Life Story of Joan Heather Easton

in her own words The fabulous life story of Joan Heather Easton

2018

To Joan and her family This book has been created over a period of three to four months. During these months, I have met with Joan every few weeks to chat about everything from her favourite colour (any guesses?) to how she felt the day she got married. Every second page of this book will have a photo from Joan’s life, progressing from when she was a baby through till her life as a grandmother. During my chats with Joan, I would show her one of these photographs and ask her about when each photo was taken, what was happening and how she felt about it. This book holds all of her responses. Photos hold a thousand memories, and it has been such an honour to sit with Joan and see how her face lights up when she sees each of these pictures and recounts the memories behind them. There are some pages that do not have a photo with them. These pages are for the purpose of collating information than I have received not from Joan, but from her family. They help to fill the gaps of Joan’s life that have not been documented by pictures or memories. Joan, you are such a lovely lady and I will miss our fortnightly chats. I hope that this book is able to somewhat represent your wonderful life, and that you and your family can enjoy reading it for years to come. Thank you so much for the opportunity to write about someone so incredible.

Montana MacFarlane Year 11

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1921-1925: Baby Joan “I was born in Tenterfield, by mistake (laughs). My parents, they took me for a ride, and something inside me said ‘I’ve got to get out of here’, so they had to stop the cart and have a baby, in Tenterfield!”

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Joan Heather Easton Thompson was born on the 1 st of July 1921, in Tenterfield, New South Wales, over two hundred kilometres away from her parents’ hometown of Toowoomba. Her father was international rugby league legend and coach Duncan Thompson, who represented Queensland (1915-1925), New South Wales (1919-1922) and Australia (1920-1924) over his illustrious career. Born in 1895, Duncan was the fourth of Charles and Jane Elizabeth (née McLeod) Thompson’s nine children. He was educated at the local school in Warwick, and worked at the post office until 1911, when he joined the Australian Bank of Commerce and was transferred away from his family to Ipswich. In Ipswich, he began his rugby league career by playing for St Paul’s Church of England and the Starlight’s clubs, while at the same time competing in cricket and sprints recreationally. His main position, (the one that he was most known for in rugby) was the position of rugby halfback, where his prowess was demonstrated by representing Combined Country in 1913 and Queensland in 1915. At the beginning World War I, despite wanting to volunteer, Duncan’s parents prevented him from joining the war effort, which left him to focus on his rugby career. It was not until 1916 that he went to Queensland and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at the age of 21. He sailed to England to assist the 49 th Infantry Battalion, (the Queensland Battalion) in 1917 and saw active service in both Belgium and France before receiving a non-fatal shot wound to the chest at the German Spring Offensive in 1918, which caused him to get discharged from the war effort. On his return home from the war, Duncan joined the Commonwealth Bank, as he was told that his injury would force him to retire from competitive sport. The bank gave him the placement of Ipswich once again, and once he had settled in and recovered from the war, Duncan joined a social cricket team and played professional rugby for the Starlight’s, before becoming the Queensland Captain and representing Australia in their match against New Zealand in 1919. Throughout all of this he met the love of his life and married wife Dorothy (Dossie) Agnes Easton at St Paul’s Anglican Church on the 12 th of October 1920. Joan was their first child, closely followed by a younger brother. At the time of her birth, Dossie was on a train to Warwick from Toowoomba and went into premature labour, two months before the baby was expected to be born. As Joan puts it, “Something inside [the baby] said, ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’” and so Dossie forced the conductor of the train to stop in the small town of Tenterfield in order to give birth. Duncan Thompson therefore missed his daughter’s delivery due to her unprecedented arrival, as he was representing Australia in a Test Match and had set sail for England. Joan weighed only 3.5 pounds, and her mother was told that she was not expected to live due to how early she had been delivered. But of course, Joan has always been spirited, and was a very strong baby who surpassed the doctors’ expectations, just as her father had done after he was shot in service. Joan’s life had a very interesting start, but it was nothing compared to what was to come.

