ALMA MacDonald loved Cobden with a passion.
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The 91-year-old passed away on October 18 and will be remembered for her love of her community and her adventurous spirit.
Mrs MacDonald grew up on a family farm at Bonvue near Cobden. Every morning before school she would milk the cows by hand and then walked about four kilometres to school.
Her daughter Ellen Meade said Mrs MacDonald left school at 13 and would have loved to go to high school and university.
"It was very important to her that all of us finished high school," she said.
At 13 she also volunteered to work as a plane-spotter from the Cobden Golf Club rooms during World War 2.
When Mrs MacDonald was 20 she left her job at the Cobden Butter Factory and sailed to London to work for a company that imported dairy products.
Mrs Meade said while overseas Mrs MacDonald rode a camel from the end of the Suez Canal to Cairo.
She later returned to Australia and married her husband Bill and they had their three children Alistair, Craig and Ellen.
Mrs MacDonald was the Shire of Heytesbury's first elected female councillor and the last Heytesbury Shire president before the amalgamation of the Corangamite Shire.
She served on the Bush Nursing Hospital and Health Services committees, the Cobden Chamber of Commerce, the Spring Festival Committee, the swimming pool Committee, the Cobden Airstrip committee and the Historical Society.
She also helped start the Girl Guides in Cobden. Mrs MacDonald also made somewhat of a cameo appearance in an ad for Western Star butter.
"If it was anything to do with Cobden she would be involved," Mrs Meade said.
She said her mother loved to travel and had been all over Australia.
She said she adored her children and grandchildren and loved seeing all that they did.
"She was a lovely mum and we all loved our mum," Mrs Meade said.
"She loved us all the same and it was the same for her grandchildren.
"She had a brilliant innings."
Mrs MacDonald is survived by her three children and four grandchildren and her family is planning to hold a memorial service which will be open to the public.
