Frazer makes a clean break after 43 in the laundry

AGED care cleaner and her husband to spend retirement travelling around Australia and visiting family.

HEADING OFF: After 43 years at Grafton Aged Care, Verlie Frazer is calling it quits. Picture: Tim Howard

ALL the ends are tying up at the Grafton Aged Care Centre with the retirement of veteran laundry worker Verlie Frazer.

Mrs Frazer has worked at the centre since 1973, just two years after it opened as Grafton Nursing Home.

She said the site was the surgery of Dr Earle Page and one of the people responsible for its transition to Grafton Nursing Home, then Grafton Aged Care, was a resident.

"Just last month Athol 'Digger' Cooney passed away here," she said.

"He was the real estate agent that arranged the sale of Dr Page's surgery to Mr and Mrs Lindeman who opened Grafton Nursing Home in 1971."

She said over the years houses around the centre had been acquired, allowing the centre to almost double its size.

"When I came here the home had a capacity of 48 residents," she said.

"Now they can house more than 80."

Mrs Frazer said she had seen many of the region's identities move into its residence.

"My husband Terry was friends with Max Godbee who still resides here," she said.

She handled the washing for them for almost all of that time.

"I was here for 40 years full time, but over the past three years I've scaled it back to three days a week," she said.

"I'm getting a bit old for it now. It's time to pass it onto the younger ones."

Mrs Frazer said when she started there was just one single automatic washing machine to do all the washing.

"It was too small for the work, but I used to just keep it going all the time," she said.

"There was nothing in the way of a dryer, so I used to have to hang out all the washing.

"It was really hard work. All the machinery they've got these days makes the job a lot easier."

Mrs Frazer said she and her husband would spend their retirement travelling around Australia and visiting their family.

Originally published as Frazer makes a clean break after 43 in the laundry