Jean Loomes, second child of James and Maisie Loomes, was born in 1918 in Newcastle, and is the last surviving member of the fourth generation of the Minogue/Wilkes tree.

In 1928, when Jean was ten years old, the family moved to Sydney where James Loomes, at the age of 39, was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to retire on superannuation. After months of treatment he was ordered to a drier climate, and so, in that same year, the family moved to Wentworth to live at Tara.

Jean says that in grade 6, aged 11, she walked each day from Tara to St. Ignatius' Convent school in Wentworth. She usually had lunch at the Commercial Hotel, feeling very privileged by the welcome she got from Maureen and E.J. Sykes. School was enjoyable, she says, with lots of concerts. Jean loved the schooling - she did not want to leave but was not so enamoured of the nuns. Jean remembers her first confession, she thought if she was sorry you had to cry, so she pinched herself to make herself cry. The convent school went to sixth class, so Jean attended the Wentworth public school, which created a fuss by the Catholics. According to Jean, Maisie was excommunicated for this. Many years later, Father Higgins ignored this. Maisie went to Mass every Sunday, but was never allowed to go to communion.

Jean liked English, Art and History. She and Betty Curry rode their bikes from Wentworth to Dareton to play inter-school basketball and then rode back again.

After completing intermediate (fourth year of high school), Jean left, her parents unable to pay for her to continue. She started work doing the books for the ironmonger, Mr Bill Laurenson, in Wentworth, for a year. With the recommendation of Isabel McLeod (aged 23), around 1934, Jean (aged 16) got a job as a reporter for the Wentworth area at Sunraysia Daily. Her first task was writing a court report in Wentworth, in which a divorce case displayed the 'seamier side of life'. She reported on council meetings, balls, CWA and sporting events.

In 1936 along with Joan Sykes and Lila Crozier, Jean had her ‘coming out’ (see first photo to right) at a Ball in the RSL or Legacy Hall in Mildura. Milly Crozier would be the bridesmaid for Peg Loomes, Jean's sister, at her marriage to Frank Sheean in 1945.

The Sunraysia Daily bought the Western Evening News (the Wentworth paper), and Jean did the reporting for that until the war broke out in 1939.

She shared an office with Jack Valentine, the printer at Darling Street, Wentworth. The paper then sent her, at the age of 20, to Castlemaine where she worked on the Castlemaine Mail for 12 months. Because of the war, they were short staffed: there was only the editor, Milton Lewis, and Jean and printing staff. She worked from 10.00 am to sometimes 2.00 or 3.00 am. It was there that Jean met Alan Roper, who was working for the Bank of NSW at Ballarat. Jean then, helped by Milton Lewis, got a job at the Liquid Fuel Control board in Melbourne where for 12 months she answered mail from people, such as farmers and bus drivers, who wanted an increase on their special petrol allowances.

In 1942, she married Alan Roper.

Jim, her father, developed emphysema and was nursed for many years by Maisie at Tara with the help of Maisie's parents, Christina and Frederick, who also supported them financially.
Jim died of Tuberculosis at the age of 47 in 1954. Tuberculosis (also called TB, or ‘consumption’) is an infectious disease that had been known for thousands of years, possibly originating from cattle. It affects the lungs, and was only eradicated after the 1950s by the use of antibiotics.