Wisdom of our elders: Five Melburnians shared their wisdom, insight and reflections
IN their twilight years, looking back on long lives lived well, five Melburnians shared their bounty of wisdom, insight and reflections.
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IN their twilight years, looking back on long lives lived well, five Melburnians shared their bounty of wisdom, insight and reflections.
All five are residents of aged care facilities and have written their personal biographies — with stunning results.
All said getting their story down in print with the help of the Beyond Words biography program, was most rewarding, and brought back long-forgotten memories, as trained volunteers took them through their lives decade by decade. It also gave them a means to pass life stories on to future generations.
Beyond Words operations manager Carol Walker said that since launching in 2012 the organisation has published 107 biographies, with seven more on the go.
The free service, funded by donations and grants, was available to applicants living in aged care facilities, and was provided by 33 volunteers throughout Melbourne.
Each biography took six to eight weeks of storytelling and another two weeks to compile, complete with old photos, all presented in a beautiful box.
“It’s not the book at the end, it’s the process. It’s having that time to reflect while a well-trained volunteer listens to them, with empathy. It’s their story, it’s what they want to say,” Ms Walker said.
EILEEN, 94
EILEEN Rainford has twice faced down criminals waving shotguns. She has stood on St Kilda streets in the dead of night dressed as a prostitute arresting men who picked her up.
She has saved women from violent relationships, getting them new identities and lives interstate.
And she has even protected her fellow Liverpudlians, the Beatles, from hordes of screaming girls at Essendon Airport in 1964.
If ever someone embodied the saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, it’s this retired Victoria Police sergeant. She says the job allowed her to fulfil her deep belief in the importance of helping others.
“It was very different from a desk job. I wanted to be out there with people. Real people.” Now a self-described “old chook” of 94, a frail-looking Miss Rainford looks in the mirror and says, “I’m not me anymore”. Her life has flown by.
She urges young people to keep a diary, not only to aid the memory and inform families of their achievements in later years, but to inspire ourselves to do better, “to keep going”.
On the inside Miss Rainford feels the same as ever. It’s the outside that’s changed.
She has always had faith in herself.
“I faced a man with a gun, and a lady with a gun. And neither time was I scared. I talked them out of it. I knew the lady who had a shotgun waving it round out a car window. I walked straight up to her and said, ‘give me that’.”
Other cops were horrified, but the armed woman handed it over. The man with the gun backed away from her into officers creeping up behind.
This year Miss Rainford, a copper from 1952-1976, was awarded a national police medal and Victoria Police service medal — all for a job she adored.
“When I joined the force in the 1950s, if we married we had to leave. And I never found anybody to compare with the job.”
Sadly, her career ended in 1975 when she suffered a debilitating blood-related illness that still afflicts her and has doctors stumped.
“I have been as sick as a dog so many times. Sometimes I wonder what I am still doing here.”
But there are plenty of reasons to be glad to be alive: The sunny garden, freshly ironed washing brought to her room without her lifting a finger, and her “escape machine”, a motor scooter.
“It’s the life of Riley,” she laughs.
PEGGY, 86
IF PEGGY Schulze were to travel more than 60 years back in time for a chat with her younger self, she knows exactly what she’d say.
“Stand up for yourself. Be more assertive. When your boss accuses you of stealing and you know you didn’t do it, you have to stand up and have your say. Make sure that you’re not overcome by people.”
Mrs Schulze had been working in a baker’s office when she was unjustly accused of theft and given two weeks’ notice. Rather than defend herself, she left immediately.
“I should have stood up for myself, and today I would, but it’s a bit late,” she says. It was clearly a devastating experience.
A widow now in aged care, she says it’s so important to make the most of life while you’re living it. “It takes a lot of years to learn that.”
The biggest challenge and greatest reward in her life was raising three sons almost single-handedly while husband Peter was busy working.
She was born the youngest of five in Coburg, grew up in Preston, won a scholarship to business college and at age 14 started work in the office of an Elizabeth St seed merchant.
She met Peter dancing at the old Trocadero Dance Hall, where the Arts Centre now stands.
When Mrs Schulze’s father found out she’d been going dancing, “I was invited to leave home or stop going dancing. So I left home. I was 17.”
She’s glad they managed to patch things up. “When I look back on it, it was a really good, fun life,” she says.
SAM, 84
SAM Wilson’s recipe for living may sound simple, but it’s given him a lifetime of happiness.
At 84, Mr Wilson says his top tip for younger generations is not to wait for happiness to come to you. Go looking for it yourself, and when you find it, grab it. “What you look for, you’ll get,” he says.
“If you look for happiness and kindness, you’ll find it. But if you want to be miserable and you look for it, you’ll find that too.”
To spend time with Mr Wilson is to spend time laughing and joking.
“Young people have got their own world, and what they want to do. I don’t think they want to listen to this old man,” he says, cheerfully.
A cabinet-maker who spent 23 “fantastic” years working at the Government Aircraft Factories, Mr Wilson’s advice for how to succeed in one’s work is to find the person who’s the best at what you do, and follow their lead. In his twilight years, does he have any regrets?
