Betty McInnes will be celebrated for her remarkable dedication to both the Anzac Day and poppy appeals since 2002 in honour of her late husband, Ron McInnes, and her uncles.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
For more than two decades, Betty McInnes has stood proudly outside the Shepparton RSL and in local streets with a tray of poppies.
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Now at 94, she admits she has never once counted how many poppies she has sold.
“I’ve got no idea, quite a few,” she said with a laugh.
As part of the 2026 Poppy Appeal, RSL Victoria is highlighting different poppy sellers across the state every day until Remembrance Day.
This year will mark 24 years of dedication from Betty to both the Anzac Day and the poppy appeals.
Her reasons for volunteering though, go back to her childhood.
Born in 1932 during the Great Depression, and growing up during World War II, Betty says she doesn’t remember much during the period except that “it wasn’t easy” for her family, as most of her uncles left for war.
It was a time they simply “just got through”.
But it was their return in 1945, by train, that has stayed with her.
“There was all this yahooing going on after the war finished,” she said.
Their return also brought back the man she would eventually marry, after her first husband, Tom, was killed in a car accident in 1959.
Betty met Ron in the early 1960s while she was working at a hotel in Dookie, with the pair tying the knot in 1964.
Ron had served in the Middle East during World War II, and like many veterans, he rarely talked about what he had seen.
“We never spoke of war at all,” Betty said.
After Ron passed from cancer in 1981, Betty stayed away from the RSL for quite a while and it wasn’t until she retired, that she began going by herself.
It didn’t take her long to realise that volunteers were needed.
“I just wanted to help,” she said.
Selling poppies has become her way of her honouring Ron, her uncles and the men who did not come home.
“It has been rewarding for me to help in some small way,” she said.
And her message to anyone deciding whether to buy a poppy is simple: you’re helping those that returned and, of course, remembering the boys that fought and died.
On Remembrance Day, she will be thinking of Ron and every other Australian who has served in the Australian Defence Force.
Funds raised from the Poppy Appeal go towards emergency financial and housing assistance, advocacy for compensation and community activities that keep veterans connected.
Poppies are available at poppyappeal.com.au, or from Betty and her fellow Shepparton RSL volunteers until November 11.
A photograph of Ron and Betty McInnes that sits on her shelf alongside her late husband’s replica war medals.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
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