeping reforms in the 1980s which enabled parents to have a better say in how their children's school were being managed. She was frequently invited to speak at education seminars and conduct workshops for parents.

Later life
Fitzpatrick had a great interest in writing and in 1987 wrote a biography recounting the life of Edith Strangway which was published in The Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal.

In 1997 she helped establish a writer's group in Goolwa called "Sand Writers" where she wrote numerous short stories and poems which were published by the group.

In 2007, Fitzpatrick and her husband invited eight World War II veterans to come together and share their wartime stories which were published in a book, The Stories of Us. Her husband Ron Fitzpatrick died at the age of 94 in 2013.

Joyce Fitzpatrick died in Adelaide on 21 January 2018.

Honours
In the 1988 Australia Day Honours, Fitzpatrick was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for her service to education.