Jessie (Jess) Truscott ³⁵²

  Research Notes:

Jim Truscott notes:

Jessie Ryan, known as Jess, was born 10 October 1913 in Emmaville and she died in Brisbane on 8 September 1989. She married John Edward Ryan who was born on 3 September 1902 in Stanthorpe and who died on 7 December 1969 in Stanthorpe. They had three children.

Jessie Ryan's story told by Michael Ryan, Kerry Ryan and Margaret Gianni (nee Ryan)

Jessie (one name only) was born to Sidney Austin and Julia Gertrude Truscott (nee Musgrave) on 13 October 1913 in the family home in Moore Street, Emmaville, NSW. She was their third child of five. In late 1916 the family moved to Johnson Street Annandale in Sydney. In late 1917 Sidney bought a general store in Texas, Queensland. He sold this business in 1924, so she also lived in Texas until she was ten and a half. School records show that she started at the Texas State School on 28 January 1919 at age five and left in April 1924. Jessie's Flemming cousins were resident in Texas. Flo Flemming was a sister to Julia. This was around the time that Texas was inundated. At this time Sidney and family moved back to Emmaville and he started up his old business again. This lasted for about twelve months. The family then moved to Jandowae as Sidney bought Yarad Abraham's general store. Jessie attended Jandowae State School. She boarded at St Joseph's Catholic School in Glen Innes, run by the Sisters of St Joseph, for her high school education to Intermediate level. One of her claims to notoriety there was that she hit the Bishop in the chest with a snowball as he suddenly appeared around the corner of a building behind which her intended target, a school mate, had just disappeared! As a consequence of moving to Texas, she left her Glen Innes schooling, though only briefly, as she did not like her new school and subsequently returned to school at Glen Innes.

When her father bought another business in Jandowae, the family moved there. Sidney and Jessie were part of Truscott's Old Time Jazz and Novelty Orchestra together with four other gentlemen. On 5 August 1931 Jessie made her debut at the Catholic Ball in Jandowae attended by about 400 people. The Brisbane Courier records the event honouring the first visit to Jandowae of Dr Byrne (Bishop of Toowoomba). For the occasion Jessie chose white satin, cut on classic lines showing a shirred bodice. At age eighteen she went nursing at the Mater Hospital in South Brisbane in 1932 under protest from her father who, unlicensed to drive a car, depended on her to drive him around. He even offered to buy her a new car. Before she started her training, she was in Sydney for the grand event of the opening of the Harbour Bridge. During her stay there she rode a motor bike to Wollongong, not a particularly comfortable route in those days, thus showing how game or adventurous she was. Around this time she made her debut in Jandowae and featured in the local press with a photograph with a good write up. Not only did Jessie get her motor bike and driving licenses, but she also held a pilot's license. She showed her competitive streak when she had a bet with her younger brother, John, as to who could get it first and she won! Not a common qualification for women in those times. It would seem that John wanted to fly in relation to his work on the farm, so he used his license, Jessie did not. In terms of recreation she enjoyed playing tennis into her thirties and was a lifelong bridge player. She also played the violin well and had her letters in piano and had several medals that spoke of her skills in 'elocution'. She used to join with her father and her sister Mercie in the Truscott band playing at dances in the New England district of NSW. Jessie took pleasure in singing and dancing and could still do the Charleston in her late fifties. In later times she used her skills on the organ in the Marist Fathers' chapel and her vigorous renditions of Hail Glorious St Patrick on the 17 March were memorable to say the least especially to her then young nephew Stephen who still recalls the memory on an annual basis. A memory that her children have is that of the family sing-songs around the piano while she or Sidney (by that time Wardie) provided the accompaniment. On one such occasion, Kerry was singing with wholehearted gusto, but off key. Jessie stopped playing and said, "Kerry, just stand there and keep quiet," much to his mortification.

Back to Brisbane now where she spent four years in training so presumably she was qualified by the end of 1935. Between then and 1940 she worked in hospitals in Maryborough and Bundaberg. While in Maryborough, she did her midwifery, in those days called Second Certificate. She was also matron of the Domain Hospital in Maryborough \endash a sign of her then maturity and sense of responsibility she had developed while still a young woman. On one occasion when she was a trainee nurse, the great Australian batsman Don Bradman was playing in an interstate match between Queensland and New South Wales at the Brisbane Cricket Ground a kilometre along Stanley Street from the Mater. Along with so many Australians of that era she was agog at the possibility of seeing him bat. She excitedly made arrangements that enabled her to get away from the hospital. At the entrance gate a delay caused by the large queue of people waiting to get in made her late and, hearing a roar from the crowd, she breathlessly dashed to where she could see the action only to see Bradman returning to the pavilion having been summarily dismissed for a "duck" by Eddie Gilbert, an aborigine from Cherbourg. The despair and disappointment was an indelible memory.