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1925-1938: Joan’s Childhood “My father, he said, well, we live here, and the [swimming] baths are right there, so he’d take me across to the baths and make me swim, swim, swim, swim before I went to school, every morning!” “I’d have to catch my horse, Bubbles, and ride to Glennie. Right up to Glennie! (groans) No wonder I’ve got a bad shoulder. I could’ve ridden a bike or driven a car! But I loved it. I didn’t do anything fancy, just ordinary riding but I loved it.” “I had a dog called Snow, a white poodle. He was a very good watchdog. We were robbed, at one point. And the police said to get a dog, and if anybody ever came close to the place he would bark, bark, bark like mad, and they’d go away.” “I played tennis, swimming and golf. I think my favourite shot was backhand in tennis.”

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Joan was raised in her parent’s hometown in Toowoomba, at 155 Hume St. From the age of 5, she attended the co-educational Easts Primary School, (now known as Toowoomba East State School) and then from 1935-1938 she was a student at Glennie Anglican Girls School, which she now describes being, “way up the hill.” For the generation into which she was born, Joan was very successful in completing all twelve years of schooling, especially considering that the years she attended made up the majority of Australia’s Great Depression. This success could be attributed to her father’s wealth through a professional career, but the most likely case is that it was Joan’s own achievements that saw her through her education. Hailing from a sporting family, Joan participated competitively in swimming and tennis throughout her childhood, eventually representing Toowoomba in both sports. According to Joan, it was her father who encouraged her to take up swimming, mainly due to how close the Thompson family lived to the local swimming baths. Every morning, Duncan would take Joan across to the baths, where he would be her swimming trainer until it was time to go to school. This routine made up a major part of Joan’s childhood, and is now a vivid memory for her, mainly because the swimming baths were unheated, so it was often very cold during the early morning sessions. Unlike most of her friends, Joan did not ride her bike, take the bus or drive to school. Her grandfather was a keen horse trainer who owned a paddock near Joan’s home, and gifted her a beautiful horse named Bubbles while she was in secondary school. Joan would ride Bubbles to school every day and keep him in a paddock at Glennie before riding him home. Although she never rode Bubbles competitively, she was a good rider and enjoyed going on trips up to Table Top Mountain. Despite her love for riding, Joan often begrudges the fact that owning a horse meant having to herd him in and saddle him up every morning. She now gives some very sound advice: “Never give anybody a horse!” In the afternoons, Joan would go to tennis practice at the Technical College down the road. Rather than practicing on a tennis court, as is the norm today, she would use her racquet to hit a ball against the wall, playing against herself in order to improve. It was only during games against opponents that she would have access to a tennis court. When Joan was not swimming, riding Bubbles, attending school or playing tennis, she was socialising with the many sportsmen and women that had made the acquaintance of her father. Duncan and his socialite wife Dossie, often entertained guests in their home, which provided an avenue for Joan to meet many of society’s influential people.

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1938-1945: Joan’s Life During World War II

“I once fell in love with a Londoner, but I didn’t want to move so far away so I let him go.”

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Joan left school in 1938, having graduated at the start of the Second World War. Being a woman, she was not forced to enlist but her father Duncan served his country once again, this time as an amenities officer for the Australian Imperial Force in Townsville and Papua New Guinea at the age of 53. In her father’s absence, Joan worked at the local Commonwealth Bank, once again following in his footsteps. However, rather than being a Teller, Joan worked at the enquiries counter, because, “girls weren’t allowed to be Tellers.” Despite the restrictions of the role, Joan enjoyed her job because she was able to interact with all of the customers, many she already knew from around town. Joan’s determination to help others also begun to emerge during this time, as she became the president of a group known as the, “Younger Set,” a group of girls who worked together to raise money for charities and the war effort through holding social events. Joan obviously took after her mother in this regard. It was at one of these social functions during the war that she met two British Colonels. Joan became fast friends with both of the young men, but soon fell in love with one of them. He was from London, but planned to live in Scotland after the war. Although the man asked Joan to come back with him to Scotland, she was hesitant because she knew that he was already married, and she did not want to move all the way across the ocean to be with him. Despite leading different lives, the Colonel and Joan kept up a lifelong friendship, well into their later years.

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1945: Joan’s Experience as Miss Toowoomba

“Miss Toowoomba, that’s a very good memory. Yes, I won Miss Toowoomba. I won my husband then too (laughs).

