By Lachlan Ellis<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Hazel Hehir grew up in Western Australia and moved to Wangaratta when she was 84, but spent most of her life in Bacchus Marsh.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 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,\u201d Ms Hehir told the Moorabool News.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went hot air ballooning for my birthday, that was awesome really. A friend I met up here, her birthday\u2019s 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\u2026she thought about it a bit and then said yes, so we went together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While she hasn\u2019t received a letter from the King yet \u2013 she \u201cwould\u2019ve preferred one from Liz\u201d anyway \u2013 she says she had friends from Sydney, Hoppers Crossing, Altona and even Austria visit and call her for her birthday.<\/p>\n
And as for a secret to her long life? Well, there isn\u2019t really any secret, Ms Hehir says \u2013 she just \u201cwent 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\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Hehir has four children, seven grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n