Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday: Meet some extraordinary older Australian women

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As the Queen turns 90, meet some extraordinary older Australians

Queen Elizabeth II carried out more royal engagements last year than Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry combined — 341, to be exact. But she's not the only female senior putting the younger generation to shame.

A shopkeeper with style

Shirley Greenhalgh is 88, but that does not mean she plans to retire any time soon.

Three days a week she heads to work as shopkeeper at Avenell Bros in Bundaberg in north Queensland.

The homewares business has been in the main street of town since 1875 and Ms Greenhalgh is the third generation to have worked in the store.

She says she is motivated to keep working by the interesting things they sell, her desire to help her family and a love of meeting people.

"Love what you do and it doesn't feel like work," she told ABC Open.

'Mother Teresa of Canberra'

Stasia Dabrowski, or the 'soup kitchen lady' as she is best known, has been serving soup to Canberra's neediest for 37 years.

She turns 90 next month but is showing no signs of slowing down and is more sprightly than most people half her age.

"She works six days a week, from about 5:00am until 6:00pm. Saturday is her church day," said her advocate, Steve Nebauer.

Ms Dabrowski begins her day driving a van around Canberra, collecting donated food from bakeries and supermarkets, before distributing it to the homeless and disadvantaged.

On Fridays, Ms Dabrowski runs a mobile soup kitchen in the CBD, which she has been doing since 1979.

In 1996 she was named the Canberra Citizen of the Year, and in 1999 she became the inaugural ACT Senior Australian of the Year.

"She is the Mother Teresa of Canberra; she does it out of the compassion of her heart," Mr Nebauer said.

Australia's last vaudevillian

Adelaide's Phyl Skinner is 93, and has spent nearly 90 years of that on stage.

She has acted, directed and choreographed for most Adelaide theatre companies and was a Senior Australian of the Year finalist this year.

A lifetime in the entertainment industry has helped her understand the value of giving.

"In the entertainment business you get very close to people. I don't know about today but in my era we were happy and helped each other," she said.

"There were a busy four or so years during the Second World War.

"We [the performers] became closer because we did two performances a day, and we worked on Sunday in the hospitals with the wounded, and we became close to those people."

A passionate volunteer, she has been putting on performances for groups of seniors from nursing homes around the district for nine years.

"I firmly believe music is uplifting, it's a therapy. I find that my people coming to see the music I arrange go away smiling, happy and relaxed," she said.

Ms Skinner says she inherited her yearning to give back from her mother, a pianist who performed at Yatala labour prison and psychiatric hospitals in Adelaide.

A voice for peace

Jean Hearn, 95, has spent her life challenging people to strive for peace and look for ways to resolve conflict without violence.

It is a cause she took up after the death of her husband in World War II.

"It all began with war. My husband died... and I've just worked for peace ever since," she says.

A former trade unionist, librarian, marriage celebrant and mother of four children, Ms Hearn also made a mark in politics, representing Tasmania in the Senate from 1980 until her retirement in 1985.

Despite having limited mobility these days, she has been the driving force behind the Tamar Community Peace Trust, and encouraged the Launceston City Council to support the establishment of a garden for peace at Royal Park.

Last year she staged the inaugural Festival For Peace, which brought together more than 65 organisations and 7,000 people to promote peaceful approaches to conflict resolution.

"It's important that young people do their own thing for peace," she says, adding that she hopes the festival inspires people to act in their own way.

"Young people have to think about the causes of war, and how they can overcome conflict.

"We have to think of the destruction of war not only in terms of people, but also in terms of nature and the environment as well."

A lifetime on the cattle station

Rosemary Waugh Allcock, 92, has survived breast cancer, a broken heel and a broken wrist in recent times.

She still actively manages her 160-hectare family property, Taloumbi Station, in north-east New South Wales. It was purchased by her grandfather and his brother in 1888.

Born in Maclean, Ms Allcock was educated in horse riding, cooking, literature, painting, fashion and history — her mother had plans to marry her off, in a sign of the times.

But Rosemary had very different ideas about where her life was heading, and instead finished her study and set off to see the world, before making her home at Taloumbi Station.

She hand feeds her beloved Angus cattle and Welsh Mountain Ponies each morning, with her hair coiled neatly into a bun, and silk cravat perfectly in place.

Topics: royal-and-imperial-matters, human-interest, people, older-people, australia, england, united-kingdom

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