Jessie Vasey - Early Life

Early Life

Jessie Mary Vasey was born on 19 October 1897 in Roma, Queensland, the eldest of three daughters of Joseph Halbert, a farmer and grazier, and his wife Jessie, née Dobbin. Young Jessie attended Moreton Bay Girls' High School. The family moved to Victoria in 1911, where Jessie attended Lauriston Girls' School. In 1913, she became a border at the Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne (MLC). Jessie continued her education at the University of Melbourne living at Trinity College Hostel. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in April 1921.

While at MLC, Jessie became friends with a fellow boarder, Marjorie Vasey, although the latter was seven years her junior. Later the Halbert family moved to Kew, just around the corner from the Vasey family. On 17 May 1921, she married Marjorie's brother, George Alan Vasey, an Australian Army major at St Matthew's Church of England, Glenroy, Victoria. (Like his family, she called him by his middle name.) When a friend asked Alan how he was going to get on married to a blue stocking, he replied "Don't worry - I'll soon have the blue stocking off her".

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