Helen Hewson was born in Benalla, Victoria, and raised on a farm in the nearby district of Barjarg. She studied at the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney, majoring in Botany with First Class Honours in genetics. Her PhD combined her interest in the taxonomy of plants together with their genetics.
Stock dogs and other farm dogs were an integral part of her life but her
more serious involvement with stock dogs started when, on a field trip in
New Guinea, she met Leon Fruend. In 1969, Leon and Helen purchased their
first Australian Cattle Dog, Hardview Topflight, for stock work on a
property near Yass, New South Wales, and in 1970 Narango Skipper (Bos). With
Bos, Helen began a show and pure-bred dog-world career.
Helen Hewson-Fruend with Leon Fruend and “Bos” (Narango Skipper).
Helen was happiest when teaching or learning and her long association with
the dog world gave her opportunities for both. Her dog-world career followed
multiple paths – teaching, breeding and judging – and she gave of her
greatest strengths to all three: her knowledge of genetics, her experience
in education, and her technical writing skills.
Helen and Leon shared an interest in Afghans and Old English Sheepdogs, as
well as in Australian Cattle Dogs. The Afghan interest did not develop but a
short excursion into Old English Sheepdogs preceded Helen’s import of her
first Hungarian Puli, “Gypsy”, in 1974. “Gypsy” and a later import,“JoJo”,
led Helen into an illustrious career in a breed that presented particularly
difficult challenges to the breeder. After Leon’s death in 1975, Helen
concentrated on breeding and exhibiting Hungarian Pulis under the Pusztapuly
prefix.
In 1980, Helen gained her Working Dog License and began a judging career in parallel with her writing and lecturing activities. She became a member of the Dog Writers Association of America and in 1988 won an award for her article, “Dingoes, Domestication and Delusion”, published in the Pal Digest. Her other writings for the Pal Digest, such as her “Form and Function” series, won for her the Pal Pulitzer Award for dog writing.
As well as accepting judging appointments in throughout Australia, and
occasionally overseas, Helen lectured on topics as diverse as canine
genetics, breeding, anatomy, and canine politics. Helen’s knowledge of
canine genetics, in particular, was profound. Breeds for which her advice
was sought on inheritance issues include Australian Cattle Dog, Australian
Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog, Border Collie, Chinese Crested Dog, Labrador
Retriever and, of course, the Hungarian Puli.
In 1988, Helen gained a Dog Judging Diploma with the Canine Studies
Institute, UK, a visit to England at the time having given her the
opportunity to attend the practical components of the course. Subsequently,
she set up Canine Evaluators of Australasia to run Canine Studies Institute
correspondence courses (under license) in Australasia, filling a major
education deficiency in this region. Helen was a gifted teacher and
enormously generous in the time she devoted to teaching. She demanded high
standards but gave her students every assistance to achieve them. Canine
Evaluators courses helped many people towards more satisfying, and better
informed, careers in the dog world.
Helen established her scientific career in the study of plants. She gained
her PhD in the study of a group lower plants, the Bryophytes, but worked
mostly on the higher plants, the flowering plants. Most of the products of
her labours are published in the multi-volume work, the FLORA OF AUSTRALIA.
Helen named almost sixty plant species new to science and had four named in
her honour. The dedication of Volume 28 of the FLORA OF AUSTRALIA to her is
an added tribute to her illustrious career in botany.
– Noreen Clark