AT the height of their business success as the owners of the shipbuilding business Carrington Slipways, brothers John and Don Laverick, and their wives Margaret and Maureen, were household names in Newcastle.
We wrote about the family last month in connection with the retirement of one the shipyard's final vessels, the ice-breaker Aurora Australis.
Those who know the Lavericks will be saddened to hear that Don's wife Maureen died last week aged 85.
In line with COVID-19 protocols, her funeral at Ryhope at 2pm on Wednesday will be streamed online through White Lady Funerals.
Mr Laverick said on Sunday that his wife had leukemia and had been in the Calvary Mater hospital.
"She kept saying 'don't grieve for me, I've had a wonderful life'," Mr Laverick said.
Newspaper clippings show Mrs Laverick's senior role in the family firm from its starting days in 1957.
A profile of her in 1984 highlighted her support for women in heavy industry, but it was her love of go-karting that caught the camera's eye.
One article from 1972 said she had been Australian women's champion in 1967-68, and rode at speeds of up to 70 miles an hour (112kmh).
She won the 1975 Hong Kong Open against "an international field of 30 in a gruelling 20 lap race", carrying "40 pounds (18kg) of lead shot on her go-kart . . . so she would not have a weight advantage over the men" in the field.
A decade later, she said the family's business success let her do things she would not have "dreamt possible".
