However, Fran turned 100 years old on Saturday, December 8.

Born in a hospital in Tinonee, which was later to become the Terrace Cinema and is now a private home, Fran was delivered by Nurse Sawyer, none of her family knowing that Fran would later go on to marry Nurse Sawyer’s grandson, Dallas. 

Fran grew up at Mondrook on a farm on Tilka Lane, where a Jersey stud now operates. She went to school in the tiny one-room school house that still stands at Mondrook on Tinonee Road, and her three sons, Ralph, Noel, and Gary, started school in the same school house.

Fran has suffered a stiff leg since contracting osteomyelitis (infection of the bone) when she was eight years old.

“I lost two years’ schooling with this leg of mine”, Fran said.  “I fell over going to school and got gravel rash on my knee. And a germ formed in the middle. I’ve got a dreadful knee. I had six months in hospital.

“I nearly died. I would have died one night only the doctor said to Dad, ‘call in all the men you can, she’ll have to have a blood transfusion’.”

Again, in a strange twist of fate, one of the blood donors was her future husband’s uncle.

The stiff leg never stopped her enjoying life, however. She attended the local dances in Tinonee and Mondrook.

“It’s never worried me. I danced... we used to have a wonderful time! Dallas was a good dancer. We used to dance like anything!” Fran remembers.

In fact, it was at those local Mondrook and Tinonee dances that Fran met Dallas.

Fran and Dallas also shared a love of fishing. Rather, Dallas loved fishing, and Fran came to love fishing after marrying Dallas.

“I ended up more keen on it than he was!” Fran laughs.

Fran’s days of dancing and fishing are gone; she is, understandably, less physically active these days. 

She and Dallas used to love gardening. The couple were well known for their garden, being frequent winners of an old gardening competition in days gone by in Wingham. Her garden is still lovely, but these days she potters with her pot plants while the garden proper is looked after by one of her sons.

She still lives in the home in the Wingham house she built with her husband in 1954, surrounded by family. She still cooks her own meals and loves baking, and she still sews, using her original treadle-operated sewing machine, and also hand sews.

The walls in her house are covered with some of the long-stitch and tapestries she has done over the years, and family photos from past to present, revealing how important family is to her.

She would still be crocheting, but says “What’s the point?” She has so many crocheted items stashed away she has no need for any more.

Now Fran does a lot of reading, has little use for the television, and has taken up the popular hobby of adult colouring in books.

“I’m on my third book, now,” she says.

Her social life is limited to family, all of her friends having passed away. Her three sons and grandchildren are constant companions, and her sister, herself 93 years old, lives in Taree. The siblings get together frequently to play cards. 

Fran celebrated her birthday on Saturday night, December 8 at the Wingham Memorial services Club, with 98 guests, all family members bar three people. 

“Oh, it was wonderful. I enjoyed it. I didn’t get home and get to bed until 11.00!” Fran said.