Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2007

IN FOCUS

“Don’t waste any opportunities you’ve got, knowledge is the best thing that you can have, and always, always, strive for your goal.” of Knowledge A Gift

legacy of knowledge in the form of the bursary she bestowed on the school she felt would provide best for talented young women – Brisbane Girls Grammar School. Ever a head-strong, opinionated and moralistic woman, she decided that the bursary would be both means and academically tested to ensure that no girl received what she didn’t deserve. She made sure to add that it was perfectly acceptable for the bursary not to be awarded in a year when the Board felt there were no worthy applicants. Maria Sulima lived by a simple, but powerful tenet: Don’t waste any opportunities you’ve got, knowledge is the best thing that you can have, and always, always, strive for your goal. Sarida McLeod (12L) The Maria Sulima Bursary is just one example of how bequests can assist the students of Brisbane Girls Grammar School to achieve their goals while also leaving an enduring legacy. For information about how to make a bequest to the School, please contact our Philanthropic Programmes Manager on 3332 1437 or email philanthropy@bggs.qld.edu.au.

Law at Florence University with a 100 per cent result. Fluent in seven languages, Maria returned to her home of Poland after completing her studies and in 1939 used her proficiency in foreign languages to assist the organisation of the defence of Warsaw against the Germans. It was during this time that she realised Hitler’s true intentions for the Polish people. She was warned by the Underground that the Germans had her name and she decided to run, if possible. What followed was something akin to an adventure novel: fleeing from the Gestapo, forged papers, searches on trains, sharing compartments with German Officers, hiding jewellery in thermos flasks… She fled to England, and later moved to Australia in the late 1940s. Ever an independent woman, Maria Sulima set up a real-estate agency, translation service and migration agency for immigrants in a rented room in Spring Hill, working as the bread winner for herself and her husband. Throughout her life, she faced the choice between work and family. Maria Sulima worked until she was 65 and died in 1993 at age 82, leaving no children. What she left instead, was a

“Maria Sulima was born on 14 August 1911 in what is now Poland into a wealthy and well-educated family, the eldest of three children. Her early childhood was affected by the political upheavals and revolutions of the Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian territories. She described herself as ‘a child of the Winds of War.’” These are the opening words of Maria Sulima’s eulogy, an account of the beginnings of a life which was to be filled with achievement, adventure, and inspiration, and which would, ultimately, fill the lives of many others with the same. Maria Sulima, a pioneer, wife and businesswoman, would eventually become the benefactor of the Maria Sulima Bursary at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, a scholarship programme which allows talented students from less-privileged families to gain access to the gift she held high above all else: knowledge. Yet, the story of Maria Sulima’s life warrants as much a movie deal as it does a bursary. A feminist who would have been appalled if you had dared dub her so, Maria Sulima defied the ethos of her day by completing her Doctorate in

The school gratefully acknowledges the assistance provided by Diana Grace Favell, Executor of the Maria Sulima Bursary, in researching this article.

16 grammar gazette spring 2007