Born:
Edmund Percival Hillary: July 20, 1919 in Tuakau, near Auckland, New Zealand.
Louise Mary Rose: September 3, 1930.
Died:
Sir Edmund: January 11, 2008 at the age of 88 in Auckland, New Zealand. Sir Edmund died following a heart attack.Louise: March 31, 1975 in an airplane accident in Nepal.
How Louise and Edmund Met:
The daughter of a mountain climber, Louise met Ed at the Sydney airport when he arrived there from Singapore. Ed and Louise became engaged in 1953 in Australia.Wedding Date:
They were married on September 3, 1953 in Auckland, New Zealand. The couple walked under an archway of ice axes as they left the chapel at the Diocesan School for Girls.Ed and Louise honeymooned in England.
Children:
Sir Edmund and Louise had three children and several grandchildren.- Peter Hillary: Born in 1954. Peter is a mountaineer and married to Yvonne.
- Sarah Hillary: Born abt. 1955. Sarah is an art conservator.
- Belinda Hillary: Born in 1959, Belinda died at the age of 16 in an airplane accident on March 31, 1975.
Occupations:
Edmund: Adventurer, mountaineer, author, beekeeper, philanthropist. On May 29, 1953 Edmund and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese Sherpa, were the first men to climb Mount Everest. Sir Edmund explored the South Pole and the source of the Yangtze River.Louise: Musician and author.
Quotes about the Marriage of Louise and Edmund Hillary:
Peter Miller: "Flush with the glow of celebrity, the newly knighted climber stopped off in Sydney on his way back to Auckland to court his future wife, Louise Rose, who was studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He balked at asking for her hand, however. "I was certainly not a ladies' man," he admits. "I was just terrified at the thought of proposing. Fortunately, my future mother-in-law was a very strong lady, and she didn't have any qualms about bringing it up with Louise." So the conqueror of Everest took a backseat while Louise's mother popped the question to her over the telephone from their home in Auckland."Source: NationalGeographic.com
Stephen Goodwin: "Success, with all its attendant euphoria, counted for nothing when his wife Louise and his daughter Belinda were killed; this was a terrible blow, from which, I suspect, Hillary never fully recovered. In Louise he had found the partner he so greatly needed to restore a sense of proportion amid so much adulation, high expectations and media exploitation. She described their life of high jinks and "razzmatazz" in a delightful book, Keep Calm If You Can (1964). She was his soulmate, who provided him with some of his most precious moments: "For what can surpass a tear on your departure, joy on your return and a trusting hand in yours?," wrote Hillary before her death."
Source: Independent.co.uk
Sir Edmund Hillary about marrying Louise: "I quickly learned how fortunate I was to have such a wife: warm and loving, very independent, with a great love of the outdoors and a multitude of good friends."
Source: New Family Adventures
Jim Perrin: "In his autobiography he wrote that he could "remember no occasion in the last 20 years that I could have wished for any other companion". He was certainly lucky in a strong partner willing to stay at home with the children while he went off on lengthy trips."
Source: Guardian.co.uk
Sir Edmund Hillary about his marriage to Louise: "Louise was the centre of our family. She had made it clear to me that she accepted me as a climber. After Everest Louise was responsible for the happiest and most productive period of my middle years."
Source: New Family Adventures
Sir Edmund Hillary reflecting on his life with Louise: "They were undoubtedly great years and it was a period of considerable happiness for me. It was really Louise who kept us all going as a successful, tight little team. She fed us, went on our adventures, soothed our sorrows, and played her viola in a first class orchestra with great flair. We were certainly lucky to have such a mother and wife."
Source: New Family Adventures
Sir Edmund Hillary about Louise's death: "Our house was just like an empty tomb without Louise's warm presence and Belinda's laughter and I felt the same way -- empty and sterile."
Source: New Family Adventures
Peter Hillary about his mother's death: "It is undeniably the case that it was the end of Ed Hillary as we'd known him. With the death of my mother and little sister, he just disappeared. They'd lit the way for him. My mother had lit him up inside, and he'd become a much more jovial, confident and probably more outgoing person, at least in his own circle. It all went out like a light. I couldn't believe it, seeing him emptied out like that, just turned to a husk ... He became an old man, but I never heard him whistle cowboy songs again. He didn't come back."
Source: Peter Hillary, John Elder. In the Ghost Country: A Lifetime Spent on the Edge. pages 16-17.
Lady June and Sir Edmund Hillary Marriage Profile
