Canadian war bride celebrates 100th Birthday
By Kate Lockyer
Described lovingly by her friends at Merthyr Road Uniting Church as wonderful and also ‘feisty’, Molly-Jean Hunt’s personality is a lively as ever, even having just celebrated her 100th birthday in June.
Originally hailing from Montreal, Canada, the story of how she emigrated to Australia started at a Sunday lunch organised by the YMCA, when she met an Australian Air Force trainee, John Hunt, who was there to study wireless air gunners.
Mr Hunt was medically discharged from the Air Force after contracting an eye infection in 1941 and returned to Australia to join the army, but before he left, he proposed.
In 1945 they moved to his hometown of Glen Innes in Australia and were married – Mrs Hunt said she felt the move would be an adventure.
“I was just behaving myself, until John came along and we got married, and then I was pretty much just behaving myself after that as well,” she said, a twinkle in her eye.
Mrs Hunt said she settled in quickly, feeling at home in Glen Innes’ similar climate (compared to Queensland, at least).
“There were the same trees and the same flowers, and John’s mother’s garden was very like my mother’s garden,” she said.
They had three children, Merelie, Bill, and Garth, and the family moved around according to Mr Hunt’s job.
The family moved to Mountford Rd in New Farm in 1976 and Mr and Mrs Hunt began attending Merthyr Road Uniting Church in New Farm in 1983; she is now one of its longest members.
Mrs Hunt used to play the organ for various churches, a notoriously difficult instrument, but when asked how she learned, she replied with a simple shrug, “I just did”.
“We moved quite a bit, so we went to a lot of different churches, and it’s amazing how often they needed an organist,” she said.
Always willing to lend a hand whenever needed, she has assisted with many fundraisers and fellowship groups over the years, also serving on the church council as Secretary.
Before Mr Hunt passed away, they had been married for an incredible 63 years. “It takes a while to train some guys,” Mrs Hunt quipped.
She now has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, lives at AVEO Newstead, and keeps herself busy with various groups, including the Food and Wine Club which the couple joined over 40 years ago.
Some of her current hobbies she has carried with her since her girlhood in Canada.
She still likes to knit beanies and scarves, but this is not the urgent task it once was. “In Montreal, we had to knit pretty well 24 hours a day to keep us in warm clothes,” Mrs Hunt said.
Likewise, she continues to play bridge, saying: “I’ve played a lot of cards because we had long winters and nothing else you could do at night.”
Asked what she used to do before TV, she answered wryly, “We read a book. And husbands expect to be talked to now and again, you might have noticed.”
Molly-Jean Hunt has spent her life as a devoted wife, mother and Christian and has a no-nonsense approach to life that has served her well for a century.
How has she gotten to 100 years of age? “Just plodding along, minding my own business pretty much.”
Photo caption: Molly-Jean Hunt meets her friends weekly at the café opposite New Farm Park; Photography: Kate Lockyer
