Worlds Oldest Blogger Turns 108 Today
Welcome back!
Meet one Olive Riley. Olive celebrates her 108th birthday today — making her what’s believed to be the world’s oldest blogger, and may also be the oldest YouTube user. Thousands of internet users have clicked on the YouTube site to hear her outback adventures.
Photo The Life of Riley
Olive says that interaction with the public has helped her to stay young.
Born in Broken Hill in 1899, the Aussie blogger has spunk. In a documentary on the Sydney Morning Herald, she recalls her cheating first husband. ”He had another woman. My best girlfriend. I found them together. It was terrible. I will never forget it. I still feel it. Oh, I punched her in the nose a couple of times.”
Director and film maker Mike Rubbo first met Olive when he was researching centenarians and produced a film for the ABC called ‘All about Olive’. He says he gets very excited about her stories.
Mike is now Olive’s friend and blogging assistant, recording Olive’s stories and posting them to her blog, ‘The Life of Riley‘ (or blob as she calls it), for which she has won thousands of fans across the world.
Photo Daily Telegraph
She survived two World Wars and the Great Depression, witnessed the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, raised 3 children and worked a number of weird and wonderful jobs, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Olive worked as a station cook at ‘Culloden’ station near Muttaburra in the late 1930’s for both the owners of the station and the men who worked there. Mike Rubbo tracked down Tom Spence who was the son of the owners of the station at that time and about the same age as Olive’s children. “He’s still alive and in his eighties and he remembered Olive as a very attractive women, a very hard-worker.”
Olive tells ABC of a story she recalls about ‘Culloden’ — the day she went skinny dipping in the dam with her daughter and the Spence’s daughter. When they got back to the house explains Mr Rubbo, “Mr. Spence said, ‘You shouldn’t do that’, and they said ‘How do you know what we were doing’? and he said, ‘Well, I saw this man spying with spy-glasses so we spied on him and it turned out that he was watching you through the binoculars, and so I’ve sacked him’.
World’s Oldest Blogger Turns 108
Oive Riley is 108 — ABC News
News clip of the world’s oldest blogger celebtrating her 108th birthday
Make this the biggest and baddest birthday that Olive has had to date by paying her a visit at her blog The Life of Riley and wish her happy birthday today!
To my fellow Canadians …
Mike Rubbo is searching for the kids who auditioned for his movies in Canada in the late 80’s with Rock Demers. The kids for the try-outs are now fully grown. Mike is trying to find them to present them with a copy of their auditions.
Mike’s friend Lois Siegel who assisted him is standing by in Ottawa, ready to help if you have any information.
Read what others have said about Olive in celebration of our fellow blogger:
Laketrees by Kim Barker
Marriannaville by Ssaboma
Copyright 2007 Life in the Fast Lane
Tags:blogging blogs Worlds Oldest Blogger
wow can you imagine being this age? Good for her and a Happy Birthday too OLIVE! hiya Deborah!
ta
C.
Terrific post Deborah….
this should certainly help Olive and Mike with their search over your way……
do you think we will be blogging when we’re 108 eh??
Thanks for joining us in with us, Deborah. I have this post on mine for others to also read as a source of information on Olive’s amazing age. She’s a tough one, that’s for sure.
waves at Kim
If I live to be 108, I want to be wearing Olive’s shoes.
I can’t even fathom living that long Christina! Great to see you
Thanks Kim
I truly hope it helps. Well if we manage to live that long, I hope we’re both banging the keyboards together! Maybe by that time we won’t even be using keyboards. Our computers will intuitively read our thoughts and write our posts for us, haha!
I was more than happy to Saboma
Olive certainly is a little gem.
“Our computers will intuitively read out thoughts and write our posts for us [...]”
That could be real scary especially how this brain of mine short circuits at times.
~:o)
I dropped on her blog last year by coincidence and couldn’t believe it ! I followed a while and then I forgot and now I find her here again ! Isn’t she an amazing lady ?? I wish I could follow her steps !!
Bwahaha, now that you mention it, it could be a pretty scary thing for me too Saboma, haha!
Wow, small world, eh Gattina? It becomes much smaller when we’re dealing with the ‘net’. Yes, Olive is a very remarkable lady
Wow man, a blog with this age.. really confusing and unimaginable. Interesting post Deborah
Great! I wish I can be that age and still be productive. It’s amazing that at 108 to have embraced technology.
She was an amazing lady, Barry, but sadly, she’s no longer with us. Olive passed away last year, but her inspiration lives on.
yeah heard that she no more but i salute her spirit to blog at an age when most of the people have already reached heaven!!!
I’d be so happy to reach that age and still be blogging!
Ron