Community & Business
10 May, 2022
QCWA’s 100 years young Lottie Hastie
FOUNDER and lifelong member of the Tolga Queensland Country Women’s Association, Lottie Hastie OAM, has seen the organisation grow and change as the 101-year-old reflects on the lifelong memories she has made through the group.
FOUNDER and lifelong member of the Tolga Queensland Country Women’s Association, Lottie Hastie OAM, has seen the organisation grow and change as the 101-year-old reflects on the lifelong memories she has made through the group.
QCWA officially celebrates 100 years in operation this year, and Mrs Hastie has also been reflecting on how the group has been a part of her life. After moving to Tolga when she was just 16 years old, Mrs Hastie soon fell in love with the small town and later settled in an old Queenslander, which she still resides in today.
At the age of 20, she married her late husband and found herself joining a group of women who took time out of their day to feed and socialise with returning soldiers. For two years, the small group of women - Mrs Ingram, Mrs Bradford, Mrs Cochran, Mrs Daley, Mrs Williams, Mrs Whelan, Mrs Crossman and Mrs Hastie – opened up the hall and cooked for the gentlemen.
“There were some ladies who used the QCWA hall in the main street when it was just a little house to welcome soldiers in at night and sit and read, play cards or do whatever and we started to serve them a cuppa or a sausage roll,” Mrs Hastie said. “Back then, the ladies hadn’t had a meeting in about five years because no one would take office, so we weren’t actually QCWA members yet until the State office called to have a meeting to close down the branch altogether. “That’s when Mrs Ingram said to me and Mrs Whelan ‘if I take the role of president, would you join in office?’, so I took on the role of secretary treasurer and before long we managed to get 25 members.” At the age of 21, Mrs Hastie was learning quickly what it took to be in office and took on many responsibilities to keep the Tolga QCWA going for the next 78 years.
Memberships continued to rise, and Mrs Hastie soon found her rank was rising too, being promoted to president for the division and vice president for all of Queensland. Some of her favourite memories from those responsibilities was travelling to conferences across the globe and the exposure to different cultures.
In particularly, Mrs Hastie fell in love with the Māori culture in New Zealand and says she will never forget the day she went to a conference where they all broke out into song. “I just loved the first conference I went to in New Zealand and the island women sat down and burst into song,” she said. “It was so beautiful. I used to just stand there and listen to them because it was so lovely. “I’ve been back seven times since then.” Mrs Hastie also recalled some of her favourite travels with the QCWA, visiting Tasmania, Darwin and Toowoomba as well as travelling to Fiji.
She also visited Toowoomba, the birthplace of the QCWA, a decade ago for the 90th anniversary of the organisation and says she is “playing it by ear” as to whether she goes down for the 100th. Through her achievements in the QCWA and other charitable organisations, Mrs Hastie was awarded the Order of Australia Medal, one of the biggest highlights of her life to date.
She described the feeling as surreal and thrilling and a huge honour. With 101 years of experience behind her, Mrs Hastie’s advice to the younger generation is to give people a little bit more brightness and friendship – especially to the less fortunate.
“To give each other a little bit of friendship and kindness is kind of lacking at the moment with everything going on,” she said. “That’s my opinion, you know, to give friendship to people who may not be as fortunate as us.”
