Memories of river bliss for Noosa's amazing Grace

Grace turns 100 and her mind to the river people

MILESTONE: A 100 years old but still very young at heart is Grace Smerdon. Picture: Peter Gardiner

WITH a 100 years of memories safely stored away during her busy time on this earth, Noosa's Grace Smerdon still has plenty more energy to create memorable moments in her very full life.

Look no further than when the one-time registered nurse, mother and midwife, along with her family gathered at her home for her milestone birthday.

Grace said she was very grateful and thanked all those who sent her well wishes and they are no doubt pleased she marked the occasion in her own distinctive style.

There were letters of congratulations from the Queen, the Governor-General, Mayor Tony Wellington and a lovely orchid from MP Sandy Bolton, but was the very active Grace up for a celebratory toast for her centenary?

"I still enjoy a shandy," Grace said.

And a birthday champers while hosting her weekly mahjong gatherings. Playing this testing game has helped keep her mind razor-sharp to recall her many wonderful family stays in Noosa.

"People ask the secret to living to 100, I say your health is your wealth."

Grace, was born in Rockhampton before moving to Gympie. She would eventually marry Jack Smerdon, who served as an intelligence officer in the Army during World War II.

She is part of the Noosa Parkyn clan that helped shape Noosaville/Tewantin including building the Parkyn Brothers jetty (now home to Luxury Afloat houseboats) in the early 1950s. Grace said Parkyn's Hut in Tewantin was a miner's hut in Gympie owned by family patriarch Richard "Dick" Bray Parkyn, who had moved to Gympie from Cornwall in the 1880s.

Dick became a local mine manager and served as Widgee Shire Chairman.

He built a home located in Gympie Tce which became Grace's family stay, known as Shieldston.

Grace's memories from the early 1940s onwards was of mixing with the local fishing families and pumping for yabbies on the river. A real treat was going to the movies at Mayfair picture theatre in Tewantin or visiting relatives Howard and Cloudsley Parkyn at their boat hire and bait shop in Tewantin.

Grace also recalls buying prawns locally caught by the Massoud family at Lake Cooroibah and having them cooked on the spot when the trawlers docked.

And of watching the putt-putt boats, started with long leather strap wound around a circular solid metal fly wheel, plying the river.

Grace said local Len Ely and his mother Annie hired out boats and sold bait at O Boats situated opposite Shieldston and her family would also buy mullet from Gympie Tce resident George Burgess. Back then you could also buy live prawns for bait from O Boats that were kept in partly submerged holding boats. She said there were no multi-story buildings on Gympie Terrace in the 1960s - they were all houses or single story flats owned by people such as Harry and Edith Walker, Vanda Carlson, Wally Haeter and the Tuesleys. Grace moved to Noosa to live around 1980.