Ten decades of a good life

By Lachlan Ellis

A local woman made it to triple figures this month, and celebrated the occasion in quite a unique way, hot air ballooning just south of Wangaratta with a friend.

Hazel Hehir grew up in Western Australia and moved to Wangaratta when she was 84, but spent most of her life in Bacchus Marsh.

On Saturday 4 February, Ms Hehir celebrated her 100th birthday, kicking things off with a hot air balloon ride, then a bustling party, and finally afternoon tea with some former square-dancing friends.

She said it was work that brought her here, and love that kept her here, moving in November 1949 after marrying her husband Edward, a Bacchus Marsh local.

“I’m from around the east of Perth, I lived in Bellevue for a while when I was little until I was 13, and then we moved to Bassendean. After the War, I came east on a working holiday for something different to do. Met a fellow and got married, he was from Bacchus Marsh and had a good job at an open cut coal mine, so I started there for most of my life and raised the kids there,” Ms Hehir told the Moorabool News.

“I went hot air ballooning for my birthday, that was awesome really. A friend I met up here, her birthday’s the same day, and she turned 80. I said to her that I was going hot air ballooning and asked if she wanted to come…she thought about it a bit and then said yes, so we went together.”

Though it’s common these days to shift from many different careers before retiring, Ms Hehir, a dressmaker by trade, stuck with her craft for her entire working life, beyond the age where most people retire.

“I was a dressmaker all my life, I did my last wedding order privately when I was 81. Once you got a job in my era, you usually stayed there most of your life,” she said.

While she hasn’t received a letter from the King yet – she “would’ve preferred one from Liz” anyway – she says she had friends from Sydney, Hoppers Crossing, Altona and even Austria visit and call her for her birthday.

And as for a secret to her long life? Well, there isn’t really any secret, Ms Hehir says – she just “went to bed and got up the next morning, not noticing I was any different to what I was when I went to bed the night before”.

Ms Hehir has four children, seven grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.