Jack Dean Featured

The family moved to Pooncarrie, in New South Wales in around 1870. This was where Jack Dean, from 7 years of age, learned about the hard life and the many trades he was to pass down to his three sons and three daughters.


Pictured below: The Thomas Samual and Caroline Dean family home at Pooncarrie, as seen in the 1980's. The family moved here from the Ovens area in North East Victoria.
John Frances Dean (Jack) was born on 31 December, 1863 at Ovens, Victoria, near Myrtleford and died on 18 September, 1930, at Boundary Bend, near Swan Hill, aged 66 years.

Most of the Dean sibling family of seven boys and one girl, were born and brought up in the ‘Kelly Country around Glenrowan, Euroa, Mansfield, Benalla, Eurobin, Beechworth and Ovens.

His father, Thomas Samual Dean, was particularly cruel to the boys. His wife, Caroline (Artus) tried to shelter the boys within the home. When they were flogged by their father, they would run to the nearby mountains and hide. She would then sneak out in the moonlight with food to feed them.
Jack's first main experience in life was when he became a hawker throughout Swan Hill, Mildura and the ‘back country’ along the Darling River and as well as around the Broken Hill area. He sold basic necessities such as boots, that were 2 shillings and 6 pence a pair. After that he worked along the Darling River doing all sorts of jobs as a tinsmith, plumber, bricklayer and builder of houses.
On 30 March 1908, John Francis (Jack) Dean, married Evelyn Emily (Eva) Sherring in the Church of England, Mildura.

Witnesses were Alfred Dean (father of the world renowned shark fisherman Alf Dean) and Eva's father, Samual James Highmore Sherring (who built the church they were married in). 
At the time they were married, Jack was 44 years old and Eva was 26. Over the next thirteen years, they had six children. Frank, Reg and Doris were born in Mildura and Billy, Hazel and Evie were born in Boundary Bend. Jack Dean had earned a reputation as a hard and honest worker. This paid off as his savings allowed him to buy a fruit block in Merbein in August, 1909. The block was one of the first land allocations within the Sunraysia fruit growing area and Jack worked the land growing grapes, figs and oranges for 5 years. In that time, Frank was born in 1910, Reg in 1913 and Doris in 1915.
It was perhaps an error of judgement when he sold the property, as he went to Mildura where he bought a passenger motor boat, 22 feet in length and carried drinkers to Gol Gol to get beer. It was licensed to carry 18 or 20 people and business was going well. Gol Gol, across the border from Mildura in NSW, did not have a ban on alcohol and enterprising Jack thought he could make a fortune from the "dry" Mildura.

To explain the ban on alcohol in Mildura, it had been originated by the prominent and influential Chaffey family, who had won a government contract, in the late 1880's, to establish a government irrigation system in Mildura. The Chaffey family's first irrigation town was in Ontario, USA, 60 km west of Los Angeles, California, in 1882. The Chaffeys had seen the scourge of alcohol in the western American states and their influence caused the first ban, in Mildura, being the only ban on alcohol in Australia. It is worthy of note that Jack Dean's father, Sam, built the home of the Chaffy family, "Rio Vista".

However, as time went on, his drinking became a problem and after coming home drunk each Sunday, Evelyn forced him to sell the boat in about 1916. It was sold cheaply after his new venture had cost him 210 pounds to buy. 
Jack Dean had become a noted horticulturalist. He had 8 references from his fruit block days in Merbein. In 1917 there was an advertisement in the paper for a job to manage O’Bree’s vines at Boundary Bend. He was successful in getting the job and again had to uplift his family.
In 1917 the Dean family, with dad, John Francis and wife,  Evelyn Emily, children Frank, Reg and Doris travelled on the paddle steamer “Ruby” from Mildura to Boundary Bend at a cost of 2 pounds 10 shillings.

They arrived 3 days later and went to live in a tin house on the O’Bree property. They later added Billy, Hazel and Evie to the family. 
He lasted 4 or 5 years there but had a disagreement and left to end up fishing. Jack got his professional fishing licence in about 1921. After establishing the fishing business, a man named Kirby worked his 20 nets while he went to establish the Arch Conner farm, building the house, sheds, planting vines, fruit trees and laying channels. Arch Conner went away fishing while Jack did all the work. Once that work was completed, Arch settled in and Jack left to work on 2 or 3 jobs other jobs doing renovations. 
Doris (right) and her sister Hazel, in 1983, stand next to the paddle steamer, 'Ruby', in which Doris, her parents and two brothers travelled on from Mildura to Boundary Bend, when she was 2 years old. 
At each job, he built a shack to live in. He hung around the present day Hortico area for 2 years. Jack Dean built a bag shack on the river 100 yards off the river on Rowes’ place near Buchanans’ and they were fishing there and Frank, Reg and Bill were with him. They had the punt with a shed on it to sleep in sometimes. His wife, Evelyn, left him in 1928, taking the younger children with her. He built another shack near Meridian Road for her and the girls and they stayed there. 
In 1930, Jack developed severe heath problems, ending up with double pneumonia at the Boundary Bend house. He was placed in the Swan Hill hospital and when the opinion was that he was incurable, he was placed on the train to go home to die. 
During the trip, he passed away and it was later diagnosed as tuberculosis. He was taken off the train near Manangatang after he died and buried beside the railway tracks. There was an inquest into his death at Robinvale and it is only presumed that he was exhumed from the Manangatang burial site and officially buried at the Bannerton Cemetery. (pictured left)
Alf Dean Senior, his brother, paid for the burial so that he didn’t have a pauper’s funeral. The children's ages then ranged from 6 to 20. The older two boys moved down to Robinvale by boat and the rest of the family joined them by horse and gig. They never did go back to Boundary Bend.