THEY spent most of their life in Rosewood, now Ron and Jenny Shaw are headed to Hervey Bay to live with their daughter.
When Moreton Border News spoke to the couple on Tuesday morning, they were visiting Joyce Rieck to say their goodbyes.
The Shaws and Joyce have been friends for more than 50 years and met at the Rosewood Uniting Church.
“I moved to Rosewood from Katherine in the Northern Territory, I was in the Air Force,” Ron said.
“I was posted to the base at Amberley and we lived in Ipswich for a little while before moving to Rosewood in 1968.”
He describes Rosewood in the 1960s and 1970s as being ‘a country town with nowhere near the number of people who live there now’.
Life as a couple began when they met at a dance at Sale in Victoria.
“I asked if I could give her a lift home, she said she needed to check with her parents first,” he said.
“The answer was yes, but then I realised my car was in the panel beaters because I’d had a prang a couple of days earlier.
“I got my mate to take us, when I came back to the car after walking Jenny to the door, I told him ‘I’m going to marry that girl’.”
And he did just that as the couple married on February 2, 1963 and have been inseparable ever since.
“Our son Jeff was with us when we came to Rosewood, he was a toddler then,” he said.
“We had our daughter Kerrilee, then I was posted across to Exmouth in Western Australia the December of 1970.
“I’d come back for holidays or when on leave, as they called it back then.”
He was part of the Airfield Construction Squadron (ACS), a unit specialising in building airfields, the strips, runways and hangers.
As part of the ACS he was also involved in the building of Amberley RAAF Base.
“I was what they called a diesel fitter. I worked on earth moving equipment and operated and repaired heavy machinery,” he said.
He said being a parishioner of Rosewood Uniting Church was ‘by default and God was involved’.
“We were living in a house on Matthew Street and decided to go to the Methodist church,” he said.
“The church was up on Tallegalla Hill, and the car didn’t make it.
“We did a U-turn and went to a church which was called the Congregational Church at the time and it was where Joyce was.”
During their time at Rosewood, they owned a service station.
“That was something I enjoyed and we owned that for eight years,” he said.
“I went from being a diesel mechanic, diesel fitter to working on ordinary motor cars.”
They lived at their last address for 36 years.
They’ve now sold their house and will live in a granny flat on their daughter’s property at Hervey Bay.
“It’s a change that I didn’t want but because of my age and the troubles I am having with my back, it needed to be done.”
