Jean notches up 90

By Casey Neill
TECOMA’S Jean Speedie has spent almost all of her 90 years in the hills.
She celebrated her recent birthday with her extensive family at Sherbrooke’s Marybrooke on Saturday 6 September.
Jean was born in a Yarraville hospital on September 4 in 1918.
She was the youngest of 10 and the only one born outside their Tecoma home.
Her father William Thomas Anderson was a pioneer in the area.
Tecoma’s Anderson Road is named after the berry farmer.
Jean began her education at Belgrave State School, now known as Tecoma Primary School, in 1924.
Today she can see the place where four generations of her family were educated from the window of her Frame Avenue home.
Jean’s nephew introduced her to the man she would marry when she was just 16.
Owen Speedie lived just a kilometre away, but moved to Papua New Guinea to search for work during a lull in the hills.
Jean followed, and the pair married in Port Moresby on 16 July 1938.
This year would have marked their 70th anniversary.
The family returned to the hills when World War 2 saw dozens evacuated from the country in December 1941, just months after her first child Ralph was born.
Ralph said his mother was very sprightly and fit.
She still walks to Belgrave twice a week, doesn’t drink or smoke and loves getting out in her garden.
“The way she’s going she’ll outlive all of us,” he said.
Jean has six children – three boys and three girls, born in that order – 16 grand-children, 16 great grandchildren and one more on the way.
“And she knows everybody’s birthday,” Ralph said.
Jean’s family offered to buy her a new plasma screen TV to mark her milestone.
But she refused to part with her 1970s model and instead requested a new mattress.
“Now, we can’t get her out of bed,” Ralph quipped.