April Maeve Hersey 4.4.1924 - 15.10.2020.
April was born on the 4th of April 1924 to poets David McKee-Wright and Zora Cross, the second of the couple's two children. April's sister Davidina died aged 22 after contracting tuberculosis. April also had a half-brother, Ted. She was educated at North Sydney Girls High School.
Apart from short periods away at Potts Point and Ulladulla (editing the Milton Times), April spent her life living in Wright Street, Glenbrook.
April (pictured) met John Hersey, a cartoonist on The Sydney Morning Herald, and they were married at Glenbrook on January 27, 1951. Their first child, Virginia, was born in 1952 and their second child, Shane, was born a year after that.
April was the published author of ten books. The first in 1944 called Stop Press Murder, when she was 20 years old, and the last in 2003 called The Craftsman, when she was 79.
She was a writer all her life, working as a journalist for most of the major publications in Australia, including The Bulletin, The Sun Herald, and Reader's Digest; as well as a number of overseas publications including The Sunday Times in the U.K. and Life in the U.S. April was also the editor of both Pol magazine and Craft Australia. In 1996 She wrote an autobiography entitled The Insulted Heart: Recovery from Bypass Surgery, which was arguably her most successful publication.
April worked for World Vision International in 1980 accompanying Senator Neville Bonner to Asia and Africa to look at the plight of minority groups, including Vietnamese boat people and Maasai tribespeople. April went on to be involved in creating film and television work for World Vision in Laos, Kampuchea, Vietnam and Thailand.
April was understandably proud of her famous parents and she worked closely with their biographers, Michael Sharkey, who wrote Apollo in George Street: The Life of David McKee Wright (2012), and Cathy Perkins, who wrote The Shelf Life of Zora Cross (2019).
April left her beloved home in Wright St, Glenbrook and moved in to Edinglassie Nursing Home at Emu Plains in November 2019. Surrounded by caring staff and farewelled by her son, daughter-in-law Vicki and grandchildren Barnaby, Caitlin, Brighid, and Thea, April passed away peacefully aged 96 years of age on the 15th of October 2020.
