CLARA Cavell Jones started cooking over an open fire before the Great Depression and has seen every iteration of oven up to computerised stoves.
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The resident of Estia Health's Ironbark residence celebrated her 103rd birthday with a high tea with family and friends on Wednesday.
When she was eight years old, Cavell, as she is known, would return home from school and mind her neighbours' children, feed the goat and milk it, and cook over an open indoor fire.
"She (the neighbour) was a widow... and I had to mind the kids. The oldest was five when the father died," Cavell said.
She spent her life cooking, even helping out people she did not know, like the time she helped cater a funeral for a stranger.
"You don't have to know. They rang me and said they needed cooking. I said 'right' and I got cooking," Cavell said.
"Most people can knit and sew or write poetry. I can't do any of those things. The only thing I can do is cook."
Cavell spoke highly of the Rushworth School she got her cooking certificate at when she was 13.
"We had a whole rig of wood stoves and very good teachers. It still is a very good school," she said.
Cavell and her husband came to own land in the Bendigo region, where many members of her family now live.
Five generations of women gathered to celebrate Cavell's birthday on Wednesday - including her namesake and newest member of the family, five-month-old Clara Doolan.
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