Hazel Hawke

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Hazel Hawke, AO (nee Masterson) (born in Perth, 20 July 1929) is an Australian who has worked in social policy areas; however she is best known for her marriage to former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. More recently, she has appeared in public with her family after her diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease in order to raise awareness of the disease and surrounding issues.

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[edit] Marriage to Bob Hawke

Hawke met her future husband Bob Hawke at a church fellowship in Perth. They married on March 3, 1956. They lived in Melbourne from 1958 until 1983, although Bob Hawke spent much of his time in Canberra after his election to parliament in 1980. After he became Prime Minister on March 11, 1983, the family lived in The Lodge in Canberra until Hawke was replaced as Prime Minister by Paul Keating in 1991.

Hazel and Bob Hawke have three children: Susan Pieters-Hawke (born 1957), Stephen (born 1959) and Roslyn (born 1960). Their fourth child, Robert, died in his early infancy in 1963.

Hazel and Bob Hawke divorced in 1995.

[edit] Abortion

Hazel Hawke has acted as a prominent pro-choice advocate in Australia, often drawing on her personal experience of having an illegal abortion in 1952 so that her future husband, the future prime minister Bob Hawke, could further his education at the University of Oxford.

[edit] Alzheimer's disease

On November 3, 2003, the ABC aired an episode of Australian Story in which Hawke publicly revealed that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Her family had noticed significant short-term memory loss in 2002, leading to the diagnosis. She had been reluctant to go public about the illness she called the 'Big A', but eventually did so to publicise a fund for supporting Alzheimer's sufferers that she had jointly set up with Alzheimer's Australia.

In 2004, Hazel Flynn and Hawke's daughter Susan Pieters-Hawke published a book, Hazel's Journey: A personal experience of Alzheimer's , describing the previous decade of Hawke's life and the onset of Alzheimer's. At the book launch on November 1, 2004, Pieters-Hawke revealed that her mother had reached the mid-stages of the disease and was now suffering from quite severe short-term memory loss. Hawke's granddaughter Sophie Pieters-Hawke launched an education kit for schoolchildren about Alzheimers in 2007.

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