Betty Pain celebrates her 100th birthday

“My two brothers died years ago.

“I’m the only one in my family who’s done it, that I know of anyways.”

Betty said her secret to a long life was pretty simple, but something many people struggled with.

“No takeaway food, all home cooking. Meat and three veg, we grew all of our own veggies,” she said.

“We made all of our own sauces and jams and pickles.”

However, she is partial to chocolate or any other kind of sweets.

Betty’s parents were Frederick and Louise Perry, and she was born in Bendigo on March 3, 1924.

Betty and her two brothers, Keith and Max, grew up on their family sheep and wheat farm in Bears Lagoon, about 60km north-west of Bendigo.

When Betty was 19 in 1943, she joined the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service.

After three weeks of basic training in Darley, she was posted to the Heidelberg Military Hospital, where she worked as a private in the laundry. She was eventually promoted to corporal and was responsible for counting and distributing the laundry.

Betty was still working at the Heidelberg Military Hospital after the war ended when she met her husband, Mervin Pain, who was driving a truck that delivered dirty laundry to the hospital Betty worked at and collected clean laundry to be returned to various army camps and hospitals.

“I was working at the Heidelberg Hospital in the laundry, counting all the linen that came in and went out. Merv had come back from New Britain, New Guinea. He was on one of the trucks that came into the hospital and that’s how I met him,” she said.

Betty was discharged from the army in 1946 and married Mervin later that year, on July 20, in Middle Brighton, Melbourne.

After getting married, Betty and Mervin moved to South Mildura to live and work on Mervin’s mixed-herd dairy farm.

The couple lived in Mildura for about 60 years and had four children, Ed, Graeme, Margaret and Jenny, to whom Betty was a stay-at-home mum.

“They milked about 20 cows, and delivered it by horse and cart,” Betty said.

“We certainly had to work.”

Sadly, Mervin passed away in 2014. Betty has been living in Shepparton with her daughter, Margaret McDonald, since 2015.

Now, she has three grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

There are 80 people on the guest list for her birthday celebration this Sunday, which is mainly made up of nieces and nephews, as “that’s all that’s left”.

Betty is looking forward to spending her special day surrounded by family and friends, celebrating this significant milestone.