Family
Murdoch was born as Elisabeth Joy Greene in Melbourne, the third daughter of Marie Grace De Lancey and Rupert Greene. Her grandfather, William Henry Greene, was an Irish railway engineer (later one of the three Commissioners of Victorian Railways) who emigrated to Australia and married Fanny, the fourth of the 10 daughters of George Govett. Her mother's ancestors were Scottish and English; her great-grandfather was a lieutenant governor in the West Indies. Elisabeth was educated at St Catherine's School in Toorak, and at Clyde School in Woodend. She married Keith Murdoch, 23 years her senior, in 1928 and inherited the bulk of his fortune when he died in 1952. Apart from Rupert, her children are Janet Calvert-Jones, Anne Kantor and Helen Handbury (1929-2004). At the time of a 2003 interview she had 73 descendants. Her namesake granddaughter, Elisabeth Murdoch, is prominent in the British business world and is married to Matthew Freud.
Read more about this topic: Elisabeth Murdoch (philanthropist)
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being “better,” and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.”
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“In the U.S. for instance, the value of a homemaker’s productive work has been imputed mostly when she was maimed or killed and insurance companies and/or the courts had to calculate the amount to pay her family in damages. Even at that, the rates were mostly pink collar and the big number was attributed to the husband’s pain and suffering.”
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