Remarkable life journey ... Myrtle Jones celebrates her 108th birthday and pictured in her 20s.
A SIMPLE life, lived through remarkable times, came to an end this week for South Australia's oldest woman, Myrtle Jones, who died aged 111.
She was born Myrtle Dagg, in 1897, in colonial Victoria, under Queen Victoria's reign, moving to SA in 1948.
The colonies were planning for Federation and around the world, inventors were tinkering with the horseless carriage.
Myrtle was 24 when she married Melbourne painter Hubert Jones in Footscray, in 1921, and the couple had three sons and a daughter.
She was nanna to 27 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
"Mum was born in the 19th century, lived throughout the 20th century and almost a decade into the 21st century," oldest son Hugh Jones, 85, said.
Hers was a simple domestic life, from the time she had to leave her apprenticeship as a tailoress because her mother became ill.
A traditional housewife, she would spend Saturday afternoons baking and Sunday always meant a roast lunch.
"We lived in Footscray when I was a child and my word, the kitchen was a very active place on Saturday afternoons," Mr Jones said.
"She would bake apple pies, cup cakes and scones; the cake tin was about 10 inches in diameter and at least 18 inches high and she didn't stop baking these little cup cakes until the tin was full."
She never drove a car and lived independently in her own home at Largs North for almost 60 years until she was 109.
"She would cook herself a roast dinner on Sundays and that's not bad for someone who is 109," Mr Jones said.
Myrtle had moved from Melbourne into the new cinderbrick house in 1948, following her only daughter Violet, who moved to Largs Bay with her new husband Rex Bartlett.
She loved to walk from her new seaside home to the beach just three minutes away or catch the bus to the Port to shop or in later years, attend seniors club.
She had "a wonderful sense of humour and a good memory" and would talk about all the four major wars she had lived through – the two World Wars and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
She celebrated her 100th birthday with a fire-engine ride, sirens blaring in Myrtleford, Victoria.
She proudly told how she had seen Halley's Comet twice – the first time in 1910, when she was 12, and the last time in in 1986.
On her 108th birthday in 2005, she told The Advertiser her secret to good health was "An apple keeps the doctor away. An onion a day keeps the cold away."
Myrtle, who was a widow for 27 years, did not smoke or drink.
She died in a Largs North nursing home on Monday.
Australia's oldest person - Emily Beatrice "Bea" Riley - celebrated her 112th birthday at her Melbourne nursing home in October 13 last year. The oldest person now recorded is 114-year-old American Gertrude Baines, who was born on April 6, 1894.
Copyright 2009 News Limited
January 15, 2009
AUSTRALIA: South Australia's oldest person - Myrtle Jones - dies at 111
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ADELAIDE, South Australia / The Advertiser / January 15, 2009
By Nadine Williams
Remarkable life journey ... Myrtle Jones celebrates her 108th birthday and pictured in her 20s.
A SIMPLE life, lived through remarkable times, came to an end this week for South Australia's oldest woman, Myrtle Jones, who died aged 111.
She was born Myrtle Dagg, in 1897, in colonial Victoria, under Queen Victoria's reign, moving to SA in 1948.
The colonies were planning for Federation and around the world, inventors were tinkering with the horseless carriage.
Myrtle was 24 when she married Melbourne painter Hubert Jones in Footscray, in 1921, and the couple had three sons and a daughter.
She was nanna to 27 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
"Mum was born in the 19th century, lived throughout the 20th century and almost a decade into the 21st century," oldest son Hugh Jones, 85, said.
Hers was a simple domestic life, from the time she had to leave her apprenticeship as a tailoress because her mother became ill.
A traditional housewife, she would spend Saturday afternoons baking and Sunday always meant a roast lunch.
"We lived in Footscray when I was a child and my word, the kitchen was a very active place on Saturday afternoons," Mr Jones said.
"She would bake apple pies, cup cakes and scones; the cake tin was about 10 inches in diameter and at least 18 inches high and she didn't stop baking these little cup cakes until the tin was full."
