From the Sydney Morning Herald:
The Australian woman renowned as the world’s oldest internet blogger has made her final post, aged 108.
Olive Riley, of Woy Woy on NSW’s central coast, died in a nursing home just after 6am yesterday.
She will be mourned by family and an international readership in the thousands.
“It was mind blowing to her,” her great grandson Darren Stone, of Brisbane, told AAP last night.
“She had people communicating with her from as far away as Russia and America on a continual basis, not just once in a while.”
Olive had posted more than 70 entries on her blog, or as she jokingly labelled it, her “blob”, since February last year.
The ardent Sydney Swans AFL fan shared her day-to-day musings and her life’s experiences raising three children on her own, living through two world wars and the Depression, her work as a station cook in rural Queensland and as an egg sorter and barmaid in Sydney.
In her final post, dated June 26, an increasingly frail Olive noted she couldn’t “shake off that bad cough”.
She also: “read a whole swag of email messages and comments from my internet friends today, and I was so pleased to hear from you. Thank you, one and all.”
Olive’s musing live on at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au and more recently at http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com.
She was born in 1899, and would have turned 109 on October 20.
“She enjoyed the notoriety – it kept her mind fresh,” Mr Stone said.
“What kept her going was the memories she had, and being able to recall those memories so strongly.”
Dang! I hope I have as much energy and mental alertness when I grow old, even though I don’t think I have any chance of reaching that age!
Rest in peace, Olive, and thanks for the memories.
Peter