FEBRUARY 10 will be a big day for Elsie Sierak – the Baxter Retirement Village resident will celebrate her 100th birthday.
Mrs Sierak and her husband, Carl, had a long, varied and successful business career including boat and canoe hire on the Yarra River as well as car and machinery dealerships in Queensland in the 1950s.
The year Mrs Sierak was born in Ivanhoe, George V was crowned King of England, the Mexican Revolution erupted, Portugal became a republic, the Union of South Africa was created, the first air freight was carried across the Atlantic, and Henry Ford recorded the sale of his 10,000th car.
And life was not without its significant events for Mrs Sierak, the third youngest of five siblings born to blind parents, Thomas and Margaret Andrew.
Elsie was 16 when the family moved to Clifton Hill where, in her early adult years, she met Carl Sierak. The couple married in September 1936 and two years later bought their first business, the boat and canoe hire sheds of Rudder Grange in Fairfield on the Yarra River.
Mrs Sierak ran a kiosk and tearooms and her husband expanded the hire business by building and selling the 'Sierak' canoe, of which about 100 were built over a 10-year period.
In 1942, the couple's business expanded when they were offered a government lease for the boat hire business at Studley Park in nearby Kew.
They operated the boat hire business during World War II and in 1945 moved back to Rudder Grange.
"It was a busy time for us at Studley Park," Mrs Sierak said.
"US navy ships were bringing servicemen into Melbourne for R and R leave. The GIs used to come and hire a boat for the day, tie up under a shady tree and go to sleep in the peace and quiet on the river."
She said it was an enjoyable time and while her husband did war work at a factory in Abbotsford, she ran the boat hire alone during the day.
She said they would have done very well had they had a kiosk and tearooms, but it was not possible as there was no power, no gas and only a wood stove and kerosene lamps at the boat sheds.
Back at Rudder Grange after the war, the couple continued the canoe hire, building a kiosk and tearooms and expanding their business by installing five hire tennis courts in the grounds.
Rudder Grange became one of the 'must do' venues on the Yarra during the late '40s, with families enjoying swimming, boating and picnicking in the large landscaped grounds along the water's edge.
In 1951, the Sieraks sold up, packed up four children and moved to Gladstone in Queensland where they had bought a GMH-franchised motor garage, which they ran until 1954 when they sold and moved to Nambour, buying an International Harvester truck and tractor business. They returned to Melbourne in 1957.
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