The café at Estia was festooned with balloons in a definitively mauve (not lavender, and not purple) ‘high-tea’ motif, as Olga was accompanied into the room by her daughter, Lynette Mildwater.

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Born in Woodstock, NSW on 4 December 1919, Olga’s family moved to Spring Hill where she went to school and was very active in the church.

“She was a good runner and often won first place with many prizes, and she was also a hospital volunteer with the women’s auxiliary in Orange,” Lynette told NOTA.

They later moved to Orange when Olga was a teenager, where she lived until 2020, aged 101, encompassing a very full life with 61 and a half years of marriage from 1941, and a prodigious progeny of four children, four grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren, many of whom are now living across the country.

“Mum moved to Tea Gardens after the death of her sister, to be closer to family, and into Estia in 2021,” Lyn explained.

“Her favourite pastime is bingo, and she also cuts fabric for quilters in the Wednesday Craft Group,” Lyn added.

For more than a century, Olga has been receiving this early Christmas present, and while most of us would be lucky to get just one, Olga’s clean country living has enabled her to receive her fifth letter from the Governor-General of Australia, congratulating her on her birthday, as well as from the Prime Minister… but was still waiting on one from the King, surely en route from Buckingham.

“She loved the party, was really happy, exhausted by the end, people enjoyed themselves for a few hours at Estia, a big day with happy tears, Estia’s staff did a marvellous job,” Lyn said.

“She is caring, loving, and she’s supported all of us at some stage in our lives, and a loyal friend.”

By Thomas O’KEEFE