General News
16 August, 2025
Ed Schultz: 105 years on
It's not every day you meet someone who has lived for 105 years and can recount life before electricity, radio, television, and farm machinery.
Warracknabeal's Ed Schultz can do just that and has taken a trip down memory lane with the Warracknabeal Herald.
Earlier this month, he celebrated the milestone surrounded by family and friends with an open house at Warracknabeal Lutheran Hall.
Born at the hospital on Scott Street on August 3, 1920, Mr Schultz grew up on the family farm in Sheep Hills North with his siblings, three brothers and two sisters.
He attended school at Sheep Hills North, and at the age of 14, he left school and began work full-time on the farm.
"Like a lot of kids used to go to about eight grades, one to eight, and then they left school," Mr Schultz said.
The family grew fruit, vegetables and even crushed wheat to make porridge.
They owned chickens and milked cows for their benefit.
He experienced farm life with horses, which he had for more than 10 years before tractors came in.
"We used to argue whether which was the cheapest, horses or tractors," Mr Schultz said.
During the early years, tractors ran on kerosene before the advent of diesel, as it was cheaper than petrol.
"It started on petrol and after a few minutes or so, switching over to kerosene," Mr Schultz said.
"It had steel wheels, no rubber tyres."
Mr Schultz detailed the "grippers" that were put on the steel wheels to stop the tractor from slipping in both wet and dry weather.
In the early days, bags of wheat were loaded onto a wagon that was pulled by horses, with big loads taken to the Sheep Hills station, which is now out of action.
"For a start, I had to have only three horses and later on we got up to five or six," Mr Schultz said.
"I was nearly 15 when electricity first came in."
On the farm, they had a 32-volt generator which powered their homes alongside kerosene lamps.
Mr Schultz experienced the craze over the radio and television as they were first introduced into society.
"There was a shop in Warrack that used to have a TV, black and white, anyone could have a look at it if they wanted to, but nobody owned it," Mr Schultz said.
"They gradually came in later."
Mr Schultz met Enid, 94, at the Dimboola Regatta, and they soon married on March 4, 1953.
Together, they celebrated 72 years of marriage this year.
"When you really think of it from the start, and when he worked horses when he was young and then right through until today is a big difference," Mrs Schultz said.
Reminiscing on what it was like "back in the day", Mrs Schultz remembered cutting firewood with a cross-cut saw before chainsaws came about.
"He'd get on one end and I'd get on the other," she said.
In 1972, the pair moved to Warracknabeal while Mr Schultz was still farming.
He retired at around 70 years old but continued to do odd jobs around the farm if needed.
Mr and Mrs Schultz had two children, Beverley and Garry, and now have two grandsons.
Mr Schultz has seen five monarchs in power and witnessed Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith, the first pilot to fly around the world, fly the 'Southern Cross', a Fokker aircraft, over the school.
"He went down to Warrack and the kids were given rides there," he said.
"I don't know how many, but in those days, you weren't too sure about going up in a plane."
Despite Mr Schultz having his fair share of health scares, he has made it another year deep in his 100s.