PINETOWN resident Helen Conradie (Nee Power), fondly known by her family and friends as Muffy, celebrated her 102nd birthday on Wednesday, January 11.
The centenarian was born on January 11, 1921 and spent her childhood in Springbok in the Northern Cape and later moved to the Western Cape where she worked in the post office.
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At the age of 102, the nurses at the Pinetown Nursing Home said Conradie does not take any medication.
“She was married to Chris Conradie who fought in World War II and was based in North Africa. She is Irish by descent with her piercing blue eyes and rosy complexion. They were blessed with two children,” said Darlene Smith, the home’s general manager.
Conradie did mostly office work all her life, and after she retired, she started dressmaking and making baby clothes for sale.
As a devoted Catholic, she was very involved in doing the big flower arrangements for the Catholic church where she stayed at the time.
“In their 70s, Muffy and Chris built a cottage on her son’s property in Gillitts, where they lived happily for many years,” said Smith.
Her husband died in 1994, and her son, Louis, and her daughter-in-law, Norma, eventually cared for her but had to make the difficult decision to move her to The Village Retirement Home in 2016.
She is grandmother to two grandsons and great-grandmother two great-grandsons. She had two brothers and two sisters and was the middle child.
Conradie’s younger sister, Sheilagh, affectionately known as Baby, is 97 and resides at The Village Retirement Home in Hatton Estate, Pinetown.
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