Barbara Jeremiah attended the memorial service of a very interesting Soroptimist, Mrs Betty Sugden MRCVS, at Hook, Hampshire on 22nd February of this year and brought back this story to our club, SI Winchester, where we held a minute’s silence for Betty.
Barbara says, ‘We first met Betty, a former local and national President of SI Zimbabwe when she had just returned from over 40 years as a veterinary surgeon in Africa, arriving back with just a suitcase. Her son Richard, went to get his mother after she had suffered and been held at knife point during an uprising in Zimbabwe. When she came to lunch at our cottage she still had the bruises around her neck from the assault and terrifying situation she had experienced.’
As a member of the Soroptimists in Zimbabwe over 40 years she was elected Local President in 1963 and National President in 1973. She also received the first award of Woman in the Community for her work with the Soroptimists and the WI.