Gerardine Mary Newton

Gerdardine Mary Murphy Newton was born March 27, 1950 in St. Arnaud, in the state of Victoria, Australia to Marcella and Reginald Murphy . She had 3 older sisters, Gabriella, Noni and Christine. Her father was a public school teacher and as such they lived in multiple towns in Australia. In 1968 she started General Nurse Training at Mercy Private Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She went on to train as a midwife at St. Margaret's Hospital in Sydney. In 1973 Ged and her sister Chris were recruited to come to the United States as nurses and worked at Scott and White Hospital in Temple, TX. Chris returned to Australia while Ged stayed and moved to Dallas where she met and married John Newton in 1979. They divorced in 1987.

She worked at several hospitals in the Dallas area including Baylor, Zale Lipsky, Medical City Dallas, the University of Texas Medical School, as well as various agencies in home health, utilization review and case management until her retirement in 2020. Her commitment and compassion to her patients was unparalleled. Her passions were reading and her beloved cats, Oreo, Maggie Rose, Mr. Murphy and Trilby. She was especially close to her family in Australia and visited as often as she could. Ged was fiercely generous and loyal to her friends and will be greatly missed.

She became a US citizen in 2019 and maintained dual residency with Australia.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Reginald and Marcella Murphy and sister Christine. She is survived by her sisters Gabriella Murphy Cullin and Noni; Noni's daughters Mary Josephine, Jane and Helen, Gabriella's children; Marcella Cullin and Joel Cullin, his wife Kirsten, great-nieces Miniver Cullin-Willy and Henrietta Cullin-Willy, great-nephews Stanley Cullin and Noah Cullin as well as many friends and coworkers.

How do you summarize 48 years of friendship. It's really impossible. Ged was generous, compassionate and fiercely loyal. She was an independent spirit who would stop at nothing to help someone out. I feel this post I saw recently describes her legacy:

"You'll never know how many parts of you are living on in other people. The kindness you showed. The confidence you helped build. We leave pieces of ourselves behind more often than we realize." (Author Unknown)