Maisie Wilkes (1883-1962) and Jim Loomes (1889-1954) (fourth generation)

In 1914 Maisie Wilkes (third child of Christina and Frederick Wilkes) married James (Jim) Loomes in Melbourne.

Jim had been baptised in 1899 in the Anglican church in Wentworth. He met Maisie Wilkes in Wentworth, where he was working as a clerk in the customs office. After that, he worked in the Lands Department in New South Wales.

James' father, George Edward Loomes, was a Police Sergeant in the Balranald-Euston-Wentworth area. George, born in Yass, married Charlotte Botten, who was born in Castlemaine (daughter of Thomas Botten and Augusta Honig). George's parents (Jim’s grandparents), James Loomes (from England), a grazier, and Ellen Hollingworth, married at St Clements Anglican Church in Yass in 1856.

After Jim and Maisie’s marriage, they moved to Newcastle where the first three of their children were born
- Bernard (Barn) James, 1917, Newcastle
- Jean (1918), Newcastle. For more information see Jean.
- Maureen Peggy (Peg), 1919, Newcastle. For more information see Peg and Frank Sheean.
- Kathleen, 1926, Sydney.
For more about the family, see tree showing Jim and Maisie's descendants.

Around 1920 Jim and Maisie moved from Newcastle to Sydney, and the oldest of the three children began their schooling at St Vincent's Primary School in Ashfield, Sydney. They spent their holidays with their grandmother, Christina Wilkes, at Tara in Wentworth, travelling by train from Sydney to Hay. Uncle Bern (Maisie's brother) would meet them in the car at Hay and drive them via Balranald and Euston to Wentworth.

In 1926, in the same year his youngest child was born, James Loomes, as part of his work in the Lands Department, was moved to Moree in Northern NSW and put in charge of the eradication of the prickly pear in the region around the Queensland border. Prickly Pear was a succulent cactus introduced into Australia from America as stockfeed. It had no natural enemies, and spread rapidly over good grazing land, much of it in Queensland. In 1926, the Cactoblastis moth was introduced to Australia to eat the plants, with the release of millions of eggs near Chinchilla in Queensland. By 1930 much of the cactus was destroyed.

In Moree Jean attended the East Moree Primary school, while Barn went to the West Moree Catholic High School. Jean remembers writing and drawing in pencil in her exercise book, especially enjoying English, history and geography, and getting a new dress to wear to the show.