Members of the 100+ Club, comprising 110 centenarians, have re-gathered at Parliament for a celebration of legacy, longevity and living well.
The Queensland centenarians were meeting after a three-year interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Welcoming them, Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk said the 100+ Club was a celebration of ageing well and enjoying life to the fullest.
“Queensland’s centenarians are a living connection to our State’s incredible history,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“They have experienced the most significant changes over the past century — across politics, education, science, medicine and technology.”
With another 28 members welcomed into the exclusive 100+ Club, the Premier said they had many stories to tell “and we are pleased to honour their outstanding — and longstanding — contribution to our State”.
The oldest Queenslander in the 100+ Club is Eileen Tilley who celebrated her 106th birthday in August.
Ms Tilley currently lives in an aged care home in Ipswich, sharing the facility with her daughter, Rhonda.
Among the newest members of the club are Brisbane woman, Mary Ryan, Brisbane man, David Edgar and Bundaberg woman, Gloria Benwell.
Ms Ryan was born and raised in Annerley and started her professional career during World War II, working in Censorship and Telegraph with the Postmaster-General’s Department.
A believer in the value of volunteering, Ms Ryan has been an active supporter of charities over many decades —making clothes and dolls for underprivileged children abroad, and serving in school tuck shops, as well as the women’s group at her local church.
Growing up in Spring Hill in the 1920s and 30s, Mr Edgar (pictured with son, Gary) was an active sportsman before joining the Royal Australian Navy in 1941.
At the end of the war, he returned home to marry Peggy, with whom he spent almost 70 years.
Before coming to Bundaberg, Ms Benwell’s life took her from Dunedin, New Zealand, to a boarding house on the outskirts of Melbourne, to California, where she lived with her late-husband after World War II.
While in the United States, Ms Benwell worked as a movie stuntwoman, including as a stand-in for American actress Barbara Stanwyck, before an accident forced her retirement from that work.
