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From the collection of Apollo Bay Museum

39 Items featured online

Film - Audio Slideshow of memories and photos with Nelly O'Meara, Apollo Bay

Audio Slideshow with Nelly O'Meara

Audio Slideshow with Nelly O'Meara
Nelly O’Meara: Then I came back home again in the summer, back with Muriel. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, that were their name, and back to work there again, and then I met Don, and I was walking on the beach, and all those lifesavers were sitting there, and I was young, and I had bikini on, and all that, and they said, hmm, she looks okay, you know.
So that's how it started, the romance. We were engaged for two years. I went back to Melbourne still to work in the wintertime. So I saved up the money then for my wedding, so Don and I got married on the 28th of November in 1959. So we've been married this year, it would be 64 years. Wow. It's a long time isn't it?
So that's what happened there. And then Don and I had this small little house in Apollo Bay, opposite the Presbyterian church at the time. So it was a lovely, Don done it all up, beautifully done up, everything was lovely. That's where we had Carrie. Our oldest daughter's now 63. And we spent about two, three years there. And then the farm came up the Barham River road. So Don went down it was a beautiful big homestead. By that time I worked in town and Don worked at the butter factory, we had, after eight years or something, we had Amber. And that was the biggest surprise. So that's what happened. And then in 1982/3 a lady up the road, she came to see me.
She had a lovely garden, too, and she had tea rooms. And she said to me, uh, Would you like to start tea rooms, Nelly? I said, Oh, my God. She said, Can you cook? Can you cook a scone? I said, Yeah, I can do that. So I started experimenting and things. So we started the tea rooms in 1983. And we've done that, and we run that for about 20 years altogether.
So that was a big experiment. I have never met so many wonderful people in my life because they're often, when they were holidaying in Apollo Bay, they came up and sometimes twice a week, three times a week, just to come up and in the end I knew them all by name because I said the lady with the yellow hat or the man with, you know, that's how I did it all. I had a big list hanging down. Oh, they're coming up. Oh, good, you know. So, we made ourselves very popular.

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This media item is licensed under "All rights reserved". You cannot share (i.e. copy, distribute, transmit) or rework (i.e. alter, transform, build upon) this item, or use it for commercial purposes without the permission of the copyright owner. However, an exception can be made if your intended use meets the "fair dealing" criteria. Uses that meet this criteria include research or study; criticism or review; parody or satire; reporting news; enabling a person with a disability to access material; or professional advice by a lawyer, patent attorney, or trademark attorney.

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Audio Slideshow with Nelly O'Meara

Have a question? Contact Apollo Bay Museum
Paradise Tearooms c1990s

Reuse this media

Can you reuse this media without permission? No (with exceptions, see below)

Conditions of use

All rights reserved

This media item is licensed under "All rights reserved". You cannot share (i.e. copy, distribute, transmit) or rework (i.e. alter, transform, build upon) this item, or use it for commercial purposes without the permission of the copyright owner. However, an exception can be made if your intended use meets the "fair dealing" criteria. Uses that meet this criteria include research or study; criticism or review; parody or satire; reporting news; enabling a person with a disability to access material; or professional advice by a lawyer, patent attorney, or trademark attorney.

Attribution

Please acknowledge the item’s source, creator and title (where known)

Paradise Tearooms c1990s courtesy of Nelly O'Meara

Have a question? Contact Apollo Bay Museum