It’s been an eventful month for Elfriede Halton.
On March 1, the Mill Park resident marked 60 years since moving to Australia from Germany.
But these celebrations were eclipsed a week later when Ms Halton was welcomed into the centenarian club at a birthday party attended by 80 of her friends and family.
The 100-year-old was born in Brackenheim, an hour north of Stuttgart, and later moved to Munich, where she met her husband, George. She recalls her engagement as one of the happiest periods of her life.
The couple married in 1939 but their honeymoon was brought to an abrupt end with the outbreak of WWII. Her husband was called up for service, and their son was born during the war.
“I was all alone and had to run to the air shelter, sometimes during the middle of the night. It was a hard time. Food was very scarce, to say the least,” she recalls.
After the war the family moved to Australia. In Melbourne Ms Halton started work in a factory and was quickly promoted to office director, a position she held for the next 23 years until her retirement.
Ms Halton said she received letters from Queen Elizabeth II, the Governor General and the Prime Minister on her birthday.
