A couple who have been at the heart of the famous Woodford Folk Festival since it was established are facing the toughest time of their lives.
A GoFundMe campaign has been set-up to help Bill and Ingrid Hauritz, who have been enduring health, housing and financial challenges.
Bill, the retired founding director of the annual festival, remains in hospital after a severe stroke on December 29 during last year’s festival.
Ingrid remains at Woodford in what has been their temporary accommodation since their home of 40 years burnt down in 2022.
Their son Jack said the fire triggered an 18-month insurance battle that resulted in a partial pay-out.
“I think that kind of broke them,” he said.
Jack said his parents were not ones to ask for help but they were facing massive challenges, which was why he and his brother launched the GoFundMe campaign.
The campaign has so far raised more than $33,000 for the couple and has a target of $50,000.
“We’ve told mum and given her the appeal update and she was moved to tears,” Jack said.
Jack said his mother had been struggling with a lot of uncertainty over the future regarding her husband, home and finances.
The ischemic stroke affected Bill’s brain stem, hippocampus, which is the memory and emotion centre of the brain, and hypothalamus, which regulates emotions and bodily functions.
Jack said his father, who had come through a previous stroke, had moments of lucidity “when you can have really good conversations”, but they did not last.
He said his father’s health issues were further complicated when he had a fall in hospital.
The fall injured Bill’s knee and he required surgery to remove a toe on his left foot, where two had already been amputated after a foot injury during an overseas holiday last year turned septic.
Jack said his mother suffered a back injury on the same trip, which she and Bill had taken to de-stress after the house fire.
He said his mother was very worried about his father.
“She’s been with him for 50 years. I don’t think she remembers life without him,” he said.
“She doesn’t know where she’s going to be living, where he’s going to be, how much care she will be able to give to him.
“I think he’s going to need full-time care for the rest of his life. They told me at the hospital about 10 per cent of people make a major recovery and those people are usually very young and make most of that recovery in the first few days.”
Jack said that in his father’s favour was “he’s all kinds of stubborn”, a trait that had helped him accomplish much in the past.
He said he and his brother anticipated money raised from the GoFundMe campaign would go towards care for his father but they would also like to send their mother on a short break to the beach.
“The ocean’s always been really healing for her,” he said.