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The events of this year are still a source of great pride and amusement for Joan and her family. In 1945, the first Miss Australia Quest was held in order to raise money for returned soldiers to build an ‘Anzac House’ in the Brisbane City-Centre, as well as in many of Australia’s capital cities at the time. The competition was held in stages, as it still is to this day, starting from town-based, ‘Miss’ competitions all the way through to Miss Australia. Given that Joan was both a beautiful young lady at 24 years old, and also someone with a keen interest in helping the war effort, she was eager to enter her local Miss Toowoomba competition. And of course, Joan would never miss the chance to be in the limelight. In order to raise more money, local businesses were expected to sponsor one of the girls in the competition. On his return from the war, Joan’s father had opened a sports store in town, and thus it was Joan’s assumption that her father’s business would sponsor her. She was therefore shocked and upset when she discovered that Duncan had in fact decided to sponsor another girl from the town. In the end, however, that did not matter, as Joan was ultimately awarded the prize of Miss Toowoomba 1945. Given her bright and infectious personality today, and her beautiful smile, it is easy to see why Joan was the winner. This success ultimately led to another, as she then went on to become Miss Darling Downs 1945 as well. With two sashes collected, Joan was deemed to be a strong forerunner for the crown of Miss Queensland. Unfortunately, that prize went to the lovely Rhonda Kelly, a University Graduate who went on to become the first Miss Australia. Despite coming second place, Joan was happy to have not won, as she did not want to travel overseas at the time. Despite their rivalry, Joan and Rhonda became lifelong friends, with Rhonda attending Joan’s 70 th birthday celebrations in 1991. This event is a very fond memory of Joan’s and she and her family still like to say that, “she was runner up to Miss Australia!”

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1945-1949: Joan and Ray

“My dress was very long; it was beautiful wasn’t it? Just lovely, I married a very nice fellow. Ray, he was wonderful.” “I was Joan Thompson, Duncan Thompson’s daughter, and then I became Joan Stuart, Ray Stuart’s wife” “A gentleman, he was. He was a school teacher, good brains, he was a lovely school teacher and a lovely man.”

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This story could almost be written in a book of fairy tales. After the main event of the Miss Toowoomba Quest, Joan helped the other ladies to organise a fundraiser dance to help generate more funds for the Anzac House appeal. The dance was held at the Memorial Hall, and served as a place to meet new people and promote a worthwhile cause. Despite being an organiser for the event, Joan did not actually bring a partner to the dance, as would be expected then. Due to a recent tennis injury to her ankle, she had determined that dancing would be out of the question. That was, until her brother Ian introduced her to his friend Ray Stuart. Ray was a university student who graduated from Emmanuel College with Ian Thompson, Joan’s brother. He took studies in the Bachelor of Arts while Ian was doing Bachelor of Arts/Law Degree. After graduating, Ray decided to become a school teacher and was sent to the small town of Ayr to teach. Prior to going to university, Ray served in the war, as the vast majority of young and fit men did during that time. While fighting for his country, Ray was shot in the elbow. The injury was so severe that it necessitated that he remained in an army hospital for over two years – unknown to Joan, who was living in Toowoomba and working at the Commonwealth Bank during the war. The two only met a couple of years later, when Ian brought Ray to Joan’s fundraiser. Joan describes Ray the first time she saw him as, “this tall, handsome fellow [who] looked a bit lost.” To her own surprise, Joan forgot about her injured leg and danced with Ray throughout the night, and, of course, it was love at first sight. The two stayed together for a number of years, and then on the 6 th of February 1949, Ray asked for Joan’s hand in marriage. As the story goes, Duncan Thompson only gave Ray his blessing once the young man could beat him at a game of chess. The couple finally married at a lavish ceremony in St Luke’s Anglican Church on the 12 th of October 1949. Joan wore an absolutely stunning wedding dress, and had three girls that she had been friends with since high school be her bridesmaids. Duncan Thompson acted out his role of her father and walked the 28-year-old down the aisle to be wedded. This day symbolised the beginning of a marriage that would last over 50 years. After a beautiful ceremony, Joan and Ray decided to honeymoon on Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef, at the advice of their travel agent. However, what their agent did not tell them was that October was the season of the mutton bird on Heron Island – the birds would come to the island in their droves and make a sound ‘something akin to a ghost being slowly murdered’ – not the best way to spend your honeymoon!

