Bill died aged 91 at Shepparton's Harmony Village on Saturday, September 25.
To his hometown of Mooroopna he left the legacies of a beautiful public park and an upgraded cemetery. To his family he left warm memories of music, pride and hard work.
His daughter Helene described her father as "a storyteller who loved nature, the bush, the Murray and the Goulburn, who loved to sing and who was a loving father and husband".
William Brian Ferrari was born in Shepparton in 1930, the eldest of three boys to parents Bill Snr and Ellen Ferrari.
Bill went to St Brendan's Primary School in Shepparton before meeting his wife Valda when he was 17 and she was 16 years old.
They were married at St Brendan’s on April 26, 1952.
Bill established his own upholstery and antique furniture business in Mooroopna in 1953 before moving into premises on High St, Shepparton.
In 1974, he moved his business to the family property at 37 Archer St, Mooroopna, where he worked until retirement in 2005.
A committed Mooroopna Lions Club member, in 1975 Bill helped design and upgrade what was then the Mooroopna Reserve.
Bill spent the next 20 years nurturing and developing the area now named W B Ferrari Park in his honour. A children's playground and barbecue area was also built.
His son, Bill Jr, said his father drove his trailer loaded with two 44-gallon drums of water to nurture the park's plants every day for more than two decades.
“He changed it from an eyesore to a respectable and beautiful setting which included the lawn cemetery,” Bill Jr said.
As a Mooroopna Cemetery Trust member for 40 years from 1978 to 2018, Bill worked with other trust members including Bob McClure, Campbell King and Santo Varapodio to save the cemetery from closure with the planting of 200 shrubs and trees and beautification works.
Bill and Val also went on to identify thousands of unmarked graves at the cemetery.
Together they researched the site's history through the Mooroopna Hospital records and other sources. Bill and Val helped establish the names of people in the unmarked “Hospital Section” at the back of the cemetery.
Daughter Gail said as a cemetery trust member, her father recorded the names of nearly 1000 men, 200 children and four women who were interred in the area at the eastern end of the cemetery.
He also worked alongside members of the Goulburn River Clans Men’s Group to build a wall inscribed with names of First Nations people interred at the site.
“Dad was known far and wide as the authority on the cemetery. It has largely been due to Dad and Mum’s involvement that many families were able to locate ancestors’ grave sites. Enquiries would come from people all over the world,” she said.
“There are about 5500 graves in Mooroopna and I have been told that Dad had a story for nearly all of them,” Gail said.
Daughter Jan remembered her father as a kind-hearted man.
“During the cold months when he worked in Shepparton, he would drape blankets and pieces of material around the shoulders of the old-timers who slept outside on vacant blocks - these men were homeless and in need of comfort,” Jan said.
A celebration for the life of Bill Ferrari was held at St Mary's Catholic Church Mooroopna on Friday, October 1.
Val passed away in 2019 at 88 years of age.
Bill and Val leave four children, seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
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