Edna Nielsen celebrated her 100th birthday on Tuesday. Photo / Alyssa Smith
If you ask Taranaki’s latest centurion the key to a long life, it’s chocolate.
Edna Nielsen, who lives in Eltham, turned 100 this week and says the key to reaching the milestone of 10 decades of living is to not smoke or drink but indulge in chocolate instead.
“I do love chocolate.”
Nielsen, born in Stratford on November 19, 1924, turned 100 on Tuesday, November 19.
She celebrated the milestone with her family on Sunday before enjoying more birthday festivities at Eltham Care Rest Home.
She isn’t the first in her family to reach 100 – her mother, Dorothy Smith, lived to 101.
“My mum did live until quite an older age as well.”
Nielsen attended Cardiff School before starting work on her family dairy farm in Cardiff.
“I’d help look after the younger ones [her siblings] and work on the farm.”
She then spent 10 years working at Avon Maternity Hospital.
“I would help the nursing staff.”
Edna married the “love of her life”, Leslie Nielsen, in 1963. The couple worked on Leslie’s parents’ dairy farm in Stratford after tying the knot.
Their first child, Hazel, was born after a year.
The couple moved into Stratford briefly before purchasing a small farmlet on Warwick Rd in 1966.
It was there that they had their second child, Daryl, in 1967. They spent many years at the small farmlet before retiring to town in 1999.
Leslie died in 2004, and Edna moved to Eltham Care Rest Home in 2014.
She said she enjoyed celebrating the event with her family, including her two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
“It was a good day.”
Stratford Press prints last issue as NZME closes 14 community papers nationwide.