Well-known and admired Lake Tyers Beach resident May Beveridge has just turned the grand age of 100.
She celebrated the milestone last Saturday night with 117 relatives and friends at the Lake Tyers Beach hall of which she was a founding member.
May lived most of her early life in the Traralgon district where her father, Jim Wight, was involved in farming. She spent a lot of time working on her father’s farm.
At the age of 20 she moved to Melbourne to work in a clothing factory, returning in 1946 to move with her family to Kalimna, where her father had purchased a farm.
Shortly afterwards she met her husband-to-be Allen Beveridge, a young farmer who had ridden his pushbike from Lake Tyers Beach to attend a dance at the Kalimna Hall. He spotted May across the dance floor and was immediately smitten. The rest is history.
Allen, who rarely whistled or hummed a tune, was as graceful on the dance floor as Rudolph Valentino and swept May off her feet, according to the family. Later Allen swapped his pushbike for a Triumph motorbike on which they travelled to local dances.
They married in 1947 at the Bairnsdale Presbyterian Church and settled on the farm at Lake Tyers Beach where they built a home and raised their three children, Marlene, Geoffrey and Linda.
The farm became a lifelong passion for May and Allen, first as a dairy farm and after the severe 1972 drought was over, beef cattle. To keep the farm financial they sought off-farm work, Allen in the building industry which he did for many years and May at the fishing cooperative.
They shared many past times together including in their later years travelling. They both equally enjoyed fishing with great prowess and May played tennis into her late 70s. They were both keen participants at the local croquet club which May still gets much pleasure from today.
May and Allen were members of Lakes Entrance Lions Club, Toorloo Arm Primary School Committee, Mother’s Group, Toorloo Arm Fire Brigade, LTB Hall Committee, LTB Tennis Court Committee, Toorloo Arm Recreation Reserve Committee and LTB Fishing Club.
Allen passed away just eight months after his 90th birthday, but May still lives a full and independent life at their home on the farm. All her children now live close by.
She enjoys the company of her 11 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren and still has family over for a meal prepared by herself. She has made nearly all the family wedding cakes and takes pride in cooking the annual Christmas puddings.
May’s favourite thing to cook her grandchildren is her butternut scones.
After such a wonderful celebration of her birthday, which she didn’t leave until midnight, May is looking forward to time away in Merimbula with her two daughters.
Throughout her life, she has demonstrated great devotion to her family and community and they all wish her many more years of independence and croquet.
