Dinny Schutz thought her elderly mum was pulling her leg the first time the now-95-year-old told her what she wanted for her birthday.
“About six years ago … she said, ‘I’d like a ride on a Harley’,” Ms Schutz said.
“I just said, ‘Yeah, right mum, whatever’.”
But then three months before her 95th birthday, when Jenny Nieuwenhuis was again asked, her answer hadn’t changed.
“She said, ‘I told you, a ride on the back of a Harley’ and she started laughing,” Ms Schutz said.
After thinking about it more, Ms Schutz consulted her family and decided to grant her mum’s birthday wish.
“My brother … he agreed with it, but I think he was quite hesitant, everybody else thought ‘yeah, great, do it’, so we did,” she said.
When the big day came on Tuesday, Ms Nieuwenhuis was blindfolded and escorted outside her aged care home in Mannum, South Australia, to a group of idling Harley-Davidsons.
After an impressively smooth transition onto the back of the motorbike, the 95-year-old was whisked onto the road and off to the pub for lunch.
How Jenny’s dream came true
Paul Smith from Mannum’s Six Brother’s Social Motorcycle Club was only too happy to help grant Ms Nieuwenhuis’ birthday wish.
“To see her surprised and the smile on her face made it all worth it,” Mr Smith said.
The club president had even offered up his own bike for her to jump on.
The birthday ride went for about five minutes around Mannum before she was dropped off at the pub.
“Apparently she was holding on quite tight to him, and I was following behind on the bike and she did great, honestly,” Mr Smith said.
‘Better than getting married’
Ms Schutz said her mum was overjoyed by the surprise ride.
“When she first got off the bike, she said to me, ‘I could’ve gone all the way to Adelaide’,” her daughter said.
“She had a smile from ear to ear.
“I said to her after, ‘What was it really like mum?’ and she said, ‘It was better than getting married’.
“I don’t know what dad would’ve said if he heard that.”
Ms Schutz said her mum moved from the Netherlands to Australia in 1953, which fuelled her adventurous nature.
“Mum will try anything, I still take her fishing, she still loves to go fishing up the river, she’ll do anything if she can,” she said.
However, Ms Schutz said she was already worried what her mum was going to request for her birthday next year.
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