Ironic as it may seem, my 100th post here on ActiveRain is about a lady who died with the title of "world's oldest blogger".
Wow! What a story AND what a lady......
Born in the outback town of Broken Hill, an isolated mining city in South Wales, AU, Olive Riley passed away in a nursing home in South Wales July 12, at the age of 108. She was a great-grandmother, had lived through two world wars and the Great Depression, was married twice, raised three kids and had been communicating with people from as far away as Russia and America on a continual basis.
Since early last year, she had written about 70 entries on her life experiences in her blog, or blob, as she called it. This was her first blog entry.....
"Good morning everyone. My name is Olive Riley. I live in Australia near Sydney. I was born in Broken Hill on Oct. 20th 1899. Broken Hill is a mining town, far away in the center of Australia. My friend, Mike, has arranged this blog for me. He is doing the typing and I am telling the stories. He thinks it's a good idea to tell what's going on. He already made a film about me a few years back and people liked that, so they might like this blog too, he says. We'll see.
I'm starting with my Christmas trip. Last Christmas I flew up to Brisbane to stay with my great-grandson, Darren, Ginelle and their two kids.
Darren works for Qantas and so he was able to arrange for me to be hoisted up into the plane in a lift. They don't have one of those walk-on ramps at Newcastle airport where we flew from. This is actually me coming back, out of the plane, but it looks the same.
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 Olive getting off the plane |
| ©2007 Olive Riley |
Mike is fascinated that I went for a swim in the pool at Darren's house.
Here's me being held up by my great-grandson It was lovely! Mike asked me a hundred questions about it when I came back.
MIKE: But how did they get you into the water, Ollie, since you don't walk that well?
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| Olive swimming with her great-great-grandchildren. |
| ©2007 Olive Riley |
OLIVE: They helped me down into the water, one on each side, and I just floated around flapping me arms and drinking me shandy. (Shandy is half beer, half lemonade).
MIKE: They gave you a beer in the water?
OLIVE: Too right! A shandy. I had one every day I was up there too.
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| Olive drinking Shandy |
| ©2007 Olive Riley |
OLIVE: There I was, good as gold with my great-great-grand kids paddlin' around me all excited. 'Nana's swimmin'! Nana's swimmin'!'"
I am sorry to say that her death was the first I had heard of her, but after reading her blogs (blobs), I will not soon forget her. Who knows, maybe I or a fellow ActiveRainer will someday be the hold the name, "the oldest blogger"!
There is no possible way that I could blog about her and her life any better that she did, so I will not even attempt to go any further. There are currently YouTube videos and many links to visit to read about this woman's amazing stories and see Documentary maker Mike Rubbo capture her life in film. I encourage you to visit some....
http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com/, www.allaboutolive.com.au/, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oaNEt1Q-YU, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc-ARYb6mZE.
As always, I welcome readers to visit my websites at http://www.txrealestateguide.com , http://www.aboutus.org/TxRealEstateGuide.com, http://activerain.com/jenniferdahl, for real estate information about and to search for homes within the Tarrant/Hood County Area. Contact me via email, jenniferdahl@judgefite.com , or call me at (817) 235-9382 for more information.
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Sources; OhmyNews International, NEWS.com.au
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