Having an amputated finger has never hindered 101 year old Dora Wigg from getting on with life.
She took up table tennis during her retirement, and was an ace player! And although she’s not longer belting balls across the net, she’s enjoying life at Uniting AgeWell Andrew Kerr Care Community. And she’s quick to point out how her star sign has influenced her life. “Leo’s are meant to be leaders, but I’ll only lead you into trouble!” she chuckles.
Dora has been at the Mornington Peninsula aged care facility for the last 10 years and is enjoying life. “I’m in the best place and staff are just wonderful. I can’t praise the place highly enough.”
Dora grew up as one of six children on a farm in Neika in Tasmania. Her dad served in WWI and she remembers having to walk a mile and a half over rocky roads to school. She loved meeting children at school, and found life on the farm pretty isolating. And hard work!
She remembers begging her dad to teach her how to milk the cows. He eventually showed her and then she bitterly regretted it as she was made to do it morning and night! “The cat would follow me to the shed, and I would turn the cow’s teat and spray it to give it a drink. My Dad never found out, or he would have been cross,” she recalls.
The Great Depression bit hard, and her father struggled to sell his fruit and veggies and was forced to close the shop – along with many others in the area. The family moved to Hobart and opened a fruit and veggie shop there.
Dora loved Hobart mainly for two reasons – they didn’t live on a farm and she could attend ballroom dancing. She eventually became engaged to a man who sadly died during surgery to remove his appendix.
After his death, Dora moved to Melbourne to be with her sister, and started working in a factory that made rivets for fighter planes during the war.
Dora ended up marrying the boss at the factory and they went on to have four sons. One day, while making rivets, she was involved in an industrial accident and rushed to hospital where her finger was amputated.
She holds up her hand with its missing digit. “Look, these are the scars of World War II.”
She remains very close to her family and her grandchildren and has an amazingly relaxed and cheerful outlook on life. “When you have four sons you learn to go with the flow,” she laughs.
Caption: Dora pictured with a gift she received from one of her daughters-in law. It has a photo of her when she was aged 18 in the middle, with big events in the news from the year of her birth.
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