Grandmotherly advice given to Lavington's Elfriede Mikosch as a teenager has guided her through a century. Mrs Mikosch celebrated her 100^th birthday on Tuesday with a series of separate visits from family members, somewhat different to the party originally planned.

"It's a shame that we couldn't have them all, but when everything is over, we'll probably have a good party," she said, referring to the COVID-19 social distancing restrictions.

Born in eastern Germany, now part of Poland, on March 31, 1920, Mrs Mikosch graduated as a nurse and met her army officer husband William "on the dance floor".

War and circumstances separated the pair but in 1953 she married Paul Wittich and the family soon immigrated to Australia, landing first in Perth, then Melbourne before living in Walla and finally Wodonga.

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"I love the country, it's been good to me," she said.

"We cannot complain, it's a lovely country, lovely people.

"I always met good people, hardly had any bad ones, and that's the main thing in life, isn't it?"

The couple raised two children, Jutta and Uwe, and now Mrs Mikosch has five grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Mr Wittich died in 1990 and nine years later his widow married George Mikosch, who died in March last year.

Mrs Mikosch lives independently and her hobbies have included painting country scenes, sewing, breeding toy poodles and little flutters on the pokies.

"She still manages everything," her daughter Jutta Eddy said.

"She goes out when she can, she's got lots of friends ... she's always a really happy-go-lucky person."

Mrs Mikosch said she felt lucky in her long life.

"I know what I'm doing, I know my name, I know where I'm living and I think that's enough," she said with a laugh.

"If I can keep that going, I'll be all right."