She never drove a car and lived independently in her own home at Largs North for almost 60 years until she was 109.
"She would cook herself a roast dinner on Sundays and that's not bad for someone who is 109," Mr Jones said.
Myrtle had moved from Melbourne into the new cinderbrick house in 1948, following her only daughter Violet, who moved to Largs Bay with her new husband Rex Bartlett.
She loved to walk from her new seaside home to the beach just three minutes away or catch the bus to the Port to shop or in later years, attend seniors club.
She had "a wonderful sense of humour and a good memory" and would talk about all the four major wars she had lived through – the two World Wars and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
She celebrated her 100th birthday with a fire-engine ride, sirens blaring in Myrtleford, Victoria.
She proudly told how she had seen Halley's Comet twice – the first time in 1910, when she was 12, and the last time in in 1986.
On her 108th birthday in 2005, she told The Advertiser her secret to good health was "An apple keeps the doctor away. An onion a day keeps the cold away."
Myrtle, who was a widow for 27 years, did not smoke or drink.
She died in a Largs North nursing home on Monday.
Australia's oldest person - Emily Beatrice "Bea" Riley - celebrated her 112th birthday at her Melbourne nursing home in October 13 last year. The oldest person now recorded is 114-year-old American Gertrude Baines, who was born on April 6, 1894.
Copyright 2009 News Limited
Remarkable life journey ... Myrtle Jones celebrates her 108th birthday and pictured in her 20s.
A SIMPLE life, lived through remarkable times, came to an end this week for South Australia's oldest woman, Myrtle Jones, who died aged 111.
She was born Myrtle Dagg, in 1897, in colonial Victoria, under Queen Victoria's reign, moving to SA in 1948.
The colonies were planning for Federation and around the world, inventors were tinkering with the horseless carriage.
Myrtle was 24 when she married Melbourne painter Hubert Jones in Footscray, in 1921, and the couple had three sons and a daughter.
She was nanna to 27 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
"Mum was born in the 19th century, lived throughout the 20th century and almost a decade into the 21st century," oldest son Hugh Jones, 85, said.
Hers was a simple domestic life, from the time she had to leave her apprenticeship as a tailoress because her mother became ill.
A traditional housewife, she would spend Saturday afternoons baking and Sunday always meant a roast lunch.
"We lived in Footscray when I was a child and my word, the kitchen was a very active place on Saturday afternoons," Mr Jones said.
"She would bake apple pies, cup cakes and scones; the cake tin was about 10 inches in diameter and at least 18 inches high and she didn't stop baking these little cup cakes until the tin was full."
She never drove a car and lived independently in her own home at Largs North for almost 60 years until she was 109.
"She would cook herself a roast dinner on Sundays and that's not bad for someone who is 109," Mr Jones said.
Myrtle had moved from Melbourne into the new cinderbrick house in 1948, following her only daughter Violet, who moved to Largs Bay with her new husband Rex Bartlett.
She loved to walk from her new seaside home to the beach just three minutes away or catch the bus to the Port to shop or in later years, attend seniors club.
She had "a wonderful sense of humour and a good memory" and would talk about all the four major wars she had lived through – the two World Wars and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
She celebrated her 100th birthday with a fire-engine ride, sirens blaring in Myrtleford, Victoria.
She proudly told how she had seen Halley's Comet twice – the first time in 1910, when she was 12, and the last time in in 1986.
On her 108th birthday in 2005, she told The Advertiser her secret to good health was "An apple keeps the doctor away. An onion a day keeps the cold away."
Myrtle, who was a widow for 27 years, did not smoke or drink.
She died in a Largs North nursing home on Monday.
Australia's oldest person - Emily Beatrice "Bea" Riley - celebrated her 112th birthday at her Melbourne nursing home in October 13 last year. The oldest person now recorded is 114-year-old American Gertrude Baines, who was born on April 6, 1894.
Copyright 2009 News Limited
