She would sit down with the local papers and cut out anything that was interesting or which featured her friends or family.
Those clippings - many of them from the Deniliquin Pastoral Times - have been added to a series of scrapbooks which tell a tale of Pauline’s life and memories in Deniliquin.
It’s a routine she has kept right up until this day ... literally.
The latest article to be snipped out of the paper and added to her collection came from the Tuesday edition this week.
Pauline was pictured alongside her friends from the Golden Oldies supporting the Deni RSL Club’s wear red fundraiser on our Out & About page.
It was while talking to the Pastoral Times photographer that day that Pauline learned we’re celebrating our 165th year of bringing you local news and sport, and so she offered to share some of her memories with us.
Now aged 74, they span more than five decades, and across a greater number of books than she could bring to our offices to share.
“I’ve been in it (the Pastoral Times) a lot, and so have the kids and grandkids,” Pauline said.
“We were always quite happy when we were pictured.
“And it’s just nice to look back on what has happened over the years.
“The years really do fly, and you don’t realise how long ago things were until you go back through the clippings.”
With Pauline and her family being staunch community supporters, they found their way into the local news pages for a variety of reasons.
Pauline alone says she would have been featured for her roles with the Deniliquin Kiwanis Club, as a Deniliquin Library or Orana volunteer, for her involvement in the sport Lifeball and even through sporting club, Scouts and school volunteer roles in supporting her children.
Plus the family would attend as many community events as they could, and always loved it when the PT’s roving reporter/photographer would head their way.
Some of Pauline’s earliest books include mostly family milestones captured in the paper - births, deaths and marriages.
But they soon branched out to other notable events and interesting stories - like the demolition of the former Salvation Army Hall and local brewery, the building of the Beach to Beach Walk, the first Deni Ute Muster world record ute attempt and even significant storm events.
She even still has an almost pristine copy of the Pastoral Times’ 140th anniversary feature published in 1999.
“I’ve always loved reading the local paper because it is how I find out about what’s going on around town,” she said.
“I like that it has a mix of articles. You know there had to be some sad ones, but there’s always happy ones too.”
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