Lorraine
A Free Spirit
THE BOOK
A FREE SPIRIT
Thirty three years after her death,
a young woman tells her own remarkable story.
A story of self discovery, of courage, of breaking rules.
A story of life, laughter, love and loss.
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"I keep getting these very strange feelings that everyone will read my diary. Not that I mind. I don't, because I think it would be rather fun, but I just get these strange feelings that I'm going to die over here and never see anyone I love again. It's very real - it's like I have a secret no one else knows - but whatever happens, I know I will be fine and I want you to know that too. Maybe I'm just feeling fearful or apprehensive. It's strange ... I feel like I'm writing this for someone else to read."
Lorraine Walton
A
RICH
AND BEAUTIFUL STORY
OF A YOUNG
WOMAN'S
JOURNEY
ABOUT YVONNE
YVONNE WALTON
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Born in Newcastle and growing up in Sydney, and Dubbo, Yvonne has led an eventful life. She spent her early years in Sydney being raised by her ‘Aunts’, four sisters who were close friends of her Mother’s. Yvonne says these were the happiest years of her childhood. Returning to her biological family was a huge adjustment for a seven year old, and she struggled with all aspects of her new family life.
After completing High School, she worked on the local telephone exchange as a switchboard operator, at a time when phone calls were manually connected. She worked in retail and as a buyer for one of the major department stores and as a proof reader for the local newspaper in Dubbo. Yvonne has travelled widely, led country tours for overseas visitors, worked with Ansett airlines for seventeen years and worked as personal aid to a titled English Lady. She has studied acupuncture and attained a second degree in Reiki therapy, but she says her greatest accomplishment was raising her two daughters.
Yvonne retired from Ansett Airlines in November 1983 to move to America to care for her daughter who was at that stage fighting cancer through alternative therapies, as no further traditional treatments were available to her.
After Lorraine passed away in August 1984, Yvonne spent three months at Yasodhara Ashram in British Colombia, Canada. This, she says, was a time of healing for her and enabled her to gain some peace and acceptance.
Returning home, she became a volunteer, working at St Vincent’s Hospital Hospice, spending time with terminally ill patients; talking, listening, giving massage, or just quietly sitting with them. Looking back, she feels this was an important part of her own healing process.
She also applied and was accepted, for the receptionist position at the Sydney Healing Centre in Balmain, where she worked for three years.
About eight or nine years ago, while reading through letters from her daughter, she decided to compile those letters, diary and journals and write Lorraine’s story.
Now, at ninety one, Yvonne continues to live an independent and relatively active life, living on the sunny far north coast of NSW, close to her daughter Barbara, and family.
