Isaac, Golda (née Taft)   (1925 - 2017)

Born Golda Taft on 19 August in East St Kilda, Victoria; she died on 3 April 2017 in Melbourne, Victoria.

She was educated at Mac.Robertson Girls' High School and University High School and then at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a BSc in 1947.

In 1946-47 she worked with Associate Professor Ethel McLennan of the Botany Department as a research assistant on soil fungi and plant pathogens.

In May 1947, she married Joe Isaac and soon after they travelled to London, Joe to complete his PhD at the London School of Economics and Golda to work as a research assistant to renowned biochemist Professor Sir Harrold Raistrick at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in his work on a wide Botanical Gardens PICASA range of fungi including Penicillia.

They returned to Melbourne in 1950 and Golda resumed academic work in the 1960s as a demonstrator in botany at all three of Melbourne's universities - Melbourne, Monash and La Trobe.

In 1972, while accompanying Joe to Cambridge when he was a Visiting Fellow at Churchill College, Golda developed an interest in ferns.

On returning to Melbourne, she continued this interest in collaboration with Betty Duncan, both being appointed associates of the Department of Botany at Monash University.

Their research resulted in the publication, in association with Monash University, of Ferns and Allied Plants in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, published by Melbourne University Press in 1986.

Over many years, Golda continued her broad interests in botany through the Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne of which she was a Foundation Member in 1983.

In addition, Golda was closely involved in mounting exhibitions at the Royal Botanic Gardens and promoting the then poorly-understood significance of the National Herbarium collection and its research, as well as the artists who recorded that research with exquisite botanical illustrations.

Golda also found time to be a guide of the Melbourne Jewish Museum for many years, guiding visitors at the adjacent St Kilda Synagogue.

She died on 3 April 2017, survived by her husband of 70 years, three children and seven grandchildren.

Source: Extracted from:
Bruce Holloway, 8/8/2017, Sydney Morning Herald - Obituary:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/botanist-was-a-fine-friend-to-the-gardens-20170808-gxrn0d.html
Portrait Photo: SMH above.

Collecting localities for 'Isaac, G.' from AVH (2026)

Data from 71 specimens