Hi Edna, can you tell us a little about yourself?
I am 98 and 3/4 and if I had a couple of new legs and eyes I’d be right. I get meals on wheels and a fortnightly cleaner, someone comes to help with the gardening and wood, and my tablets are delivered from the chemist. If you need help you only need to ask and it’s there.
I go on a bus tour every Friday called the Friday Explorers which is great. We’ve been to so many different places and they always ask where we want to go. We’ve to Echuca, to a doll museum in Maryborough, up Mt Tarrangower, on the talking tram in Bendigo and we even went 10-pin bowling – you’ve never seen anyone bowl like us! Next Friday we’re going to Rodilesa Nursery at Harcourt and then for lunch at the Cumberland.
What a fantastic group to be involved with! You were born in Chewton – what was it like going to school here?
I started school when I was four and a half which meant I had to do Grade 8 twice because you couldn’t leave until you were 14 years old.
I loved school and was really good at it. I won the Old Boys Merit Certificate in Grade 6 – which was in 1936. We had to sit an exam for the prize and I was awarded a beautiful book called Westward Ho. I didn’t read it though – it was as dry as anything!
What work did you do when you left school?
I went to the tech school. My father had ideas that I’d be a dressmaker but I didn’t like that and left to work at Gilpin’s (a chain store similar to Coles or Woolworths before they became supermarkets). It was the sort of place you worked your way from the bottom to the top to become a manageress. My second manageress role was in Kerang, which was a real eye-opener – it was so flat, with no hill anywhere! I stayed for 12 months. The people there were really lovely. That’s where I meet my husband. He was part of the fire brigade and they put on dances every Friday. By the end of the year, we were engaged.
Afterward, I was sent to a place in NSW for six months. I resigned to come home and get married (you could only work there if you were divorced or widowed so as not to take work away from the single girls).
When we got married we moved to Kerang at first but came back to Chewton where Eric worked as a relieving baker before working for Alf Rasmussen at a bakery in Winters Flat. After developing a cough from the flour and from smoking Eric was told to get a job working outside and he started working for Ernie Mills building houses for the foundry workers. He also worked for the forest commission and then at Tonks Brothers in the wood yard, driving a truck and that’s when we had our second child.
After a while Eric went back to work as baker at Blooms Bakery and in 1964 we had the opportunity to buy the bakery which we called EJ and EM Preece- it was on Barker Street next door to Coles. We were there for 11 years – until 1975. In the meantime, we had another two children (and I took two years off work). We only had one holiday in that time. We went to Adelaide so we were too far away for anyone to call us back! By the end of the 11 years, we were worn out so we sold the business and did some travelling on bus tours visiting Cairns, Perth, and visiting an expo in Brisbane which we really enjoyed.
How did you come to live in this beautiful house?
Eric built this house. It was just a vacant block of land before that. We moved in here in 1954.
Do you have any other hobbies or interests?
I have been either the president, secretary, or treasurer on every committee in Chewton (except sports – I was too busy!) and am now a life member of the Senior Citizens and the Domain Society. And these days I enjoy getting outside and having a wander around, playing solitaire or watching TV
Finally, do you have any advice for the younger generations?
Get out in the open air.