When William met Jessie Part 1

Jessie Florence Brown was the second of five children born to Herbert Charlie Brown and his wife Annie Louise Loveday. Herbert was a butcher and the family resided in Walthamstow in Essex in England. Other than Census records of the day, little can be found about Jessie and her recruitment as a nurse and appointment to the Bermondsey Hospital. Jessie did have a brother Herbert who served with the British Army during the war.
What is known from William’s army records is that, in August of 1918, William’s mother was advised that he had been admitted to the Bermondsey Hospital suffering from disordered action of the heart. There he wrote in an autograph book belonging to Jessie,
“My love is like a cabbage, divided into two.
The leaves I give to others.
The heart I give to you.”

Undoubtedly the words of a lovestruck young man sick and a long way from home. The signature with the addition of ‘dinkum’ surely was enough to win any young woman’s heart. This autograph book gives the reader quite an insight into Jessie as a nurse. Her patients have filled the book with poems, cartoons and drawings indicating their regard for her and suggesting she had quite a sense of humour.
Before he was sent home to be discharged medically unfit, William and Jessie were married on 8 February 1919 in the Parish Church at Walthamstow. In December of 1919, he arrived home to be declared medically unfit and returned to the family farm at Glastonbury. Jessie arrived shortly thereafter and they began their lives together.
In 1925, they were living in Stewart St where William was a piggery attendant. From 1928 until at least 1958 they lived at 37 Rifle Range Road and William worked in the Butter Factory. William and Jessie had three children including sadly, a still born baby born in 1929. So the English nurse and the Glastonbury farmer appear to have found ‘happily ever after’ here in Gympie.
Note from the researcher: In 2017, a descendant of William and Jessie, now living in Victoria, commissioned the Gympie Family History Society to research the Betts family. During email conversations the gentleman disclosed that he possessed the above mentioned autograph book and would gift it to us in gratitude. It is now a treasured part of our collection.
Source: Trove Digitised Newspapers
National Archives of Australia World War one records.
Australian Electoral Rolls