On 23 March 1940 she inter married with John Edward Ryan, a carpenter by trade from Eukey, a district south of Stanthorpe, who was employed by the Public Works Department, now known as the Works Department, in Brisbane and living at West End. She had known her spouse for five years as they had met through mutual friends who at that time lived only a few doors from the Mater Hospital. It was during those years that the romance grew and flourished to commitment as a series of letters preserved by John in the inner sanctum of his wardrobe testified. When the Second World War broke out, Jessie's cousin, Monica Geraghty joined the army and she wanted to join too. This plus the fact that she was nursing in Maryborough and Bundaberg while John remained in Brisbane caused him to say, "I've already got one foot in the grave". So Jessie decided to marry John with no further delay in St Ambrose's Catholic Church at Newmarket, a Brisbane suburb. The newlyweds settled in Yoku Road, Ashgrove West in a house which was later numbered 25 (when the Brisbane City Council issued street numbers). Early on a compromise had to be struck \endash this allowed Jessie too indulge her liking for cats and John his preference for fowls. She gave birth to Michael John (though she and John lost his twin - a stillborn) on 24 March 1941, Kerry Anthony on 10 March 1945 and Margaret Julie on 1 July 1948. She and John proved to be loving and caring parents who were prepared to make personal sacrifices to provide for their children. When John and Jessie married carpenter's wages were six pounds (twelve dollars) a week. In 1942 with the Japanese advancing towards the north of Australia, she and son Michael were evacuated to Crannagh at Eukey, John's family's home as a safety precaution. She was impressed by her mother-in-law Margaret Ryan's (nee O'Brien) ability to make things happen when visitors called unexpectedly such as grab a few figs from the tree in the house yard to make fig jam and also produce a batch of scones all on the fuel stove whilw she conversed with her visitors. No electricity either!

Although married and raising a family, she still made use of her nursing skills and became well known among her neighbours as the "nurse of Yoku Road". Early on she proved her worth when Greg Petrie, a son of neighbours Mary and Leo, as a toddler fancied sitting on the cord of an electric kettle of boiling water and his back was scalded by the cascading contents. She saved a life that day. In another critical situation she saved a life. Miss Nin Jenkins of 29 Yoku Road had severed a blood vessel near her temple and was bleeding to death. Jessie kept pressure on the wound before and during a trip to the hospital in an ambulance thus preventing her death. A very thankful family subsequently contacted Jessie. On Nin Jenkins death the house was purchased by Jack, one of the Texas Flemming boys. He was the father of Des and Yvonne and at that stage a retired bank manager. She maintained a link with her nursing days at the Mater by being a loyal member of the Mater Past Nurses Association, holding the position of president at one period among other offices. Her contemporaries recognised her annual report when president as outstanding \endash the best report they could remember. She was involved in many a social activity with this group and faithfully worked for and attended the mothers and children's annual afternoon tea gatherings to which she would take her children whom she "dressed to the nines". With her children grown up, she went back to nursing with employment at the Lourdes Hill Convent nursing home where she attended to elderly Good Samaritan sisters followed by work at Lorne nursing home on the corner of Globe Street and Stewarts Road, Ashgrove in the nineteen sixties. In the seventies she was employed at Marist Brothers' College, Ashgrove, a boarding and day school for boys, as the infirmary sister where she was able to use her well-honed nursing and mothering skills in the care of the young boys and the young men of the college. She was also known to have taken to task any teacher who disregarded her authority in the provision of care for the boarders and any day student who became ill. She made sure her word was law when it became necessary to determine if a sick boy needed to be placed in the infirmary.

She was an avid reader of romance novels and for some years readily fed off the fare provided by a travelling librarian. She had a particular liking for the books by Nessie Summers, a New Zealand author, and was especially impressed by her striking descriptions of the scenery of the South Island. This enticed her to go on a three-week bus tour of New Zealand over the Christmas-New Year period of 1975-6. As John had passed away in 1969, her elder son ,Michael, by now a Christian Brother, scored the role of escort and he vouches for her interest and excitement throughout this, for her, unique adventure. For years after she eulogised the beautiful lupins she saw on tour. One element of the tour involved flying in a Douglas DC-3 to have a look at close quarters at Mt Cook which not long before her nephew Jim Truscott had climbed.

