CARINYA Lodge resident Flo Cooper celebrated her 105th birthday with family on Wednesday, enjoying cake and socialising, with the Korumburra home’s other centenarians joining the occasion.
“I certainly don’t feel 105,” Flo declared, attributing her longevity to a healthy lifestyle.
“I didn’t smoke and I didn’t drink,” she said, prompting a quick reply from one of her daughters, Gayle Thompson.
“Her daughters made up for it,” Gayle said, with another voice adding that was only two of the three.
The other daughters, Leonie Giles and Myra Martin were also on hand, with Flo expressing her delight to be with family.
“Family is definitely important and always has been supportive, and we’re a closeknit family,” Flo said.
She was born in a two-storey hilltop house in Korumburra, operating as a maternity hospital, and lived most of her life in Poowong where her parents had a dairy farm.
Flo married her first husband Colin Martin who came to town to build the Poowong Hall.
After meeting Colin, Flo took to visiting him on her bike and wasn’t going to let him get away.
“He didn’t have a chance,” she said.
Flo and Colin eventually took over the Drouin Road dairy farm from her parents.
After Colin’s death, Flo remarried, living with her new husband Joe Cooper in Mandurah Western Australia, about an hour from Perth.
That move was responsible for her transformation into a one-eyed West Coast Eagles supporter, having once followed Melbourne.
Flo’s seen much change of another kind, with extraordinary technological advances throughout her life.
The mobile phone is one innovation that stands out for her.
However, when someone asked Flo recently about the biggest improvement she has seen over the years, she delivered the surprising answer, “baking paper”.
Vegemite is another product she is a great admirer of, perhaps having tasted it as a four-year-old in 1923, meaning Flo might have been a happy little Vegemite for over a century.
“It’s a remarkable achievement,” Leonie said of her mum’s special milestone, with fellow Carinya residents Topsie Cairns, who turned 101 earlier this month and Bob Olney who reached triple figures on October 23 last year soon on hand to acknowledge Flo.
