More on my mother, Alice Tyabji

Robert Tyabji, Shah Alam, 2015

This is my mother's story as is succinctly recounted in the November 2006 issue of the Swiss Community News magazine published by the Swiss Club of New South Wales, Australia:

This time we have interviewed Alice Tyabji-Gimmi who has led a very varied and interesting life. She grew up in Switzerland, then moved to Bombay for nearly 50 years, and finally arrived in Sydney about 20 years ago. She celebrated her 95’th birthday last month and is still very active and takes an active interest in everything that is going on - The Editor

When Alice Gimmi was born in Zurich-Wipkingen on 5 September 1911, the fourth of five children of a Tapezierer, nobody would have imagined that she would live her life on three continents. As a child, she attended primary and secondary schools in Zurich, later learning dressmaking. A frail and pale teenager, Alice's mother found her a job in Arosa after she had completed her apprenticeship. "The mountain air will improve your health" she said. Alice returned to Zurich a year later, to be employed as a dressmaker by the fashion house, Grieder, and in 1933, she started her own dressmaking business. It was the same year that she met her husband.

Press Clippings

From The Times of India

 Knitting for a Cause: From an article by Belinda Lawton, The North Shore Times (Sydney, 2005) 

The clackety-clack of knitting needles may be gaining currency with celebrities and jet-setters, but for some North Shore women it has never been out of fashion.

Rather than just creating knitted masterpieces for themselves, members of the Chatswood senior citizens knitting group have "knit-one, pearloned" their way through at least 15,000 articles for various charities.

Starting with just six members on 1 August, 1991, the group has grown in strength and output over the past 13 years.

Volunteers Alex Yates and Robyn Webb bundle up wool donations and make sure the 30-strong group is constantly supplied with enough yarn.

“Through the Salvation Army’s welfare section the knitting goes to nursing homes on the North Shore, (and we make) shawls for palliative care units," Mrs. Yates said.

"We do tiny things that go to the neo-natal intensive care unit at Royal North Shore Hospital.

"They also go to battered women’s shelters, Stewart House. It’s not only garments we knit, it’s squares that can be put into rugs. Every year we send articles to Nepal through the Seventh Day Adventists. We would rather have quantity than fancy knitting. We do crochet as well."

While the group is mostly senior citizens, the age range of members varies from mid-20s to a 98-year-old (Mum Alice Tyabji was about 93 at the time of writing).

Willoughby, New South Wales, December 2006 

Photo: Mum Alice Tyabji is honored and presented an award for 10 years of service to the Australian Red Cross by Beth Reilly, Mayoress of Willoughby.

Alice Tyabji's 100'th birthday 

My mother celebrated her 100'th birthday in Sydney on the 5th of September 2011, surrounded by her family, friends and well-wishers.

The story of Alice's amazing life is chronicled in this book. 

Watch the video of her life story:

 Following is a collection of photographs of Alice spanning 103 years of her amazing life, starting in her home country Switzerland where she grew up until she married, then nearly seven years in England, more than 40 years in India, and 29 years in Australia, interspersed with many visits to other parts of the world.