Amy “Norma” MacKy

Biography

When Norma Conley's family announced her death in 2020, they included her own instruction for a future gathering: “my shout.” A wake would be held when family and friends could come together, perhaps on her birthday. The phrase gave the notice a particular voice, alongside its thanks to the staff of Anglesea Aged Care.

Amy “Norma” MacKy was born in Bowraville, inland from the coast of northern New South Wales, Australia, in 1918. She was the daughter of George Duncan MacKy and Amy Lisette King and one of seven children. Her siblings were Minnie, Nellie May, James, Kathleen, Lindsay and Ernest Robert.

In 1946 she married Frederick James Conley in the Auburn district of western Sydney. Their children were Greg, Jim, Peter and Jenny. Fred died in Melbourne, Victoria, in November 2004.

Norma lived for more than a century. Her family notice, published in The Age on October 7, 2020, said that she had died peacefully in her sleep on September 30 and remembered the friends she had continued to make. It places the final part of her life in the care of the home at Anglesea, a coastal town in Victoria southwest of Melbourne.

The Victorian Government Gazette subsequently recorded the same death date in an estate notice, describing her as a widow of Anglesea. The legal notice establishes the administrative fact; the family's announcement preserves the proposed gathering and the invitation to have it on her.