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1949-1975: Joan’s Family “Oh no, none of the kids were naughty, they were all very good. Duncan, Julie and Philip, they were all very good. Duncan’s a doctor, Julie’s a pharmacist and Philip’s a nurse.”

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Once Joan and Ray returned from their honeymoon, they settled into their peaceful life as a married couple. This peace, of course, was interrupted by the arrival of their three children. Duncan Stuart was born in 1950, and was named after his grandfather, as the first-born son of both Joan and Ray. Two years later, Julianne came into the world, the only girl of the three children and whom her family affectionately call ‘Julie’. The youngest, Philip, was born in 1955 and was five years younger than his older brother. The happy Stuart family in the same cottage for fifteen years at 10 Banksia Broadway in the sleepy little beach town of Burleigh Heads. The street was so close to the kids’ school, (Burleigh Heads State School) that they did not even have to cross the road to walk there. As the children moved into the high school years, the family shifted once again to a lovely big home on Burleigh Headland, known as the best block in Burleigh. The house that they lived in is still standing, after 54 years.

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1950 – 1975: Joan’s Life as a Working Mother

“We took over the Burleigh Newsagency, it was a very busy time I tell you. I wouldn’t go back to it now”

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When Joan and Ray got married, she was a worker at the Commonwealth Bank and he was a school teacher. As soon as they were married, Joan decided that she did not want to be a school teacher’s wife. According to Joan, she told Ray that, “You can’t afford me on me on your salary – we’ll get a business.” After some searching, the couple discovered that a newsagency was up for sale in Burleigh Heads, a very small shop compared to Black’s grocery store next door at the southern end of Connor Street, (where Connor’s Café is now). So, with no family help and a sense for adventure, Ray and Joan bought the business, christened it ‘Ray Stuart Newsagent’ and settled in to raise their family as working parents. Ray would run the store and do the paper delivery, despite his arm injury from being shot in World War II, and Joan would do all of the book-keeping and get to know all of the Burleigh Heads residents. Joan rarely brought the children to work, preferring to leave them home with a nanny in the years before they started school. Throughout her children’s younger years, Joan loved to be active in any associations that she could. She was on the Burleigh Heads State School and Miami State High School P&C committees as her children went through both schools, became President of the Burleigh Rotary-Annes in 1962 and President of the Burleigh Golf Club, (Joan and Ray helped the community to build the golf course together) the year before. She was also involved in the Gold Coast City Choir, where she was Treasurer for many years, was on the Lady Mayoress Welfare Committee, and helped to run school tuckshops, Innerwheel (a women’s volunteer service) and Brownies. All of this happening as she raised three beautiful children. Of course, if anybody could do it, it would be Joan.

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1975 – 2000: Joan’s Adventures

“I was the Burleigh Bird, and I went all around town hearing people’s stories. I’ve kept copies of my favourites”. “If you want to be a journalist, make sure that you can write shorthand. If you can write short-hand, you’ll be all set”

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As the three Stuart children approached the end of their schooling years, Ray and Joan started to merge into a different set of adventures. Joan excitedly launched herself in to the role of the Daily News Gold Coaster’s ‘Burleigh Bird’ in 1972, where she acted as a social reporter gathering the stories of people all throughout the town. The term ‘Burleigh Bird’ was given to her by a visiting exchange student from the USA, who saw that she was bringing news of “the warm heart of the Gold Coast’s social activities” to the readers of the paper. Joan loved this role, and stayed with it for four years. As Joan says, “I was just writing about things I knew and people wrote into me about the social news on the Gold Coast. I used to go around to the business and get all the information but these days you can just phone in!” To this day, her vibrant personality is fondly remembered by those who read her articles. In 1975, both Duncan and Julianne had graduated from high school and Philip was almost finished with his education. Ray and Joan had owned the newsagency for nearly thirty years, and were wanting to start to retire. It had always been their dream to travel the world, so that year they decided to put Philip in charge of the newsagency and went travelling around Europe. In order to see as much as the continent as possible the couple bought a Kombi van and spent four months exploring the United Kingdom and Europe. Once finished with their trip, they left the Kombi van in storage in Europe so that their daughter Julianne could use it for her travels the following year. Obviously, the holiday gave Joan and her husband the travel bug. In 1977, they decided to fully retire (Joan aged 56), selling the newsagency so that they could go over to America and Canada for a 12-month road-trip. This time they purchased a luxury motorhome with a shower and toilet so that they could fully immerse themselves in the luxury experience. Julianne joined her parents in the US in the October of that year, staying with them for over four months. After returning to Burleigh Heads in 1978, Joan and Ray bought yet another motorhome and toured their home country of Australia. While visiting Broome, NT, they decorated their van for the ‘Pearl Festival’ float procession and won a prize! Joan and her husband enjoyed the trip so much, that they decided to not come home and travelled the country yet again. All in all, Joan and Stuart travelled the world for around five or six years, enjoying their retirement and seeing both their home country and others. Once returning for good to their home on Burleigh Headland, life did not slow down for Joan. In 1984, she helped to found the board for the 4CRB Radio Station, where she stayed on as a board member, the publicity officer and community billboard announcer, which helped her to enter back into the world of journalism. She also was connected to the Television Ministry in ‘Meditation Medication with Reverend Derek Pryde and Friends’, a religious television programme. It was at this time that Joan and Ray’s children were starting to have children of their own. Life was definitely not slowing down for Joan!

