On December 16th Sheila Pim was called to her reward and, if there is justice in Heaven, her reward will be bounteous. Sheila was a woman of the highest moral principles. She was a devout Quaker who all her life had listened to and obeyed the stern voices of duty and conscience. She responded to need whenever she saw it and made no nice distinction between the deserving and the undeserving.
She was born in 1909, educated at the French School in Bray and "finished" in Switzerland before going to read modern languages at Girton College, Cambridge. She seemed all set to be a literary blue stocking, but duty called and she returned to Dublin to nurse her mother in her last illness. Then she was friend and housekeeper to her much loved father and, after his death, continued to care for her incapacitated brother, Tom.
But these were good years for her with time to write, and in the 1950s and early 1960s she produced no fewer than seven novels. Mostly they were minor mysteries written in stylish prose and poking fun in a Jane Austenish way at many of our institutions and mores. In the late 1950s she began what was to be her major work - a biography of the Irish plant collector, Augustine Henry called The Wood And The Trees. Sheila was never happier than when researching through old letters, manuscript and botanical archives and her book is a delight to read - both informative and lively. The Wood And The Trees was published in 1966 and more recently reprinted by the Boethius Press. It was favourably mentioned in the "In Time's Eye" column of this paper on the day of her death.
After Henry, her life took a different turn. Her sense of justice had always informed her that as a lady of means her duty was to do good to others less fortunate than herself - though she was by no means the traditional do gooder. She had always interested herself in the plight of the itinerants and was impatient at the lack of progress in improving their condition. Then she saw a way of doing positive good, albeit on a small scale. She took into her care and her home a family of young itinerant children left abandoned in the care of an aged grandfather. Her friends urged caution, predicted disaster - and disaster in fact often ensued; and these children now grown up, also brought her great joy and happiness and they spoke movingly of "Miss Pim" at her Quaker funeral.
Sheila was a member of many societies, notably the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland of which she was an honorary life member and was awarded the Society's Medal of Honour for her services to the study of horticulture.
In her later years increasing deafness made socialising difficult for her but she still "kept up" with the world of books, the theatre and painting. She read The Irish Times from cover to cover every day and her recent reading included the Bible, Marcel Proust (in French) and the stories of Roddy Doyle.
Sheila was a woman of spirit, wit and great fortitude. At the end she was serene and content as she awaited her death. She rests in peace, her work well done.