Resident Helen Celebrates 106 Years
"She would tell you it’s good fortune; ‘in the genes,’ but she always been active and interested in things,” says David, of his mother, Helen, the Mountain View Aged Care Centre (“Mountain View”) resident, who recently celebrated her 106th birthday. When reflecting on her secret to longevity, David also says that it is her sense of optimism and engagement with people. “She describes it as a country attitude, rooted in her upbringing in rural Victoria,” he explains. “She’s always been a very outgoing and optimistic person.”
Having been born in 1918, Helen has seen a lot throughout her lifetime. She grew up on her grandfather’s small farm in the Victorian town of Garfield. An immigrant from Ireland, the land had been granted to him in the late 1800’s in the exchange for work on a government project. “She would say she had a very happy childhood, mixing with other children at family and community events, playing sport, and so on,” notes David. “She has clear memories of carrying a billy of tea and scones down to her grandpa and sitting on a hay bale, watching him work, as well as times spent cracking ice on frozen puddles on winter mornings, or skirting around snakes in the later summer on her long walks to school.”
In her late teens, she moved to Melbourne, initially living with an aunt in Fitzroy. While engaged in office work, her best memories are of Saturday night dances and Sunday picnics. It was in Melbourne that Helen met her husband, David’s father, through a serendipitous occurrence. “She often recalls the fact that a friend badgered her to go ice skating one evening and that's where she met my dad. He was from Cootamundra in New South Wales.” David’s Father, Helen’s husband, was in the Royal Australian Air Force and, after the war, he stayed with the Service and the family settled in Melbourne.
In terms of her life in Melbourne, Helen embraced it all. "She had a wide circle of friends and enjoyed family and social events, going to the movies and playing tennis,” David speaks of Helen having only giving up tennis in her 80’s. “She always took a close interest in Australian Rules Football, encouraged from an early aged by her father who had played for the St Kilda Melbourne Football Clubs in the early 1900’s,” says David.
David says that Helen often speaks of the optimism of the 1950’s and recalls their joining large crowds that lined Melbourne’s Swanston Street to watch the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh pass by during the Royal visit in 1954. “She also remembers the period for the introduction of television, the excitement of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and several thrilling Davis Cup finals. And it was the start of a golden period for her beloved Demons who would go on to win five Victorian Football League premierships in the space of ten years,” David says.
When reflecting on her most recent 106th Birthday, it was complete with plenty of fanfare. “The Centre had a special morning tea for her, with a cake and balloons, marking 106, and her granddaughter came and attended on behalf of family,” says David. She also received cards from The Salvation Army’s Chief Secretary, The Salvation Army Aged Care’s National Director, and letters from the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory and other local politicians to mark this impressive milestone.
This year also marks Helen’s 10th birthday at the Mountain View. It was approaching her 96th birthday, and after spending 40 years of largely independent living in Melbourne following the death of her husband, that she moved to Canberra to be closer to her son and her extended family, including her two great-grandchildren.
David confirms that she has enjoyed her time at the Centre over the last decade. “She has really appreciated some of the friendships made over that time, as well as the care and kindness of the staff at Mountain View, they’ve been excellent.” When asked what David considers to be Helen’s standout memories from her life, he states that it’s two of life’s simple pleasures: “her family and travel when she was able to.”
