FOR most of her 82 years Mary Paul has lived in the family home.
She was born in her parents’ bedroom, and her mother died in her arms in the living room.
Despite mixed emotions, Ms Paul could not think of a better place to live.
She is the only one of six family members still living at the Ridley St house.
If the walls could talk they would tell of the happy days the family shared at the house, Ms Paul said.
“But there’s also a lot of sadness because my mother died here – she died of a heart attack,” Ms Paul said.
She is one of the few residents still living in one of Sunshine’s oldest houses, built at the start of last century.
Ms Paul’s father, Francis, bought the property for £50 in 1920.
A kitchen table and a couple of chairs that her mother Violet bought are still in the house.
As Ms Paul held the house title in her hand there were tears in her eyes when Star visited her recently.
She described her father as being the greatest man in her life.
“I reckon I had the loveliest father and I was so close to him,” Ms Paul said.
He died in 1979 of leukaemia, leaving her mother with two sons and two daughters.
Over the years, her brother and sister married.
But Ms Paul and her brother Francis stayed in the house and cared for their mother.
Ms Paul moved out of in 1954 when she married but returned a few months later.
Some years later in the early 1960s she met the greatest love of her life, but she did not marry him and continued to live with her mother.
“I just thought so much about my mother – it was always in the back of my mind even when I dated,” she said.
Her brother Francis died eight years ago, leaving Ms Paul on her own.
Her life is in Sunshine and she has witnessed many changes throughout the years.
Olwen Ford, a local historian and author of “Harvester Town, The Making of Sunshine 1890-1925”, said existing owners of Sunshine’s oldest houses played a significant part in history.
“Most people see the house as their own and don’t see it in a bigger picture as part of the suburb that was on the map,” Ms Ford said.
“I don’t think we need to go along with the great-men-of-history approach. I think the making of Sunshine was done by all the people that lived here,” she said.
