Happy 100th birthday, Lorna Kemp

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Family comes first, says Lorna Kemp – and so it has gone for the Murray Bridge resident, who celebrated her 100th birthday this week.

A big crowd came to a gathering of family and friends on Sunday.

Then on Tuesday, her actual birthday, another party was held at the Murray Lands Retirement Village where she lives.

After a century spent between Lameroo, Adelaide and Murray Bridge, there was no shortage of well-wishers ready to give her their best regards.

“To Mr and Mrs Norman Taylor, of Norman Ville, Lameroo: a daughter, Lorna Elizabeth” – so the former Lorna Taylor’s birth was announced in the Chronicle 100 years ago.

Or, as Mrs Kemp put it: “The sixth of the second of 1924 is when Lorna Elizabeth said ‘hi world, I’m here to shake things up’.”

Her memories of her childhood at Lameroo were still vivid, she said.

She recalled being driven into town on her father’s horse-drawn sulky, a black velvet bonnet on her head.

Even as a toddler she was adventurous: “Dad used to put me on the footpath and I’d be up the main street in no time, up and saying hello to people,” she said.

“I had plenty of get-up-and-go.”

How luxurious it must have been when the family later bought an Essex Super Six, an American automobile.

The family farm was within walking distance of her school, and at the end of the day she and her younger sister would run all the way home for home-made pasties or – if they were lucky – a piece of sultana cake.

Although she was 15 by the time the Second World War broke out, she didn’t recall it having much of an impact on her life in the Mallee.

“We got out of bed, went to work, had the occasional dance to raise money for the forces,” she said.

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However, her father did enlist and spent three years with the Australian Army, and the family took great pride in his service medals when he returned.

He also spent a time repairing roads for the district council with a horse-drawn grader.

Lameroo was a busy place in the middle of the 20th century, with crowds at the football or cricket on a Saturday and the Church of England and Methodist and Lutheran churches full on Sundays.

It was there, at the Methodist church, she married Maxwell Kemp in 1947.

The young couple made their start at Strathalbyn, where they ran a shop; then returned to Lameroo, where he share-farmed and then worked at the Eudunda Farmers’ Co-Op.

They had their first two children during that period: Douglas, in 1950, and Jennifer, in 1952.

“They certainly kept me busy: cooking, cleaning, mending,” she said.

“We used to have an old copper boiler for a washing machine, not like the new machines these days.”

In the mid-1950s the family moved to Blair Athol, in Adelaide, and took over over a deli on Prospect Road.

They had another son, Richard, in 1961, and soon after decided to sell the shop in favour of other pursuits, including – for Mr Kemp – spells as a store man for SA Police, then in the hotel business.

Mrs Kemp busied herself doing “what women do”: she gardened, sewed and ironed clothes for the children, and cooked – even the occasional sultana cake from her mum’s recipe.

She never smoked – “not for me, love” – and didn’t drink much, either.

From time to time they’d take a holiday around the state, often to visit family at Wallaroo.

In 1983, when Mr Kemp retired, he announced his desire to move to Murray Bridge.

“I said ‘Murray Bridge, what do you want to go there for?’” Mrs Kemp said with a chuckle.

“He said ‘oh, I’m going fishing’.

“Well, we came to Murray Bridge and Max fished about twice in two years.”

Instead, library manager Peggy Bennett introduced them to the ballroom dancing circuit, and they started venturing out to places like Jervois, Tailem Bend or Chapman Bore to do the circular waltz, quickstep or foxtrot.

“We used to go dancing just about every second week,” Mrs Kemp said.

“I loved doing the Alberts.

“We used to get fast and furious doing that one.”

Mr Kemp died in 2013, at the age of 91.

Mrs Kemp moved into the retirement village six years later, at 95.

They’re heady ages, but longevity runs in her family – her mother Myrtle made it into her late 90s, and her aunty Vi lived to be 99 and seven months.

Asked what it felt like to reach the age of 100, Mrs Kemp smiled, with just a touch of weariness.

“It’s a push uphill,” she finally said.

“I must ask the fella up there if he’s got room for me.”