Bluff resident celebrates 100th birthday
When Bluff resident Joyce Waldron turned 100 years old on Thursday, she celebrated with a glass of whiskey.
It was a bottle she had received for her 90th and she waited for ten years for her centenary, which was celebrated with a dinner.
Waldron was the third set of twins to be born in her family, with one of her older sister living to 101 years old.
Her twin brother died 3 weeks short of turning 70, which Waldron believed was because of the stress he lived through during the war.
Fortunately wartime Southland was fairly comfortable but items were rationed, and if someone wanted something it wasn’t always accessible, Waldron said.
The key to a long life was simple living and hard work, which she had done by being an active member of the community.
The key to a long life was simple living and hard work, which she had done by being an active member of the community.
Waldron worked in a laboratory at a hospital before moving from Invercargill to Bluff when she married her husband in 1955.
Since moving to Bluff, she had worked in the St John nursing unit, was a member of the Bluff Senior Citizen Associations, a member of the RSA, where she was once the former provincial president, and a member of the mother league.
Bluff had a strong community spirit during in the years after World War II where, no matter what denomination a person identified with, they would always go to all church services, Waldron said.
Church was not as big as it used to be but if another world war broke out, Waldron believed it would become popular again.
Waldron is the mother of three children and has three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.