Betty Parker: Tribute to Sunshine Coast woman and ex-Women’s Land Army member

The daughter of a Sunshine Coast great grandmother shy of reaching 100 years of age says she left behind a legacy of service in the community after a long battle with dementia.

Sunshine Coast woman Betty Parker is being remembered by her family after she passed aged 94.

From being an avid gardener to an ex-service member and loving great grandma, Betty Parker fit many lives into her 94 years.

Her work for the community is what her loved ones will remember most about the Nambour woman after she died on August 6.

Ms Parker’s family said their final goodbyes at a private ceremony at Gregson and Weight in Caloundra two days after she passed.

Daughter Linda Gold said while her mum had lost her “feisty” nature due to a long battle with dementia, she would always remember her as a character.

“She was always very chatty,” she said.

“She’d talk the leg of an iron pot, as they say.”

Just like her love of plants, Ms Parker’s circle of friends grew over the years as president of the Nambour Garden Club and member of the Sunshine Coast Fern Society.

She told the Daily in 1994 her lifelong passion for gardening started when she was a child.

“The other children had a puppy or a kitten, but I liked to look after little plants,” she laughed.

Ms Parker started her working life at a fish and chip shop in Gympie at 15, where she met the love of her life, Cecil.

Ms Parker celebrating her 90th birthday.

She served in the Women’s Land Army in the early 1940s before marrying Cecil at 18 when he returned from war.

“In the land army she was out near Roma and those areas on the farms and stations,” Ms Gold said.

“She got to sergeant but tells everyone she was an officer.”

Ms Gold said her parents lived on a farm for decades and her mum quickly needed to adjust to life outside of the city where she grew up.

“She couldn’t cook when she got married … there’s always been a joke in the family that dad had to teach her how to boil an egg,” she laughed.

Ms Gold remembered fondly the time her father tried to teach his wife how to drive while living on the farm.

“In those days the Bruce Highway went past our front gate, and we had this farm truck which is what he was teaching her to drive in,” she said.

“They pulled up to the gate and she was just sitting there because she was scared and the traffic is whizzing by.

“A local farmer went by, he knew what was going on, and he dropped his false teeth at her.

“She never, ever got behind the wheel again.”

Ms Parker had experienced her fair share of heartbreak through her life, having lost her first son when he was 21 and farewelling her husband in 1999.

Despite losing her memory in the last years of her life, Ms Gold said her mum loved being a social butterfly and was surrounded by her large family of eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

“She had quite a huge network of friends before she had the dementia,” she said.