14 APRIL 2021 | ISSUE 472 | FREE
WWW.GONAGAMBIE.COM.AU
Pictured: Eileen McDonald Nagambie’s newest nonagenarian, with her 7 children. Back row: Carol Wallis, Mark McDonald, Brendan McDonald Middle row: Clare McDonald, Anne Tranter, Marie Mielnik and John McDonald.
90 YEARS YOUNG EILEEN CELEBRATES WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS
New Nagambie nonagenarian Eileen McDonald celebrated her 90th birthday with family and friends at Zephyrz Restaurant with a happy afternoon tea. Eileen’s actual birthday was 8 April, but she celebrated her special milestone on Sunday 11 April.
Eileen and her three brothers and five sisters lived with their parents on their 10 acre property at Goulburn Weir. Jack worked for the railways but kept them self sufficient by providing for his family by shooting rabbits, being a good angler with fish and crayfish catches as well as having cows, chooks, turkeys, and some vegetables and fruit trees bounty.
EILEEN’S EARLY LIFE
“Our family never went without food and I remember that my mother was a full time mum that kept the family home buzzing with no electricity and an old wood stove.
Guests were told that over 90 years ago on April 8, 1931, Eileen Phelan was born in the Nagambie Bush Nursing Home to Jack and Christina Phelan. Eileen was the eighth of their nine children.
We children went to school at the little one room Goulburn Weir state school that had a little porch and a school bell. About 13-15 students attended the school back then. I remember saluting the flag on a
Monday and singing “God save the King,” said Eileen. When Eileen was ten years old the family moved to Nagambie in 1941. She finished her education at St Joseph’s Catholic school and left at the age of 14. She went to work at the Cave’s Café, then around 18 for the Waterproof Factory that made raincoats and such. FAMILY MEMORIES In 1948 she met a young man at a dance, Jim McDonald. He had served in the latter part of the Second World War in the Royal Australian Air Force. He used to come up to Nagambie to help his father on their farm property. The couple found out they had similar interests: the same church and they joined in the same local social groups; go dancing and other activities.
They courted for a few years then married at St Malachy’s Catholic Church on May 9, 1953. Bev Phelan Eileen’s sister and Mary McDonald were her bridesmaids, and Len Tobin was Jim’s Best Man and Bill Phelan his groomsman. Their wedding reception was held in the old St Joseph’s hall and they honeymooned at Lakes Entrance. Jim and Eileen moved to a farm in Woodend. They lived there for 17 years then moved back temporarily to look after Pop when he was very ill in 1965. It was sadly two years before Pop passed away and by then the children wanted to stay at the school in Nagambie. So the family moved into Pop’s house at 265 High Street, in 1967 and farmed their property out on the Locksley-Longwood Road by day. Continued next page...