Born on June 18, 1924, Emileen Jean Foxe has lived a rather fabulous life.
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Jean was a Bondi girl after her family moved from Narrabri to Sydney when they lost everything in a house fire.
Her first job was at Farmers, in the shoe department which was where her love affair with shoes began.
When she was 19, Jean joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and that's when she found out her first name was Emileen as all her family and friends used to call her Jean.
Jean left the forces on February 12, 1946 with the rank of corporal and two medals.
Her close friend Kim Pemberton said Jean has always been very proud of her service years.
"She always enjoyed watching all the marches on Anzac Day and in later years as her eyesight deteriorated she would ask us to take the medals to the dawn service at the Tanilba RSL sub branch service," she said.
Jean went on to marry William McAlpine who was also enlisted in the Army.
After her service years Jean worked at Doyles of Watson Bay as a bar waitress even though she had never tasted a drop of alcohol and has abstained from drinking all her life.
Ms Pemberton believes this may have attributed to Jean reaching 100.
"Jean also loves oysters, chocolates, musk sticks, marella jubes and packets of ginger kisses," she said.
Jean is also a dog lover, her first love was a pedigree poodle called Dinky and she went on to adopt many other dogs in her life.
She also had a great passion for helping children all over the world and Jean has knitted more than 280 jumpers of all patterns and sizes for boys and girls for guardian charity to distribute overseas.
"She would always be shopping for children's handkerchiefs which she would safely pin to the jumpers so the children wouldn't wipe their noses on the sleeves of the jumpers," Ms Pemberton said.
Jean moved to Tanilba Bay after retiring to be with her sister Margaret, the pair sharing many activities like shopping and RSL women's aux.
Jean will celebrate her 100th birthday in the coming weeks with her close friend, family, staff and fellow residents of Calvary Tanilba Shores.