CLOSE to 1000 people came to St Patrick’s Cathedral today to pay tribute to the remarkable life of Dr Ernest Cosmo Manea, who passed away last Wednesday morning.
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Canon Brian Newing welcomed everyone in attendance to the service which had been planned by Dr Manea himself.
Canon Newing said the crowd was a reflection of the work and dedication of Dr Manea, as well as his sense of unity that everyone should come together as a family.
Dr Gary Mincham read the Physicians Oath to pay tribute to Dr Manea’s tireless years as a health professional in the South West.
The Bunbury City Band led the hymn Austria, which was Dr Manea’s favourite from when he was in a boy’s choir in Albany.
Son Mark Manea was given the difficult task of reflecting on the life and contributions of Dr Manea.
“What a task to condense the essence and scope of his life into a few words – if I had to list it all we would still be here for Sunday mass,” Mark said.
“He lived by the belief that if you gain advantage from the community, you must be prepared to give back.”
Eighty-six-year-old Dr Manea was born in Albany on December 23, 1926.
Talented in academics, sport and music from an early age, Dr Manea was pushed ahead a couple of years at school and completed his secondary education at the age of 15.
When he cut his finger, the doctor who stitched the wound soon realised the academic brilliance of the youngster and pushed him to take on medical studies at university.
He was too young at the time but soon took on medical training at the University of Western Australia and the University of Adelaide before completing an internship at the Royal Perth Hospital.
When he arrived in Bunbury in 1952 it was not a good first weekend with a hectic schedule which almost made him want to go back to Perth, but kindness in the form of a hot cup of tea and a sandwich from the St John of God sisters changed his mind.
Mark recalled Dr Manea’s typical “old-style country doctor” schedule where emergency calls would be switched through to the house phone after hours, home visits were standard and sleepless nights were common.
The popular man became known as “The Doc” but he soon proved he had a lot more to give than just health care.
Dr Manea threw himself into the South Bunbury Football Club with a passion and was made a life member at the age of 30.
Mark remembered when his adopted brother Syd Jackson came to stay with the family – and is still around 54 years later.
Mark said it was a time when aboriginal people were not considered community citizens and had to travel around with a passport, so when Syd went to get his driver’s licence he was told by the police that they “did not give licences to black people.”
Dr Manea went straight down to the station and it is unknown what transpired or what words were said, but in any case Syd got his licence.
It was around this time that Dr Manea “lifted his eyes and looked down the field and his vision for the needs of Bunbury began to gel.”
He decided to run for local council and thought he had better learn the rules of the game, so he memorised the standing orders – a move that he applied to all policies and legislation so that it became quite demoralising for any bureaucrats or politicians he came up against.
As the Mayor of Bunbury from 1966 to 1972 and then again in 1988, Dr Manea oversaw the development of Hay Park, Maidens Reserves, Manea Park and the development of the site which became the TAFE, Edith Cowan University and Manea College, as well as a transformation of the Bunbury CBD.
He also threw his passion into the WA Trotting Association and was respected across the world in the sport.
Mark said sleep was only a short-term option for Dr Manea as he gave everything he had to council, the footy club, the trotting association as well as his patients.
He was a huge contributor to the “golden years” of the South West Development Authority, whose achievements forever shaped the future of Bunbury, repositioning the city to enter into the 21st century.
At 76 years of age, Dr Manea decided to strike it out on his own with a private practice because his major concern had always been his patients.
He figured it was the only way to make sure they were looked after and he had more than 3000 on the books at his retirement in 2010 – and he remembered the details of each and every one, including the 3581 babies he delivered in his career.
But Mark said if he had to name his dad’s greatest achievement, it was easy – his wife Snookie.
Mark described his parents as “the perfect couple – she was the only one who could ever get him to change his mind.”
Dr Manea requested that all the love letters Snookie wrote to him over the years be laid over his coffin.
In the last days of Dr Manea’s life, his doctors advised the family that he may not make it through the night and he overheard them.
“He fought to stay with us and didn’t pay attention to the timeline that was set for him, he left in his own time – his face was so peaceful,” Mark said.
The service ended with Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World and mourners were invited to the Bunbury Cemetery and then the wake at the Bunbury Trotting Club.