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2000 – 2018: The Golden Years

“I love it here!”

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The last eighteen years have been a very exciting time for Joan. Her and Ray have had a wonderful life together. After retiring, the couple took great pleasure in helping their children raise their own families. It was at this point that Ray became a little sedate and got diabetes. After battling the disease for 13 years, Ray passed away on September 11, 2006, after a long and fulfilling life. Joan had her fair share of health scares, with shoulder replacement surgery in 2008, hip replacement surgery in 2010 and bowel cancer twenty years ago. Despite all of this, Joan has always kept her upbeat and energetic personality. She is incredibly proud of her three children, who now have families of their own. Duncan Stuart is a retired doctor who works in medical administration, and lives in Brisbane with his wife Alena. Julianne (Julie) lives in Varsity Lakes and is a pharmacist. Her daughter Elizabeth is Joan’s oldest grandchild (37 years old this year) and works as an accountant. Elizabeth is also the mother of Joan’s first (and currently only) great-child, having daughter Juliette (3 years old) with her husband David. Julie’s other child, Stuart Osachuk, is a builder who is living in Tweed Heads with partner Nicole. Joan’s three other grandchildren are the children of her son Philip. Johnathan (27) is a high school teacher at Deception Bay High School, where he lives with his partner Dani. Nicholas, the middle child, is a 25-year-old musician, while the youngest Amy, three years younger than her brother, is a circus performer in Flipside Circus. In 2009, Joan moved into Oznam Villa Aged Care Facility, at age 88. Throughout the many conversations that I had with Joan, she was constantly telling me how much she loves her new home. Still incredibly passionate, even at age 97, Joan wears the colour red every single day (which makes her look lovely), loves to play bingo and prays every night, reminiscent of her 60-year worship at St John’s Anglican Church. She also loves it when her son Duncan visits to put on a concert for all of the Oznam Villa residents. Although many of Joan’s memories have faded, she also has many that are very close to her heart. You would not meet a more passionate, energetic and lovely lady. She has had a wonderful life, and continues to enjoy it each and every day.

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Joan’s Life in Photos

1921: Baby Joan

Riding Bubbles to Glennie School

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East School Swim Champion

Tennis

Tennis

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Commonwealth Bank Clerk

Holiday Manly Beach

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1945: Joan with other Miss Toowoomba contestants (middle front row)

Miss Australia (Rhonda Kelly) and Miss Qld Runner Up (Joan)

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Young Joan in Miss Toowoomba

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Young Joan posing for Miss Toowoomba Quest

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Joan and Ray’s Wedding: 12 th October 1949

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Duncan Thompson received an MBE from Premier Frank Nicklin

The Stuart Family

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Ray and Joan’s Burleigh Newsagency: Ray Stuart Newsagent

Joan as the Burleigh Bird

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Family Fun

Joan with either golf or school group

Foundation announcer – Radio 4CRB

Family in Burleigh Heads

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Extended Family Christmas

Joan celebrating Christmas

St Johns Anglican Church with Bishop Smith

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Beautiful Joan Stuart

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The Stuart/Thompson Family Tree This family tree has been created based upon the names and relationships that have been described throughout Joan’s life. It is understood that some of the relations in this tree may have different last names through marriage etc.

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