By Mikayla van Loon
Connie Wyatt, long-time member of the Lilydale RSL, celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this month and received a special visit from fellow RSL members to acknowledge the milestone occasion.
RSL president Bill Dobson and secretary Chris Newell, as well as Federal MP Aaron Violi, made the stop at Connie’s Bayswater nursing home on Friday 15 July to wish her well at the turn of a new century.
“It’s fantastic to honour somebody like that. She’s our last survivor of World War II and we’re just very proud of her and we thought it was the right thing to do,” Bill said.
Bill and Chris delivered flowers and a gift to Connie alongside a certificate of recognition for her service to the RSL.
Aaron said it was also quite a privilege to deliver his first 100th birthday certificate as a member of the Federal parliament and as a member of the RSL.
“For someone who’s just turned 100, you think about her life being born just after World War I, who grew up through a depression, and served in World War II, she would have seen a lot through the last 100 years,” he said.
“So to honour and recognise her contribution and take a moment to reflect on what she’s seen through her life, it’s a special occasion for me to be here with Bill and Chris from the RSL to recognise and celebrate her life.”
Receiving so many letters, certificates, flowers and 100 balloons, Connie said it was all quite a surprise but it’s nice when people walk into her room and ask ‘are you 100?’
Born on 3 July 1922 in South Africa, Connie immigrated with her family to Australia at just 11 months old in 1923.
Her father had been in the British cavalry during the Boer War and walking in her father’s footsteps, Connie joined the Royal Australian Air Force at just 19 years of age.
Connie served four years during World War II and remembers those days fondly.
“It was excellent for training,” she said.
“In those four years I did a lot and I ended up being discharged as a sergeant which is pretty good for a woman.”
It was at the end of World War II that Connie would meet her husband Rex Wyatt, who too was a serviceman in the Air Force.
Having been part of the Airmen Records office in St Kilda Road, Rex then took a post in London during the war.
Upon his return, he was cast under the care of Connie where she ran a staff of 16 people at the Officers Records office. Attracted to his blue eyes, it was only a year after the war that the pair were married on 26 January.
The couple moved to Mooroolbark from Surrey Hills in 1952 and opened the milk bar in Brice Avenue, followed by a service station next door and finally a hardware store.
Later Connie and Rex would be instrumental in establishing a playgroup in the town hall and eventually the kinder in Charles Street.
Rex also had a passion for running a travel business which he opened on the corner of Clarke Street and Main Street in Lilydale where the pair had moved in June 1970.
Returning to Mooroolbark in 1999 for 10 years, Connie and Rex lived happily in the ever changing suburb until Rex required more care and that’s when the two of them moved together to Heritage Gardens Aged Care, not wanting to be separated from one another.
While Connie’s eyes might be deteriorating and her hearing not so good, her mind is as sharp as ever, recounting details from her 100 years of life.
She’s now looking forward to birthday 101.
