Geraldine Munnich remembers being taken by her father every weekend to a block of land on Pine Mountain Road in Brisbane’s south.
Just around the corner from her Holland Park home, she watched the leafy bush block gradually transform into what is now the Pacific Golf Club.
A member of the original club across from Garden City shopping center at Mount Gravatt, Gerald Dellit and his wife Marcelle were part of the fabric of the sporting association.
“I was an only child, and when the clubhouse was being built I went along with my father to watch the progress,” Mrs Munnich says.
“We lived on Cavendish Road, at the other end of Pine Mountain Rd, and I didn’t really want to go with dad all those times.
“I put my footprint and a print of my dog’s paw in the concrete in the corner of the building site to rebel, but then I became a junior associate and took lessons under the pro who was there at the time.”
Her grief-stricken husband planted a tree in her memory in front of the Pacific’s clubhouse and established the Marcelle Dellit Memorial golf tournament.
But the tree’s part of the Dellit family legacy will disappear.
Memorial to ‘kind, sweet’ mother
Within the next few years, the Fairway Carindale development will build 191 luxury apartments where the gnarled trunk and expansive branches of the poinciana stand.
Mrs Munnich has endured many emotions; ultimately she wants her club to survive, she wants its members to have a great new club facility, so she has made peace with the loss of her mum’s tree.
But she wants Marcelle Elaine Dellit’s story to live on — not just in her daughter and granddaughter who share her mum’s name.
An only child, Mrs Munnich described her mother as “the softest, sweetest” woman who was maybe “too soft”.
Her parents ran an insurance business that required many hours’ work and networking of Mr Dellit.
“My mum was having lots of hassles being left alone, and those days women didn’t have cafes, they met in people’s houses or at either a golf club, a knitting club or a sewing club,” Mrs Munnich said.
“But when mum took her life, it was pretty traumatic back then, I was treated very badly at school because of it.
“My dad promised he’d never marry again and dedicated the rest of his life to being the best dad for me.
“The next year [1966] he planted this tree in memory of mum and started a memorial golf day, and he would buy the presents himself from Hardy Brothers — always silver and crystal.”
New future for family tree
When Mr Dellit died in 1990, Mrs Munnich took over the role of maintaining the memorial tournament.
“I go out and say my little speech about my mum and how it all happened,” she said.
“The people who have come have been so loyal and so amazing, even though we missed two years because of COVID.
“There are still women there who remember my dad coming out in a suit and doing his speech.
“The women were golfing widows and this club gave them a life and comradeship that women needed back then and still do.”
Embracing the change, Mrs Munnich hopes to take some seeds and a branch or two from the tree to make her own special memorial at home.
“I thought mum’s tree, being right in front of the club, should be safe but then the developer said it had to go.
“I went from being upset and angry, I changed totally. It’s more important for the club to be rebuilt. I’ll think of it in a positive way.
“What’s the point of having this beautiful poinciana there all on its own and the clubhouse falling down and gone?”
A plaque added to the poinciana will be moved to another tree, a camphor laurel, and will stand in Mr and Mrs Dellit’s memory.
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