MELBA Mary Russell celebrates a milestone today that many can only dream of reaching when she marks her 100th birthday.
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The Tamworth woman, though, said it was “just the same as any other birthday”, but she’s had plenty of attention from people in high places, including cards and letters from Queen Elizabeth II, Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, member for Tamworth Kevin Anderson and member for New England Barnaby Joyce.
Being also a century since the landing at Gallipoli, Mrs Russell said her earliest memory is from when she was three years old.
“When they all came back from World War I and they gave all the boys a dance,” she said.
“They made a Kaiser Bill and hung him up.”
She said Kaiser Bill was then shot at and burned outside.
Growing up at Maules Creek where her father had a property, Mrs Russell has had a long history with the region and said she used to walk a mile-and-a-half (2.4km) each way to school and home.
“I used to do a terrible amount of walking,” she said.
She was 12 when they moved from Maules Creek to Gunnedah because her father wanted her to have a proper education.
The family home still stands in Gunnedah.
When Mrs Russell finished school, she said she stayed home with her mother and played a lot of tennis and never learned to drive and never worked outside the home.
“I started to learn to drive, but we were way out of town and my daughter said I was driving too fast, so I got out and that was the end of that,” she said.
She married a policeman and lived in Sydney then Copmanhurst near Grafton, Collarenebri before moving back to Gunnedah.
Mrs Russell married a second time and moved to Tamworth in the early 1950s where they lived in Victoria St.
“It was different to today because there were no drugs then and I was never frightened to walk into town or out of town. Today I would be,” she said.
“The best machine ever made was a washing machine, because you don’t have to stand up washing all day.”
Mrs Russell said the reason for her long life was she never smoked and never drank.