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I've seen a few kings
go on the throne,
go off the throne again.
Violet Wilhelmina
Stephens.
I was born in Colac
in Dr Brown’s private hospital.
I’ll be 109 in November.
Mum and Dad were farmers.
We were in Eurack for eight years.
A share farm.
It’s hard work, you know, on the farm.
Anyway, that was what they did, I suppose.
It’s what they had to do.
And when I was a child
I had a lot of sickness
right up until I was nine year old
and I never had an education
because I was always sick.
"And the school teacher
used to keep taking me home."
He and another farmer,
they were the only ones in the district
that had a car.
Sometimes I used to have to walk home.
It was only Edi and I.
Only two girls.
"I’m three and a half years
older than her."
"I don't what Mum and Dad
would think, "
you know, both of us
living all these years,
and Edi is 105.
Mum,
when she was in the nursing home,
waiting for Edi to be born,
Edi was born in 1919
Nurse Sal was the mid-nurse, and
she got word
to say,
that her brother was killed in the war.
And Mum said,
she sat down to the piano
and she played
‘Remembrance’.
That was the name of the piece.
And Mum thought it was such
a beautiful piece of music, and
so when I started to learn,
she said to me, she told me about it.
And she said, that's one piece of music
I want you to learn
is ‘Remembrance’.
I learned to play it
"and if I’ve played
that piece of music once,"
I have played it hundreds of times.
It's a beautiful piece of music.
Any member of the family,
aunties and uncles,
and then when they passed away,
I used to always sit down
and play ‘Remembrance’
for every one of them.
Of course I can’t now.
It’s one thing that left me,
was me music,
and I'm very sad about that.
They gave up the farm
and we shifted into Beeac
and we were in Beeac
three years
and Mum and Dad had a boarding house.
We thought that was wonderful.
We were living in a little town.
Although there wasn't that many shops,
"but there seemed to be, you know,
just what you wanted."
"But if you wanted clothes
or anything like that, "
we used to have to go to Colac.
There was a man,
a Mr Wigg his name was,
and he used to run the pictures
once a week on the Saturday night
in the public hall.
"And that was next door
to the boarding house"
and of course he was boarding in our place
"so Edi and I used to get in free
every Saturday night."
We thought that was good,
we never used to have to pay.
They were silent, you know,
there was no talking or anything.
Kitty, she used to play the piano
while the pictures were on.
It must have been a bit of an ordeal.
You had sit there and play the piano for
I don’t know how long, you know.
"A lot of the time
they used to break down, you know."
"And you’d
be sitting there for half an hour,"
"perhaps an hour, before
before they got it going again."
We weren’t allowed out until we were 17,
to dances or anything like that on me own.
And the same with Edi.
So we had rather a strict bringing up.
Dad was very fond of dancing.
He was a beautiful dancer.
"He and his sister, before they were married,
they used to win"
"all the waltzing competitions
around the country."
Yeah, they barred them in the finish
because nobody could beat them.
So you know,
that was in our blood.
"Two girls used to come up from
Melbourne"
and they taught us to dance.
They taught us to do all the...
what they do in Melbourne, you know?
The foxtrot and all that.
And we used to take our shoes off and
dance on the lino.
Polished lino, you know.
"And those girls used to teach us to dance
so of course"
when Mum and Dad go to the dances
in the school,
Edi and I, we’d be up!
We can show them how to do it!
We used to dance together and, you know,
yeah all the...
all the latest dances.
Bill and I were just
great friends.
Before, we’d go and play tennis and...
That’s him.
Yes. We were married in Camperdown.
Yes, a very quiet wedding.
Mum, she was just getting over
an operation for a goitre.
"She said to me, well I don't
really feel up to having a wedding."
"She said I don't think I could cope
and I understood that"
"because I know how sick she was
before she had the operation"
and she wasn’t properly over it, you know.
"So I said
“Don’t worry about it Mum.”"
I said, “We won’t have a wedding”
"and so we just said,
“Well, we're getting married"
"if you want to come and see us
married, "
you’re quite welcome.”
And if you do,
you'll get a cup of tea after.
That's what everybody was told.
We never sent any invitations or anything.
We just told everybody
if you want to come and see us married...
Anyway, after we were married
Bill told me that he was disappointed
that I wasn't married as a bride.
Just frocks.
