Sport passion

BELGRAVE community worker Nance Hayes passed away peacefully on 6 January, aged 93, with her daughters Beverley and Christine at her bedside.
Nance was a member of Belgrave’s football and cricket clubs, a life member of Belcoma Netball Club, and a former president and life member of Belgrave Country Women’s Association.
She was passionate about sport, playing netball, tennis, and cricket in her youth. Once she made 20 dozen lamingtons for a netball club fund-raiser.
Nance received a shire community service award in the 1980s.
She and husband Les ran Newline Hardware in Main Street for 10 years. It was there they raised their daughters, Beverley, Marlene and Christine. They then lived in Best Street for nearly 40 years.
About 150 people attended an afternoon tea on Tuesday last week at Earthly Pleasures in Belgrave to celebrate Nance’s life.
Nance would have turned 94 on 1 February.
She and her twin sister Marge weighed only three pounds at birth in 1915.
“It is hard to believe mum lived even a few weeks, let alone nearly 94 years,” Christine said.
Nance, Marge, their older sister Kathleen, and their parents, Alice and Cecil Richardson, moved to Belgrave from Fairfield in 1927. Their home was just below Puffing Billy station. Cecil ran a bootmaking shop in Main Street.
Christine said Belgrave had an important place in her mother’s heart.
“Mum lived in several places over her nearly 94 years, but most of her time was spent here, and Belgrave is where she called home,” she said.
Nance and Les married on 21 January 1942. They lost their daughter Marlene to breast cancer at 32. Les passed away in 2001.
Nance had eight grandchildren Mark, Jodi, Emma, Olivia, Cassie, Chad, Kelly and Stacey, and five great grandchildren, and she had lived at Ferntree Gully’s Glengollan Village for the past six years.
Nance will be laid to rest with Les and Marlene. -Casey Neill