Naomi Chudy was Ellen’s second child – born 11 August 1956 and passed away 30 May 2023 of a stroke.
Naomi never married and never left the family home. She lived her entire life in the same sanctuary-like property as Ellen’s sidekick – till her passing in 1994 – and for a further 29 years. As a daughter of a displaced refugee, driven from a place where she felt such deep roots – not straying and staying put was probably a privilege which Naomi was lucky to experience as Ellen’s surrogate.
That is not to say that Naomi and Ellen’s nominally privileged life in their beautiful home and garden, was an unmolested dream. She and Ellen, along with the population of the country experienced high levels of insecurity, peer pressures, shortages of basics and political intimidation at all sorts of levels. There was racism to contend with – the UDI and war years followed by mismanagement of the county under Mugabe. Naomi’s strength and constancy in the face of these pressures was manifest in her ability to laugh, relate to people at all levels and make the best of everything with them, when things got tough.
Thanks to Naomi’s commitment to preservation, a substantial collection of Ellen and David’s artifacts are still available for our attention now. With the exception of more rumbustious dogs, the house was maintained substantially as a time capsule.. significantly unchanged from when Ellen was alive.
Naomi also maintained life long friends and acquaintance relationships, with distance no barrier, even in the days when traditional post was the only practical communications medium. It is hard to remember that in the early days relatively few people staying in constant touch with distant friends and family now that the digital age has made long reach absolutely unremarkable.
Ellen always held to the idea and ideal that she and her offspring should grow to be friends, rather than parents and parented. Naomi and she seemingly never had differences or arguments, so it could be argued that her life matched her aspirations.
