I have always been interested in and attracted to people based on attitude, rather than age. Yet the experiences of the women I interviewed sometimes felt like they were from another world, not simply another time or another country. Some of them had survived the seemingly impossible and yet spoke with such humility and stoicism.

Many insisted their stories were not sufficiently engaging to be in a book.

Oh my, how they were wrong.

Val Reilly grew up during the Great Depression where she remembers saving the tea rations to give to her grandmother, as this was her only pleasure. Val insists that deprivation didnt feel so bad when everyone was doing it. She grew up to be a nursing aide, working with tuberculosis patients. She survived a violent marriage and raised four beautiful daughters as a single mother.

Be Ha was raised by loving parents in Vietnam, but their world was undone when the communist army invaded. Her husband was sent to a re-education camp, leaving Be and two young children to fend for themselves for three years. Later the family endured a harrowing trip to freedom in Australia. They spent almost a month at sea in a small boat filled with more than 100 other refugees.

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Phoebe Wynn-Pope became an international aid worker when that was far from the "done" thing for a young woman of her background. She bore witness to terrible suffering and hardship all over the world as part of her work with CARE International.

And then there was Dorothy McRae-McMahon, who is positively a force of nature. Dorothy remembers farewelling her father when he left for the war, and clenching rubber between her teeth in her primary schools make-shift bomb shelter. As an adult, she was one of the first lesbian ministers in the Uniting Church.

Our differences were stark and remain so. I have lived a quiet, privileged life compared to these women. Melbourne's lockdown has brought much loneliness and deprivation, and the recession is already starting to bite for many in our community, but I know we will find a way through. Just as these women did before us.

Speaking with these women and collating their stories left an enormous impression on me. I was reminded that supporting others is also a source of personal empowerment. That by dedicating our time and efforts to those we love and care for, we also care for ourselves. I also learnt that while these historical cataclysms are world-shifting, on a personal level there are usually bigger things. We are hurt more by the passing of a loved one than the loss of a job. We nurse broken hearts longer than cancelled plans.

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Val, Be, Phoebe, Dorothy and I might have been close girlfriends had we been born into the same generation, Im sure. I feel privileged to have been allowed inside their lives.

Before now, several of these remarkable women had only ever told their stories through the prism of the men in their lives. Indeed, there were moments when the women struggled to tell their own stories, rather than those of the men they loved.

History celebrates the brave wins and noble losses of men, but rarely pays mind to the sometimes quieter, intelligent determination of women; women who were fighting courageously for their survival at the same time, in different ways.

These are women who put their heads down and got the job done, proving their strength through the steadfastness of their actions. These are women who I am privileged to call my friends.

Untold Resilience, edited by Jamila Rizvi and Helen McCabe is published by Penguin Life. RRP $32.99. Available at all good bookstores and online.

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Jamila Rizvi is a columnist and former Labor adviser.

Excerpt from:

The surprising new friends who got me through the pandemic - Sydney Morning Herald