We just had frocks.
They were quite nice.
I wanted a fur coat.
The short fur coats were all the go then.
And because it was summer time you know.
The day we were married was 40 degrees.
So we went to Morrie Jacobs.
Aunty Dais came with us to Geelong.
"So the bloke, he bent down
and he put his arms"
around a whole thing of fur coats.
Put them up on the counter.
I said to Dais, “Well I can’t afford mink.
I’ll have to settle for rabbit”.
So I bought a rabbit one.
But I was determined
I was going to have this fur coat.
And you know it was summertime!
Anyway, I got me fur coat.
"We laughed,
we used to laugh about this fur coat,"
"you know,
and all the things that happened to it."
And we had the fire at Carpendeit.
19...
1939 fires.
Yes
Yes.
We took our cattle out there one summer.
We stayed in an old log hut.
"We papered it out with newspaper
and made it livable."
"There had been nobody in it
for years and years."
And then of course the fire came
and burnt it down
I lost
me
gold watch
"that Bill had given me
for a wedding present."
Lost all me jewellery.
Engagement ring.
I ran in and
and I grabbed me fur coat.
And as I was
running out,
Mum said to me,
“Did you get your clothes?”
“Yes, I got me fur coat!”
It had a life of nine lives.
We moved to Lorne in ‘47.
"We were there for about six weeks,
I suppose."
There was this fisherman and he said
he had a boat he wanted to sell.
So Bill bought his boat.
And, this bloke, he said, well,
“I’ll go with you for three months”.
But he was a terrible fella
and he used to come to work
as full as a boot and if Bill did anything
that he didn't like,
he’d threaten to throw him overboard.
One night,
"He [Bill] let out a yell
in the middle of the night,"
jumped out of bed
"and I said,
“what on earth’s wrong with you?”"
And he told me about...
he’d had a nightmare that
he was being thrown overboard.
And I said,
"“Tomorrow when you go to work,
you get rid of him.”"
And he did. Yeah.
Frightened the devil out of me.
I thought he had gone mad.
I lived
quite a quiet life when we first went down
because I didn't want to mix with anybody.
As long as I could
stay in me own four walls,
I wasn’t too bad.
But I did suffer a lot with nerves.
So I,
I just kept to meself as much as I could
the first year or two.
The fishing was pretty good.
"Bill was making a good living.
The barracuda."
"And then, of course,
the government let the Japanese in"
and they fished it out,
and then they cleared off,
so it was never any good after that.
Only the crayfish.
You know, the crayfish was very good.
Well, that's...
That's a summer scene.
Summer scene
I had a few lessons off
Aunty Rube before I was married.
On the farm, I never had time
to be painting.
Then when I was down at Lorne,
wanted to have a few lessons
I'll never forget the first lesson.
I’d done a bit, you know, meself,
but not for a long time.
So I
"get me easel up and the board
and everything on it."
And that’s as far as I could go.
Just stood there!
I didn't know what to do.
How on earth did I do
do paintings before this?
If I’d had the copy,
I’d have been at it.
Where’s the copy?
Oh no, you’ve got to paint that out there.
Anyway, he just come along,
took the brush off me,
put it in the paint...
“And there’s your sky”.
Oh yes, well then
I managed to try and do something.
I loved painting trees.
I got
quite good at flowers.
And he told me one day...
He said, “Flowers and trees are your...
That’s your main thing”.
No. Sadly enough
the fur started coming out.
It started to moult
so I had to throw it out.
Thanks To
Kim Murdoch, Kerrie White, Phillip Sear
Violet Stephens
"I've seen two or three worlds in one life"
Overcoming Struggles with Laughter & Resilience
Born in 1915 in the Western District of Victoria, Violet grew up as the daughter of share farmers in the 1920s. She shares her vivid memories of rural life, from the boarding house her parents ran in Beeac to the charm of silent movies at the local picture hall and learning the latest dance steps of the time.
Despite facing health challenges, Violet’s infectious laughter is a powerful testament to her resilience and strength. At the remarkable age of 108, she is an inspiration. Stay tuned for her 105-year-old sister, Edith’s, story. Coming soon!
Age in Video
108 yearsDate of Birth
5th November 1915Place of Birth
Colac, Victoria, AustraliaThanks To
Kim Murdoch, Kerrie White, Phillip Sear