One of Canberra's famous Cusack family has been remembered as a humble leader who helped to develop the national capital into a place where families could settle and prosper.
Greg Cusack died on November 4, aged 92.
In recent years he had moved to Sydney to be closer to his children and grandchildren but always considered Canberra home. His funeral was held at St Christopher's Cathedral in Manuka last Monday, his coffin adorned with hydrangeas. He was buried at the Woden cemetery, among many ancestors.
His wife Dorothy, four children and six grandchildren are coming to terms with life without him, but are consoled by his immense legacy to them, not least creating a large, loving family.
The Cusack family is well-known for its furniture store in Canberra, which was first established in Yass in 1918.
Greg's grandfather John Joseph Cusack was a politician. John Joseph's sons Stan and Greg Senior worked in the furniture store in Yass, eventually moving it to Manuka in 1927, the same year the first Parliament House opened.
Greg's daughter Catherine told the congregation at St Christopher's last week that when her father moved to Manuka with his parents, they were real pioneers.
"Dad was one of the first, true Canberran natives. He was raised a few hundreds metres from here and enrolled in what was probably the first intake of students at St Christopher's Primary School," she said.
Greg Cusack was an only child but when his uncle Stan Cusack also moved to Canberra, he was very close to his cousins John, David and Joan, considering them siblings.
He excelled in all kinds of areas, but never boasted. He was an outgoing but private man. He shunned drama and rode the highs and lows of business equally. The love of his life was his wife Dorothy. He had a quick wit and kept his family constantly amused.
Catherine said her father won the rights to sell Volkswagen cars in Canberra at the age of 24. Then he started racing Volkswagens to promote his business. So started a life in motor dealerships in Canberra and a passion for racing cars.
Greg had motor dealerships across Canberra including in Mort and Lonsdale streets in Braddon. He raised his own family on their Walgrove property in Yass, and was a successful breeder of Santa Gertrudis cattle. His daughter Jane said they had an idyllic upbringing.
Catherine said her father was asked to join the new Canberra Development Board formed in 1979 by the Fraser Government, concerned even then that the national capital encourage private sector growth and not be dominated by the public service.
It was a goal Greg Cusack heartily endorsed, wanting Canberra to be a home, not just a place to work or study.
"Dad's passing brings to a close the Stan and Greg Cusack families' era of building Canberra as a place for families with a thriving private sector, a permanent population that vastly outnumbers the transitory public servants, students, military and diplomatic deployments," Catherine said at her father's funeral.
"I feel we can take so much pride in the values and incredible hard work that helped realise their dreams for this church and this city. Today they are icons of those original self-made citizens of Canberra, which was built from nothing to what we see and experience today."
Jane Cusack said her father showed typical tenacity when he was diagnosed with cancer and told he only had a couple of months to live. He stretched that prognosis to more than a year, describing the extra time he got with his family "as a gift".
