Obituary: Agnes Elizabeth Armstrong

* Agnes Elizabeth Armstrong, OBE, doctor, Died aged 90

For much of the 45 years or so that Agnes Armstrong practised family medicine in Otahuhu, Otara and Papatoetoe, many people knew her as Dr Elizabeth Coates-Earl rather than by her married name.

It avoided confusion with her husband, Dr Benjamin Armstrong, who practised in the same area until he died in 1962.

It also allowed her to avoid using her given name of Agnes, which she could not stand. But even with her death the family thought it advisable to publish funeral notices under each name.

Dr Coates-Earl's life was dedicated to the disadvantaged, particularly the poor and elderly. Many a patient could recall a knock on their door late in an evening as she made house calls. She was a woman described as being of generous spirit, with commitment combined with a caring attitude.

One result, as one of her six sons, Dr John Armstrong, of Rotorua, observed this week, was that "she did not make much money as a GP".

But she did win a place in the affections of local people who sometimes called her "Aerial" on account of her stature - tall and thin. Their regard was such that it was the efforts of her patients that saw her awarded an OBE.

She worked until she was 75, when she had a stroke.

Dr Coates-Earl was born in 1914 in a settler's cottage in outback Queensland, the daughter of Violet Coates. Her grandmother was a cousin of the country's first New Zealand-born Prime Minister, Gordon Coates.

Her father, William Earl, a grazier, served in the Boer War and World War I. He died only six years after returning from the latter, from the effects of mustard gas poisoning.

In the light of her father's service and sacrifice the outback residents of the area established an education fund for Elizabeth and her sister Wilma. It allowed Elizabeth to graduate from the University of Sydney Medical School.

According to her eldest son, Warwick, now living in Michigan in the United States, it was while a medical resident at Brisbane Hospital that she met her husband, a New Zealand doctor whom she was assigned to host.

At the time she was engaged and Dr Benjamin Armstrong, a widower, needed a persistent courtship over many years and spanning the Tasman before he was able to bring her to settle in Otahuhu.

Agnes Armstrong/Elizabeth Coates-Earl died in Rotorua. But her funeral service was held in Auckland at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Otahuhu where she was a parishioner.

She is survived by sons Warwick, John, Robert, Grant, Paul and Roger.