Jessie demonstrated great consideration for her ageing parents. Her father, known in his later years among the family as Wardie (which was young grandson Michael's attempt to say "father" part of "grandfather" \endash his "F"s at that age being pronounced as "W"s). This was initially Warder which through usage became Wardie) lived with her at 25 Yoku Road from the nineteen forties till he was admitted into Mt Olivet (now St Vincent's) where he died shortly after admission on 1 October 1962. She similarly provided for her mother, known as May (yet another failure of Michael to say "grandmother") both before and after the period from the forties to the sixties when she lived at Jessie's sister Mercie O'Hare's place in nearby 18 Glory Street. About 1950 Jessie had a telephone installed at 25 Yoku Road so that she could get swift medical assistance for either parent if need arose. Ultimately, sometime after John's death and with Jessie working at the Marist Brothers' College, May's old age caught up with her when she would forget to turn off the gas among other things. May had to be placed in a nursing home, but Jessie could not bring herself to do it. Daughter Margaret, now Gianni, had to make the necessary arrangements.
Before she settled at Ashgrove, she had never smoked cigarettes, but she started smoking the occasional cigarette at parties by having one of Mary Petrie's supply. Jessie was a social being and enjoyed mixing, but John less so. Consequently she often accompanied Mary on such occasions, so much so that some people came to think that they were sisters. Mary gave up smoking, but Jessie developed the habit to her detriment. This eventually brought on the emphysema and consequently cardiac congestive failure which caused her death on 8 September 1989, the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom she had great devotion. She was a willing supporter of the schools her children attended. Funds for Catholic education were in short supply in those days and she and John faithfully contributed to the efforts the Catholic community had to make to keep the schools afloat. Her sponge cakes made for the fetes at St Joseph's, Bardon, the local parish St John's Wood always drew admiring comments and were the first to be sold, while the newly built Mater Dei school also benefitted from her ready charity in a variety of ways. At St Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace she regularly worked in the tuck shop for nigh on a decade and helped prepare food on cricket and rugby home game days. Sponge cakes featured at these events also. In the nineteen fifties the Catholic hospital facilities were increased by the addition of the Mater Mothers and Mount Olivet hospitals. Money was raised by raffling newly built, modern homes and she did many a stint selling tickets from stalls in the main streets of the Brisbane CBD. It was nothing to see Jessie and her companion ladies engaging with the passers by in Queen Street!!

Jessie was always dedicated to the practice of her Catholic faith and when time allowed was a regular mass-goer at the Marist Fathers' chapel in Glenlyon Drive and in her later years she went daily. In due course she fulfilled the requirements of the devotion of the Nine First Fridays and also the Five First Saturday's devotion advocated by Our Lady at Fatima. It is interesting in the light of this that she passed away a few minutes past 1.00pm on a Friday. As a footnote, she was buried from Mater Dei church St John's Wood in a blue coffin. In this she followed her near neighbour and close friend of many years, Mary Petrie, who also had been buried in a blue coffin. Both were members of the Legion of Mary and together with three other women members surveyed the Gap area to obtain a more accurate record of the parishioners for parish use. Previous records had not been done in such detail. Subsequently a new church named after Saint Peter Chanel, a French Marist missionary priest, was built at The Gap to serve that relatively new extension to suburban Brisbane. It was found that the parish had 52% practising Catholics, the highest percentage of any Marist parish in Australia at the time. Hunters Hill parish in Sydney was next highest at 48%.

As Jessie and her peer group grew older, she was a keen member of the parish Ever Young Club and used provide many of her contemporaries with transport to and from the monthly gatherings where music, singing and the playing of Bridge were the go. She also played Bridge several times a month at St Finbar's parish at Ashgrove. Several times a year she and other ladies regularly travelled to the Carmelite Convent, an enclosed order of nuns, in the Brisbane bay-side suburb of Orminston to provide afternoon teas for visitors at fundraising events for the upkeep of the nuns. Her family was invited to an opening day, including an inspection of the convent facilities. Because this Order was an enclosed Order, no such privilege was ever available again.

Her life was not without its crosses. A significant one was the fact that she outlived her husband, John, by twenty years less three months. There was an age difference of eleven years between them. Hers was an abiding sense of loss as she confided to her daughter, Margaret Gianni, on several occasions, expressing how much she missed him. Also, the loss of her youngest brother Bill (Cyril Francis) in WW2 was a significant sorrow she held deep in her heart. In later years her health was of considerable concern with the debilitating disease of emphysema progressing and causing her to continually find breathing difficult and towards the end of her life she was fighting for each breath.
Jessie was a daughter, sister, aunt, wife, mother and grandmother. She loved and enjoyed her nephews and nieces on both sides of her family. She took a keen interest in their comings and goings and in their achievements and their challenges. This is when the rosary beads would come into their own! To her three children she was devoted. She was not a pushover when it came to what was acceptable behaviour and what was not. The custard apple tree in the back yard was sometimes stripped of a twig when her frustration overcame her and one of the children, mainly Kerry or Margaret, were the recipients of the corrective action! She was delighted to become a grandmother to Kerry's daughter Louise Elizabeth (born 22 April) and expressed to her daughter Margaret that the day of Louise's birth was one of the best days of her life. No doubt a deeply hidden desire to be a grandmother had been fulfilled. Unfortunately, she lived for only five more months after that wonderful experience. The day was also tinged with sadness as on this same day her older brother Alan passed away. Over their later years Alan, who lived across the road, visited his sister Jessie almost daily and would announce his arrival as he came up the back stairs. Jessie was a wisdom woman and a refuge when anyone was in need of a safe place and who always had a wise word of counsel if asked. She was a woman of faith and fidelity. She was the keeper of confidences which she took to her grave such as the identity of the woman she delivered of a baby in a bedroom of 25 during the WWII years. This was never spoken about and only came to light with no details in her later years. Service personnel were involved.

Michael, Kerry and Margaret have much to be grateful for as children of Jessie Ryan (nee Truscott). As the poet Khalil Gibran says in his poem - On Children \endash You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness; For ever as He loves the arrow that flies, So He loves also the bow that is stable.

These memories are but a window into the person and personality of our beloved Mother.