Betty Trim – the adventurous centenarian

An adventurer long before any incantations of the women’s liberation movement were even whispered, Maleny-born Betty Trim was spending her 100 years travelling, working hard, dancing, creating and serving her community – all while raising a family. 

by Judy Fredriksen

Born on February 4 1924 to Maleny pioneers – Jack and Alice Alcorn – Betty recently celebrated her 100th birthday at Clouds of Montville with 50 friends and family, some of whom had travelled from Western Australia to join the party. 

I was fortunate to sit down with Betty’s family the next day and enjoy listening to some of the intriguing stories forged by this trailblazer.

Betty and her 96-year old sister Grace grew up on a dairy farm just a few kilometres out of Maleny on the Maleny-Kenilworth Road and like most children of that era, rode their horses to school and led a life in which electricity played no role. 

Outside of school hours, they helped around the farm by catching the horses for the day’s work, penning the calves at night, feeding the chooks, collecting the eggs and bringing milk from the dairy to the house. They also helped their mother with housework and cooking. 

However, education was important to Jack and Alice, and despite the austerity of the era, Betty recalls: “Both my sister Grace and I spent a couple of years at boarding school in Warwick. I remember the thirties with very poor farming incomes, so it took penny pinching to be able to send two daughters away.”

Lack of income wasn’t the only hurdle the family faced though. “Betty and Grace would take turns looking after their mother back in Maleny who suffered tuberculosis for about ten years,” says Mary, Betty’s daughter. 

”My mum ended up back at Presbyterian Girls College teaching piano once she graduated as a piano licentiate.” 

With Alice’s poor health, the family had to bring in a share farmer when Jack died suddenly of a heart condition. Sadly, Alice died four years later making Betty and Grace orphans in their twenties. This left them in an awkward situation and with no particular reason to stay on the farm.

By this time, WWII was over and people had begun to move about with more confidence, and though travel was still costly, the idea appealed to the two spirited young women. 

Grace provides some more insight: “It was unusual for girls to take off because they were either working or else the parents would keep them at home. We only went travelling because lots of people our age were in clubs and so forth … we learned what people were doing and that’s how we got involved.

“We went to Sydney. We stayed there for a little while, like a year or two.”  

Luckily, Jack and Alice’s focus on education had paid off with both girls securing good jobs as stenographers in Sydney. 

“We got paid well – we saved up,” says Grace. 

“Then we had the idea of going overseas because we were meeting people from overseas, and they were telling us bits and pieces. So we just thought, well, there’s nothing to stop us doing it too!”

Sometime around 1950 they jumped on a cargo ship, a common form of economical transport before air travel became easily accessible, and headed to England and Scotland. 

After working there for a couple of years, Grace went to Canada, but Betty continued to work in the UK before returning to Australia. 

The decision was a fortuitous one, for on the ship home she met Albert Trim, a Ten Pound Pom who had spent the war years down a coal mine, and was looking for somewhere ‘bright and sunny’ to live. It just so happened he had an aunt in Brisbane and as an added bonus – he possessed a rare talent that could always win hearts – he could dance! 

The shipboard romance evolved into a lifelong partnership which produced three children and involved the running of many different businesses. 

Initially, the manual labour associated with their passionfruit farm at Springbrook took up most of their time. Later, however, life for Betty became speckled with dress-up parties; dancing; creative pursuits like copper enamelling and macramé; hard work in a real estate business; then a lamp-making enterprise,  followed by an aged care facility.

As with many of those who remember the social deprivation of the Depression and war years, Betty and Albert saw the value in serving their community. After they settled in Brisbane, they became staunch members of the Lions Club. 

However, Betty always felt an emotional attachment to her childhood home of Maleny and for years would travel up from Brisbane to volunteer with the Maleny Historical Society.

Sadly, the farm buildings at the old Alcorn property may be long gone, but not the nostalgia. The macadamia trees that Betty remembers being planted by her father Jack still act as a perpetual guard of honour along the driveway, preserving within their limbs and foliage many memories from long ago. 

And while Betty may have been a little weary from a big weekend of celebrating her major milestone with family, some of her well-timed quips left me in no doubt that hers was a mind sharpened for a century by the no-nonsense rigors of daily life. 

Betty Trim – a hearty congratulations on your 100th birthday and a lifetime of adventure, dancing, creativity, service, love and laughter.