A teacher by profession, she became better known in recent years for her later work as a community and environmental activist.

Olive came to prominence as one of a team of humble grandmothers who turned to advocacy and protest in the late 1990s not just to improve air quality - it wasn't as healthy as people had been accustomed to believe - but also to fight for the working people of Port Kembla to be better informed about toxic chemicals in their suburb.

Read more: How these women cleaned up Port Kembla

It was the fight to stop the Port Kembla copper smelter from re-opening which saw Olive, along with her long-time comrade Helen Hamilton - throw herself heavily into activism. From there the long-running Port Kembla Pollution Meeting, and the local group IRATE (Illawarra Residents Against Toxic Environments) grew, giving shape to growing concern among residents about whether heavy industry was properly regulated in their backyard.

Or their front yards, which were sometimes doused in ash from the copper smelter stack, or the school, where Olive's daughter Julie remembered grass didn't grow, and when the kids played in the tree down the back of the school dust would fall out and get all over them.

"She had a video camera and she used to go and take pictures in the middle of the night when they were sending the plumes out," Julie said.

"It became an obsession, because she knew it was wrong, and that really struck a chord with her. You should be able to breathe clean air in a residential area.

Read more: Greenie grannies did Port proud

"It is a close-knit community, which is why so many people came on board in Port - it was clear the school was unhealthy, people had lead testing but no results were coming back, there was no transparency. But people started becoming more educated and the word was spreading."

Olive was born and grew up in Newcastle. After completing teachers' college she moved to Sydney for work and then gained her first placement at Warrawong Public School, aged 20. She would stay working in the neighbourhood for more than 40 years, after meeting husband Keith at a South Beach dance and having three children. She retired as a much-loved teacher remembered by multiple generations of students - and embarked upon the next phase of her calling.

It was the Port Kembla motorcycle TT race in 1996 which first got her protesting, on a belief that residential streets were no place for a high-speed race. Heavy metals and toxins would be next in the firing line.

It wasn't always easy. Environmentalists were sometimes seen as anti-jobs in Port Kembla and one man was charged over death threats against Olive. But it didn't seem to bother Olive, who cared little for accolades nor criticism.

"Mum was so humble and so goal-directed, that the recognition wasn't even part of it," Julie said.

She made a run for council, started a law degree at UOW at age 72, kept strong in her faith, looked after her health and even learned to use email to cut down on the boxes of paper files which filled Julie's old bedroom.

The school, once across the road from the smelter, has now been moved, the smelter closed down, and the air improved significantly, Julie said. It's a legacy of the hard fight Olive and her like-minded partners endured for years.

"Port Kembla has changed a lot - in the last five years even - with the cleaner air, trees grow, grass grows now in areas it didn't used to," Julie said. "There's birds back - kookaburras that we hadn't heard for years and years. I think that says a lot about how the environment was affected back then. We grew up thinking it was normal."

Olive was 89 when she died on Tuesday, surrounded by family and after a "very stoic" battle with illness.

Certainly the accolades have come. Olive's family has been inundated with calls, messages, flowers and meals during and after her last days earlier this week, many saying the community owed her a debt of gratitude.

"It was an acknowledgement of the work Mum had done in the community, fighting for clean air and for equity," Julie said.

"I wasn't expecting that. She's aged, and stepped back from that, and I thought people might forget it. But people haven't and that's been quite beautiful to see in these last days. It's really touched me and I think it would have really touched Mum had she seen it."

Olive Rodwell is survived by children Steve, Ruth and Julie, six grandchildren and five great grandchildren - with another on the way. Her funeral is being organised for a date in the coming weeks.

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