By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Narre Warren South’s Leah Pratt has crammed a “life of service and sacrifice” into the past century.
Last weekend, Ms Pratt celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by her three children Gordon, Kim and Mike as well as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Her family also visited her home at Casey Manor, Narre Warren South on her actual birthday on 13 March.
Ms Pratt is famous for her baking skills that were on display at a popular cake shop in Upwey – co-run with her mother Beatrice and sisters Winsome, Audrey and Ruth.
Her lamingtons, Christmas puddings, mince pies, tarts and cakes stick long in the memory.
And also for being such an outstanding role-model for her family and friends, a devout Christian often visiting the sick and baking for the needy.
When born on 13 March 1918, women’s average life expectancy was just 51 years.
Ms Pratt had doubled that, with her children thankful for every day of her life, one of the celebrators said.
She had a great capacity for change, like adjusting from driving a four-cylinder Morris Minor to a “huge straight-eight Plymouth”, son Mike said.
“It was like going from the Morris to a tank.
“You would never know when Dad would come home with a new car and you never knew when he would come home with a new job.”
The family home in East Ringwood was a hive of activity, looking after the kids and the neighbourhood, as Mike tells it.
One day, she literally hosed down Mike to cool down a backyard cricket dispute that threatened to boil over.
“When we talk about gender at work and everything else Mum lived it,” Mike said.
“She worked for years, she grew and brought up her family.
“We were never a wealthy family measured in dollars, but wealthy in every other measure, largely thanks to Mum.”