“I don’t think I’ve got any. Everything I’ve done, I felt was the best I could do and I think I would do the same things over again,” he says.
The first time he proposed, his wife Teresa “knocked him back”, so as a 20-year-old he bought a £10 ticket for a better life in Christchurch, New Zealand. He loved it there but never stopped thinking of Teresa. When he was 28, he asked again and she said yes. They married in Belfast and settled in Melbourne, having a son and a daughter.
Now living in an aged care facility with Teresa in the adjacent room — “This is my home now. I’m very happy” — Mr Wilson has been reflecting on his life while writing his biography with the help of Beyond Words.
At first he was afraid he’d lived such an uneventful life that he was wasting the volunteer’s time.
“But they opened a sort of Pandora’s box.
“It was wonderful. Things that I hadn’t thought about for years. I realised I had a wonderful life. But I didn’t realise at the time that we had such a good time,” he says.
Mr Wilson has taken to technology like somebody 70 years his junior.
“I’ve got 1000 friends on Facebook. I think it’s wonderful because it keeps your mind occupied. It’s infectious,” he says.
He’s dabbled on Instagram and Twitter and loves online shopping.
VERA, 93
IF A young person today lived Vera White’s life, they might find plenty to grumble about.
Her wedding dress was a hand-me-down made from mosquito netting, she went to work at 15, her husband had to give up employment due to poor health, they didn’t have a lot of money, she cared for her parents at home until they died, and she suffered a stroke.
But, far from complaining, Mrs White is one of the happiest people around.
“I’m extremely happy. I’ve had a wonderful life,” she says, her speech slightly slurred from the mild stroke.
Mrs White’s upbeat life seems to boil down to having a loving, close family who cared about each other and somehow never argued.
“Is that unusual?” she asks.
“I grew up in a happy life. I called my book, I’ve Had a Wonderful Life, and I have. My sisters-in-law, we’re as near as sisters. One is still alive, she’s 102 and I ring her twice a week.”
Mrs White was the youngest of seven. Her exhausted mum had a heart problem and was never well.
Her dad worked hard shovelling coal at an electricity station on Spencer St and took a second job in 1929 to raise the 50-pound deposit to buy a 500-pound ($38,000 today) two-storey, four-bedroom home in Garden City, Port Melbourne.
Vera got work in a baker’s shop at 15, and at 23 married George, the love of her life, wearing her sister’s wartime “wedding frock” made from mosquito netting and lace.
They had a boy and girl. George was in the navy but had to quit aged 52 due to a poor heart.
She reckons young people these days have lost the art of saving.
“We’ve always had just enough money to get through. You do. But it would be very hard today,” Mrs White says.
She sold the Garden City home in 1985 after both her parents had died, fetching a record $129,000.
“Now it’s worth $1.5 million,” she says, cracking up at something that others might find depressing.
George was sick for many years, but nine days after their 50th wedding anniversary, his moment came. He arrived to collect her from the supermarket looking terrible. She immediately rang the doctor — but it was too late.
“It could have happened at any time and I was with him. So that was lovely. And he knew. I missed him terrible,” Mrs White said.
Still, she says, looking on the bright side, she was lucky to have him as long as she did.
JACK, 92
AT 92, Jack Baldwin is no good at keeping secrets.
“I’ve got a lover. We’ve been together for 40 years,” he says with a cheeky grin, sitting in his recliner chair in a Melbourne aged care facility.
The lucky lady is in her late 70s and has given Mr Baldwin strict instructions not to mention her to the Sunday Herald Sun.
“Her name is Margarita and she lives in Port Melbourne,” Mr Baldwin says, eagerly and without prompting. But he hasn’t popped the question and nor does he intend to.
“Why get married? We’ve both been there, we’ve tried it. We’re both happy the way we are. We go out, she takes me out for lunch, or we buy a takeaway coffee and look at the bay. She looks at the bay, I look as far as I can, which isn’t very far,” he said.
Sadly, macular degeneration has robbed Mr Baldwin of his sight, but he copes with good humour.
Looking back on his life, he says he was never rich but he worked hard and saved.
He knows that’s not how it’s done these days.
People don’t seem to realise that if you buy something on credit, your money is lining someone else’s pocket.
However, he also believes money is no good if you don’t spend it. He bought war bonds, but cashed them in to buy a pair of ice skates and a portable wind-up HMV record player.
“The fun I had with that ... ” he says fondly.
Mr Baldwin is a firm believer in looking after body and mind through keeping both active. He also says, like everyone, he’s made his fair share of mistakes.
“You learn by them,” he said.
Mr Baldwin’s family owned Baldwin’s Rosebank Dairy in Moray St, South Melbourne. After a stint as a fitter and turner’s apprenticeship through WWII, he became a “milkie” walking South Melbourne’s streets at 2am with a draught horse and cart.
“I loved it. People were so innocent, including me,” he said.
He misses those days. From 1957 until he turned 70 he was a salesman for Ryco Hydraulics in Footscray.
He’d married and had two sons, but the marriage didn’t last. “So I’m still single,” he says, mischievously.
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