Stella Lorraine Winstone celebrated 100 years in fine style with a high tea at Dandenong RSL on 24 April.
Fondly known as ‘Lorrie’, Ms Winstone blew the candles on a magnificent cake surrounded by her children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
“Lorrie has lived through many changes, recessions and wars,” her daughter Lorraine said.
“She contributes her longevity to living a simple life of natural foods and walking every day.”
Born in Mooroopna on 23 April 1921, Ms Winstone (nee Bull) has lived in Noble Park, Dandenong and Endeavour Hills for much of the past 70 years.
In her early years, she lived in the Mallee area particularly in the country town Lake Boga, near Swan Hill. Her father was a barber, having fought at Gallipoli and France in World War I.
She excelled in piano and art, often winning local art prizes for her drawing. Her teachers lobbied for her to study art in Bendigo but it was not to be, daughter Lorraine said.
The family settled in Canterbury, Melbourne. Ms Winstone worked in a dress shop Rockmans in Melbourne CBD.
She met her husband Henry ‘Bill’ William Winstone, an ex-serviceman from Lake Boga who served in New Guinea in World War II.
About 1950, Ms Winstone and her husband Bill moved into a semi-detached house next to the Caithness Motors car dealership on Lonsdale Street Dandenong.
Mr Winstone worked as a motor mechanic at Caithness Motors as well as Alan Coffey Motors at the same address.
In 1955, the couple moved to a war service home in Corrigan Road Noble Park where they raised three children.
They moved to Ballina in northern NSW in 1988, in search of a warmer climate and to be near her young sister.
Mr Winstone died three years later.
In 2000, Ms Winstone returned to Victoria, renting in Berwick and then moving into a unit built by son Peter in Endeavour Hills.
Since 2019, she’s lived at Estia Dandenong aged care home.
