If 40 is the new 30 then, given the impact of the pandemic on the elderly, 100 must be the new 21, signifying a “coming of age” for the octogenarians and nonagenarians whose homes and villages are now a key battleground in the fight against COVID-19.
For Floreat-Wembley parishioner Joyce Serpanchy, whose 100th birthday on 2 July fell under continued restrictions at Regis Nedlands, seeing family on the day was wonderful but she is still holding out for the promise of a big celebration to come.
“Guests at last years’ 99th birthday party were really looking forward to Mum’s 100th birthday celebrations,” said Cheryl Weerasek, Joyce’s daughter.
“We’ve promised her a big celebration with everyone invited after the coronavirus has safely moved past us as a community. We had the parish hall booked for 4 July, back in February before all this started. We were going to have a celebration Mass and after that they were all invited back to the hall.
“We had to limit the planned numbers [because of COVID-19 restrictions] to just 60 people.”
On the day, Joyce was joined by her four daughters who, with special permission from the nursing home in Nedlands, had arranged to visit their mother in a group, also bringing along the rest of the family who stayed outside in the gardens waiting for their special moment to make an appearance.
“They were very kind – only two relatives were allowed to see a resident at one time, but they made a special consideration for us. We sat down and had lunch with her, she cut her birthday cake while we took photographs and sang happy birthday,” Cheryl said.
“At 4.40pm all of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren had to assemble on the verandah and I was able to bring her down. We weren’t allowed out and they weren’t allowed in, but they pulled party-poppers, flew banners and balloons, sang and blew kisses,” Cheryl said.
“Mum really loved that part of the celebration.”
Three of the four sisters belong to the same parish of St Cecilia Church as their mother, “and that morning [the Floreat-Wembley Parish Priest] Fr Kaz Stuglik insisted that he himself took Communion to the facility and celebrate it with my mother,” Cheryl shared.
Born in Sri Lanka in 1920, Joyce was a member of an ethnic and religious minority with roots in the long and varied colonial history of Sri Lanka, which was at that time still known by that very British of names, Ceylon; Joyce’s mother is Portuguese and her husband’s mother is of Dutch origin.
She comes from a famous family of morticians, the Raymonds, whose family tradition still lives on.
She attended St Brigid’s Convent School in Sri Lanka, where four generations of the family were schooled, and in the tradition of the times, was married at 17 to Wilmap Serpanchy, with the man who was to become the first Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, DS Senanayake (who at that time lived just across the road) bearing witness to the signing of the marriage certificates.
The first of the family moved to Australia in 1970, during the height of the cultural persecution of colonial descendants, with Joyce following in 1985.
“I don’t think that mum would have made it to 100 if we hadn’t moved to Australia – we have to thank Australia for lots of things.
“But of course, we brought our culture with us and we still make the Portuguese and Dutch sweet meats for celebrations.”
Joyce was involved in raising every generation of her family, working devotedly as a fulltime mother to six and grandmother to her ever-increasing family here in Australia.
“When her eldest grandchild was born, she was about 44 or 45 years old and just naturally started helping with raising the children – but of course you always relied on your parents for help, that was the way it was in Sri Lanka,” Cheryl added.
“She used to sew all of our clothes when we were younger and absolutely loved to be well groomed, she was a lady of that vintage when ladies would go to the theatre and the races.”