Jack Lawson has lived in Newcastle his whole life but he’s no stranger to love, friendship and adventure.
Born in 1923 and currently the oldest person at Maroba, Jack grew up in Hamiliton, Newcastle with his parents and brother. Jack remembers walking around town and making his own fun with friends and his brother including going on biking adventures to Raymond Terrace.
Jack was confirmed as Anglican at 13 years old at St Peter’s Anglican Church in Hamilton. Devoted to his faith, Jack would regularly attend Sunday School. Sharing the same friends and attending the same church, Jack met Dorothy, fell in love, and in 1947 they got married at the Tutor Street Presbyterian Church. Shortly after they had three beautiful sons who were baptised at the same place.
Jack worked a few jobs including paper runs and a grocer at the Newcastle-famous Lindstrom Bros grocery store. In this role Jack would collect food orders from customers houses, return to the store to collect their shopping list and then deliver it to the customers’ house. You could say was the original food delivery service unless you consider the cart and horse drawn milk and bread drop-off that Jack remembers seeing.
Eventually Jack would find his calling as a fitter where he would construct and keep industrial machinery operating. In 1939, Jack started working at BHP just as WWII began. BHP played a crucial role in the production of steel and machinery for the war. Jack left BHP in 1945 and began working at Cardiff Locomotive Workshops (now known as the Cardiff Maintenance Centre). He then worked at the Broadmeadow Railway Locomotive Depot where Jack performed repairs on steam trains as diesel trains were not in service yet.
In 1982, Jack retired from work and always being a bit of a handyman, learned woodturning. With practice, Jack developed his woodturning craft incredibly and even donated some of his timberworks to various charities including Meals on Wheels. Now Jack designs beautiful and thoughtful cards on his computer, prints them and gives them out to family and friends.
Adventurous and in love, Jack and Dorothy travelled all over the world including to Hong Kong and Europe and in 1995 they spent a month travelling across Canada.
In 1997, Jack and Dorothy took a trip to visit Dorothy’s cousin in Cairns and on that trip, they spontaneously decided to drive to Darwin! This idea started a 7-month long road trip around Australia, amounting to 24,000 kilometres.
During this time, Dorothy sadly developed more prominent symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease, however Jack remembers her joy seeing gardens and native wildflowers. Needing some professional care and support but still wanting to live independently, Jack and Dorothy moved to Maroba’s self-care units in 2000.
Jack said, “I’ve been very happy we made the decision to come to Maroba because we’ve been given a lot of help.”
After living for in the units for 3 years, it was decided Dorothy required more support and was moved to the Memory Support Suburb where she sadly passed away in 2006. Jack continued to live in the units until moving to the Lodge in November 2024.
Jack and Dorothy would often go on holidays with another couple, Valda and Bill McKim, and they formed deep friendships with each other. After the passing of Dorothy and 5 months later the passing of Bill, Jack and Valda became very close friends, created a strong bond and supported each other’s grief. Jack and Valda would often spend time together and go on holidays including to China in 1977 and cruises. After 17 years of this close bond of friendship, Valda sadly passed away at 102 in July 2024.
Today, Jack is eagerly involved in Maroba’s activities. You’ll often see Jack testing his mind at bingo or trivia. He maintains his health and fitness by attending Tai Chi, movement groups and the Maroba gym, supported by the enthusiastic Allied Health Team. Jack’s friends would also regularly pick him up to exercise in the pool and socialise at Mayfield Wests. He only finished up pool exercises last year at age 101 saying he started “floating like a brick.”
Jack says he feels he gets along with a lot of people at Maroba and is happy with the support provided stating “I’ve enjoyed the Maroba life,” and “they were very good to Dorothy when she was getting worse.”
In his free time (if there is any in his busy Maroba schedule) Jack reads on his kindle, keeps up to date with the news and finds out information on his computer which he also uses to keep in touch with his family.
Even at the age of 102 Jack still finds a way to make life an adventure.