By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
THERE’S more than a grain of old Dandenong in long-time resident Irene Rice.
Ms Rice, who was in pleasant shock after a surprise 90th birthday party on 3 April, can vividly recall her “wonderful life” entirely residing in Dandenong.
The celebrations started with a stretch-limo ride with four great-grandchildren from Ms Rice’s home to pick up her sister Peg in Beaconsfield.
She was just told she was about to go somewhere special.
An hour later they arrived to a cheering mob of 40 family from across the state and interstate, as well as another 40 friends, for lunch at Dandenong Club.
“It was magnificent,” Ms Rice said. “I couldn’t sleep all night, I was so hyped-up.”
The grain theme has popped up in Ms Rice’s life in bizarre ways. Her daughter Marion married into the Barley family and Ms Rice’s car rego number begins with OAT.
For the past 60 years she has lived in Grandview Avenue, barely more than a block away from her Herbert Street childhood home.
She is well and truly the oldest person in the street, she said.
Three generations of her family – parents, siblings and all six of her children – went through Dandenong Primary School.
Her father Laurie Bending was one of the foundation members of the recently-closed Dandenong Bowls Club.
Her current £1700 home was the first built on the former paddocks that used to be lit by Guy Fawkes bonfires.
It was a time when kids fished for eels on the swampy banks of Dandenong Creek and played games in the street.
They’re some of the “old ways” that have disappeared, Ms Rice said.
Now her streetscape is changing. Double storey apartments and townhouses are swallowing humble single-storey homes and backyards.
“If they build a high-rise next to me, I’m not going to move away,” Ms Rice said.
Ms Rice still walks 500 metres to Dandenong’s shops and occasionally drives to a Mt Waverley spinners and weavers group. She has only recently stopped mowing her own lawn.
She took some time to recover after the sudden loss of her beloved husband Arthur 20 years ago.
The pair had known each other since Dandenong Primary School and socialised at town hall dances at weekends.
Ms Rice reflected that young people now want things even if they don’t have the money while her generation didn’t buy things until they could afford it.
“They want to start where we finished,” she said.
