Jack Shanks didn't quite reach his century of years, but the seemingly-ageless farmer and sportsman recently did enjoy his final moments, doing what he loved best, working on his family property.

During his 99-years, Jack touched numerous lives across the local and regional communities, from his days as a sheep breeder, farmer, charity worker, diligent neighbour, good citizen, and President of both the Dubbo Show Society and Harness Racing Club.

Jack is survived by his daughters, Nancy and Marilyn, and son, Robert, and their families. His wife of 62 years Fay died in 2011. The “lovely gentle man” was farewelled by family and friends at St Andrew’s Chapel where he and Fay (Edwards) had exchanged vows on 9 July, 1949.

The pair had met at tennis and dances and, after their marriage and an eventful trip to the Gold Coast for their honeymoon, Jack and Fay made “Quamby”, near Coalbaggie their home.

Although it was Jack’s parents’ home, the elder couple had plans to build a cottage for themselves. Son Robert takes up the story.

“Dad assumed the responsibility of ‘Quamby’ — by then 2000 acres — while Frank purchased ‘Dalwood’; Dawn married Allen Tink from Roslyn at Cobbocco

“This was Mum’s first real home, as she had spent 16 years at Dad’s mother’s.

“They were to share 40 years together in their own home, before Mum fell ill.

“During those four decades, children, grand-children and great grand-children, along with Daryl and Tony were spoiled, praised, advised, taught lessons and most loved by both Mum and Dad,” Robert reflected fondly.

Robert told those gathered at his farewell to celebrate a life fully-lived, saying  that his father: “seldom openly-showed his love to his immediate family, but he shared his pride in our achievements to others”.

Jack and Fay continued to live at ‘Quamby’, after their three children moved on with their lives.

“Dad continued running their business well into his eighties, with the help of his family and, when Mum entered care in 2005, he traveled into Orana Gardens on a regular basis to be with her.

“After she died in 2011, he stayed at ‘Quamby’ for the next 12 years on his own.”

Robert spoke of his father’s early childhood: “playing with his siblings and neighbouring kids and doing chores like gardening, feeding chooks, pigs and turkeys… being on a farm, they all rode horses and made their own amusement by inventing games.”

During pre-school times more than 95 years ago, and with the two world wars and the Depression occurring around them, the Shanks family, like many others, made their own soap, butter, bread, salted the meat, and grew all their own vegetables and fruit.

Robert told the gathering at St Andrews of his father’s lifelong learning, forged in tough times.

“Dad learnt not to be wasteful, greedy, or lazy, as everyone had their jobs to do, as families of that period, had to be self-sufficient.

“About once a fortnight, they went by horse-and-buggy to town for groceries that consisted of vinegar, 30kg bags of flour, sugar, and salt.

“It was a two-hour trip each way, and they picked-up potatoes as these were the only vegetable Dad recalled they didn’t grow.”

In an interesting aside, Robert said: “the horse-and-sulky were tied-up at the horse trough in the centre of Talbragar Street in front of the Pastoral Hotel and Goss’s Bakery.

“The Newell Highway was a gravel road, as was Talbragar Street!” he said

Schooling started for Jack when he was five, riding horses with his brother Frank through paddocks to the building on the Collie Road.

The school had one teacher, seven classes and 15–20 kids. When Dawn started two years later, they took the buggy to school. The horses were left at Fox’s property, Dalwood, and they would walk the last 300 yards (metres) to school.

After primary school, Jack boarded in Fitzroy Street with the Phillips family. He walked to Dubbo High School and home for lunch each day, and was paid two shillings (20 cents) a week to mow the lawns and milk a cow for Mrs Phillips. Jack was used to milking, as he had hand-milked the cows on the dairy farm at home.

The ageing gentleman, Jack, had an incredible memory and, in recent years, he could recall the names of the families and businesses he walked past in those three years he was at Dubbo High.

Robert and the family also recall their family’s beloved patriarch's amazing talents, honed as much at home, as school.

“He didn’t claim to be a great scholar, but he reckoned he was pretty good at math’s, and his handwriting was immaculate.

“Just recently, when being interviewed by an historian, he was asked what he learnt at school. He launched into the ‘12 inch to the foot, three-feet to the yard, five-and-a-half yards to the perch, four perch to one chain, 22 yards to one chain, 10 chains to a furlong, eight furlongs to a mile, 1760 yards to the mile, 5280 feet to the mile, 63,360 inches to the mile,’ and he would have kept going, but the interviewer burst-out laughing, and said ‘point made. Jack’!”

Jack was back on the farm after his boarding days in town. From 14, he lived in his paradise. He worked horse teams from the age of 11 and, along with Frank and his father and uncle, grew 1200 acres of wheat without any mechanisation in the Depression years.

