Dorice’s family, circa 1922, in Yarra Junction, she was the last to pass away. Dorice is the small one standing on the chair. The photo shows her parents, David Learmonth (1874–1955), Kate Jane McLelland (1881–1956), and siblings Marjorie Stevenson, 1910–1994, Harold Keith (1912–2000), Lewis Malcolm (1913–1989), and Reginald Walter (1917–2006).
Dorice Matilda Hagg
DORICE Learmonth was born on 18 November 1919 in Yarra Junction.
She was the fifth and last child of David Learmonth and Kate Jane McLelland, who arrived in Yarra Junction in 1910, where all five children were born and raised.
David was a teamster who served to bring supplies to the Upper Yarra from Melbourne from the late 1800s through to his death in 1955.
Dorice’s grandfather, David, arrived in Australia from Scotland in 1857 and, along with his brothers and parents Henry Learmonth and Jane Broomfield, helped farm and settle the western districts of Victoria.
Dorice lived her childhood in Yarra Junction and worked as a shop assistant after school.
All of her siblings had left home before 1943 and Dorice remained with and assisted her parents, who were by then in their mid sixties, until her marriage in 1949.
She married William Henry Hagg, a Yarra Junction tradesman and store owner. For many years, Dorice and Bill served as voluntary drivers with the Yarra Junction Ambulance, assisting a multitude of Yarra Valley residents and visitors.
In addition to the ambulance, Dorice spent the majority of her time assisting elderly residents in Yarra Junction, cleaning their houses, providing meals, and whatever else she could do to make their lives comfortable.
Bill passed away in 2005 and, until recently, Dorice spent six months in Queensland with daughter Deirdre, and six months in Berwick with daughter Cheryl.
For several years she would only commute by bus between Victoria and Queensland because she disliked the thought of air travel, never having been on a plane.
Only when her health deteriorated to the extent she couldn’t get on and off the bus without assistance, was she convinced to try air travel, and continued the commute for another year or so.
Her latest bout of health problems prevented her last scheduled trip to Queensland and she passed away in a care facility near Berwick.
Dorice is survived by two daughters, Deirdre Bicknell of Lowood in Queensland and Cheryl Rule of Berwick, plus six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
She passed away in Berwick and was buried alongside her husband William Hagg at Wesburn Cemetery.
