Harry & Jennifer Celebrate 60 Years of Love

Heartwarming, long term love stories are certainly not in short supply when it comes to the Burdekin Shire, and recently one epic tale in particular caught the attention of local support worker, Vanessa Parison.

Harry and Jennifer will soon celebrate 60 wonderful years of marriage and after hearing of the pair’s amazing life journey together, Vanessa was brought to tears as she shared in Harry and Jennifer’s lifetime of happiness and heartache.

The pair’s story began in Newcastle, NSW, when they met one another at a Church Fellowship Group in 1962. A few short years later, when Harry was 22 and Jennifer was 19, the two celebrated their wedding on the 29th of May 1965.

The years to follow provided plenty of professional development opportunities for Harry including a position with the Australian Antarctic Division where he spent 15 months as a carpenter sailing on the Nella Dan Ship to Macquarie Island. The only way the pair could communicate with one another was through coded telegram, however, shortly after, Jennifer found out she was pregnant, and their daughter, Alison was born on the 18th of June 1968.

With hopes of travelling Australia, Harry accepted a position with the Northern Territory Police Force in May of 1971, and on the 3rd of July, 1973, the pair happily welcomed their son Neil into the world. Together, Harry, Jennifer, Alison and Neil lived in many townships over the coming years where Harry served as a policeman including Pine Creek, Maranboy, Papunya, Darwin and Timber Creek.

The constant change of scenery left the family of four feeling both excited for what’s to come, yet isolated in the areas of education and professional development, leaving both Alison and Neil to attend Boarding School elsewhere.

Harry served many long years as a policeman and accumulated a lifetime of wonderful and sad memories before he was appointed the Officer in Charge of the Northern Territory Housing Commission in Tennant Creek after needing to resign from the force due to injury.

In 1988, Harry’s health got the better of him and he was forced to retire which led Harry and Jennifer to embark on a trip around Australia in 1992, however, eight short days into the pair’s travels, Harry was admitted to the Adelaide Hospital. Once he was cleared, Harry and Jennifer set off again only to have Harry needing to be rushed to Bendigo Hospital after his bowel had burst. After a week of fighting for his life in intensive care, Jennifer was determined to have him recover and shared hard words with Harry that night to turn his health around, and the very next day, there was an improvement.

To this day, Jennifer believes her love for Harry helped save his life, and that was the only medicine he needed.

After many more years of travel, the pair settled in Townsville with Neil and his children, however almost four years later, Neil tragically passed away with brain and lung cancer.
It wasn’t until 2019 when the pair made the decision to call Ayr home, and despite a few more health hiccups, both Harry and Jennifer enjoy their life in the Burdekin immensely.

In January of 2024, Harry unfortunately had a stroke which caused him to lose the sight of his right eye, and in February, the pair made the decision to switch support service providers which is when they met Vanessa.

Both Harry and Jennifer agree that they have been blessed to have such a wonderful life together and could easily share stories of their youth until their next anniversary and beyond.

Congratulations on 60 beautiful years of marriage Harry and Jennifer.

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