While most 100-year-olds spend their days taking it easy, Joyce Oxenbury still sews regularly for other residents and staff at the Shepparton nursing home she calls home.
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She likes to feel busy and to help others.
On Saturday, November 26, Mrs Oxenbury celebrated her 100th birthday.
While now a centenarian, she doesn’t look to be slowing down too much.
“I don’t feel 100,” she said.
“I think my body is holding up.”
Sewing is one of Mrs Oxenbury’s passions, and she even has a sewing machine set up at Mercy Place Ave Maria nursing home where she has lived for about six years.
“I do what I can for the girls and anyone else,” she said.
She even wore a dress she had sewn patterned panels in herself — because it was just a bit too small — when The News went to interview her.
Born in Euroa to Alexander and Theresa McKenzie in 1922, Mrs Oxenbury was one of two children.
She married Albert Oxenbury after he came back from fighting in World War II, and they had two children: a son and a daughter.
Sadly her son died a few years ago.
She now has six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
Mr Oxenbury also lived to an old age, passing away eight years ago at 101.
Nursing was a passion of Mrs Oxenbury’s and it was a career that lasted 57 years.
She did her nursing training at Wangaratta before heading to Sydney for 18 months to work in midwifery.
The stint in the city during war time was an eye opener, and Mrs Oxenbury eventually came back to work in Wangaratta, where she stayed until she was married.
Unlike many women of her era, getting married and having children did not stop Mrs Oxenbury from pursuing her chosen career.
She continued nursing while both of her children were young — swapping to night duty at the hospital while Mr Oxenbury was left in charge of the children at home overnight.
She moved to Shepparton about 55 years ago and she worked for about 20 years, in general nursing, as well as midwifery and nursing babies in the town.
While nurses had to retire at 65, Mrs Oxenbury continued on, nursing for Veterans’ Affairs for an extra 10 years.
She finally stopped work at the age of 75.
An incident Mrs Oxenbury vividly remembers from her nursing career was when a fire truck got stuck in a ditch during a bushfire at Tarrawingee.
The firefighters were badly burnt and Mrs Oxenbury remembers them being brought into the hospital at 3pm.
“No-one went off duty that night. We worked overnight,” Mrs Oxenbury said.
She also remembers working at the then Goulburn Valley Base Hospital during the 1974 floods in Shepparton.
“The floods went under the floor of the hospital and they had to pump it out,” she said.
She also remembers having to wear gumboots to get to work, and can recall a woman in Mooroopna who was having a baby and had to be brought to the hospital by boat to give birth.
There were lots of good times in Mrs Oxenbury’s long life and she said her happiest memories were having her children and marrying her husband.
“He was a lovely man,” she said of her husband of 68 years.
Mrs Oxenbury celebrated her 100th birthday with afternoon drinks with other residents of the nursing home on Friday, before a party with family members on Saturday.
She received a birthday card from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Australian Governor-General David Hurley.
There was no card from the royals though.
That’s okay though, as she was not that keen on receiving a card from King Charles.
It would have been a different story, however, if it had come from Queen Elizabeth II.
Mrs Oxenbury said she would have liked to have received birthday greetings from her.
And her secret to living such a long life?
“You’ve got to be pretty motivated and think about what you’re going to do, and make a good job of it,” Mrs Oxenbury said.
Senior Journalist