‘Helloooo’ chirped a distant but sprightly voice as 100 year old Mary Micallef answered my call.
“I’m alright thankyouuuuuuu” she followed after I inquired as to how she was.
The great-great grandmother had been expecting my call ahead of her 101st birthday on Wednesday September 20.
Now a resident at Tricare Williams Landing, the nursing home staff and Mary’s family had contacted me about doing a story on the Maltese born centurion ahead of of her latest milestone.
“I think it’s great, haha” said Mary of her birthday which she was going to celebrate with 80 others, most of them family.
“She’s a responsible for a fair bit of population explosion” laughed her daughter Melitta Proebstl in an earlier interview.
The 75 year old is the third of five daughters that Mary and her husband Frank had and the first born in Australia following their migration from Malta in 1947.
Since then 19 grandchildren, 51 great grandchildren and 4 great, great grandchildren have followed.
While her father passed nearly 20 years ago, Melitta Proebstl told me her mother was ‘still as fit as a fiddle.’
She wasn’t wrong.
With an accent as strong as her sense of humour, Mary recounted tales from a long life very well lived.
“My husband was a dreamer,” she said of why they left their war-torn homeland.
“He always wanted to get a big job and a good future for the children and you couldn’t get that in Malta.”
You couldn’t get much in the post-war Australia the family arrived into either.
“It was empty everywhere. There were no cars to buy” said Mary, who lived with her family in North Melbourne before they bought a property in the then fledgling suburb of Pascoe Vale.
From there Frank Micallef achieved his dream of a big job, rising to become head of the Victoria’s public housing commission while Mary toiled on weekends at a woollen mill.
Nowadays she’s recognised by royalty, getting a letter from Queen upon turning 100 last year, only weeks before the monarch died, and if she makes it to 105 she’ll receive one from the King too.
Not that she sounds too fussed.
“No I dont want anything from him” she laughed
It’s a rare bit of negativity from Mary who credits her longevity to a positive outlook, not being judgemental and having no regrets.
“I wouldn’t change anything.”
