A charming centenarian

By Casey Neill
CENTENARIAN Dorothy Alice Pike attributes her longevity to the love and support of her family.
The much-loved family matriarch known as Grandma Pike last Thursday (1 October) celebrated her 100th birthday at Ferntree Gully’s Amaroo Gardens aged care hostel.
Mrs Pike was born on 1 October 1909 in the village of Downend in England.
Her widowed mother raised her and older sister Mamie on a farm. She spent long hours selling produce at a market while the girls picked blackberries and rolled milk churns to a nearby brook to cool. Mrs Pike began work delivering telegrams after school at age 13 and started full time work at a post office the following year.
She paid for her own tutor and studied after work to pass her Civil Service examination at age 19 and achieved the highest mark in England.
Mrs Pike began dating her future husband Thomas Herbert Henry ‘Bert’ Pike at age 17. The pair went for walks or visited the local movie house to see the early ‘talkies’. They became engaged when Mrs Pike was 22 and married three years later, in 1934.
The couple experienced bombings and air raids during World War II, and faced fatal bushfires in country Victoria after relocating to Australia in 1952.
During that time Mrs Pike became a Red Cross volunteer to provide tea and refreshments to fire fighters and help raise funds.
She moved to Melbourne to be closer to her family in 1970 after her husband died and has lived at Amaroo Gardens for the past eight years.
Mrs Pike has two daughters, Gillian and Susan, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.