“During that season, when neighbours helped each other, the Furlong brothers, Snowy and Knobby, helped with the harvest and, Dad said, they had four by eight feet-wide horse-drawn headers following each other stripping wheat.

“He often said: ‘what would you give to have a photo of that’, with thousands of bags of wheat in the paddock. But photos were rare in those days,” Robert said.

Cutting chaff, making hay for the draught horses, dairy, pigs, sheep, cattle and clearing land made Jack a fit man, his body honed by a demanding workload and long hours.

“Dad said, you could talk to horses when you were working, and they were great company, but you only ever talked to a tractor when it didn’t bloody start,” Robert told the congregation.

Growing-up wasn’t all work. Jack and his family played tennis, cricket, gymkhanas, and danced with their neighbours. Most families attended country churches on a regular basis, and friendships from those early times, exist three generations later.

Jack’s Dad passed-away three months after he and Fay moved home, at “Blackbrae”, at Murnda, the original Shanks Property outside Melbourne.

By the early 1950s, horses had given way to tractors and electricity was connected, so farming became much-less labour-intensive.

“Dad said, hydraulics were the most-significant advantage in his farming lifetime, as they replaced a lot of back-breaking lifting,” Robert recalled.

Jack replaced Corriedale sheep with first-cross ewes and Dorset Rams and commenced 70 years of fat lamb breeding.

“This resulted in friendly rivalry for bragging rights with the Wests, Whillocks, Dixons, Morris’s, Kelly’s, Greenwoods, Hollows, et cetera. for the highest-priced prime lambs at the Dubbo Saleyard.

“The Agents’ Associations, held a minute’s silence in recognition of his support of the saleyards for over 70 years.”

Rob told the congregation, that their father, despite being very busy farming, took a great interest in his children’s schooling.

“He involved himself in the small school sports carnivals, attended P&C meetings, helped get the Coalbaggie Hall ready for bonfire nights and end-of-year presentation days, as well as some memorable Christmas tree nights.”

During the 1950’s, Jack played cricket with Coalbaggie in the Dawson Cup in Dubbo with his mates, mostly farmers, and Sundays were spent sharing picnics in the park with the Warrens, McCullaghs, and Cox’s.

Jack also became involved in the Show Society and, in the 1950s he, along with his brother, Frank and several others, supplied the machinery to plow and plant turf on the Showground arena and surrounds which were previously just Cat-head and Khaki weeds.

“Dad’s long involvement with the Show Society, and later-on, the Trotting Club, were rewarded with life membership of both organisations.

“This was special for Dad, as he said, to be recognised by fellow committee members, was the greatest tribute”.

Jack served as President of the Dubbo Show Society for five years, and then devoted 10 years as President of the Western Group of Shows.

He also gave countless hours to the Trotting Club. While these activities were a major part of his life, the main social activities revolved around dances and balls with Fay during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Robert shared the following about his father’s remarkable financial skills.

“He was what, some could say, ‘careful’ with money, as a result of growing-up during the Depression.

“When I was 10-years-old, I watched as he argued with a shearing contractor over a bill at the end of the run.

“The bill was for 114 pounds, 13 shillings, and sixpence — about $230 and five cents in today’s money. There was no dispute over the pounds or shilling, the blue was over the sixpence!

“Dad refused to pay the sixpence and, as the cranky shearer was about to drive-away after giving Dad some suggestions as to what he could do with his shed, Dad told him not to forget the two lambs or killers in the back pen which were worth about five pounds ($10).

“The same shearer continued to shear there for another 20 years!”

Jack was known for his generosity, supporting a lot of charities over the past 20 years. These included children’s cancer, children’s health in general, Alzheimer’s and Dementia support.

In the mid 1970s. the Boardman family from Canowndra bought a property adjoining Jack and Fay’s, Robert says it was a fortuitous purchase.

“Mum was a great horse-lover and, with the aid of a neighbour, Tom Watts, convinced Dad to buy three horses from Mr Boardman.

“They nearly didn’t stay, as one of them reached over the sheep-yard fence and killed three lambs the first week”!

Thankfully, they held-on, because ‘Lady Bangaroo’ bred four foals for the Shanks family. Three of them matured into very good race-horses.

“’Quamby’s Pride’ allowed Mum and Dad to travel to Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and everywhere in between.

“They loved following their horses, which brought both joy and relaxation.”

Quamby’s Pride famously won the 1980 Queensland Pacing Derby at Albion Park.

After breaking on the first turn, the gutsy stayer outlasted the great ‘Gamalite’ and stamped itself a champion. Interestingly, The Quamby’s Pride Pace, is one of the feature races at the annual Carnival of Cups in Dubbo.

Another of Jack’s favourite horses, was ‘Fay’s Delight’.

At the end of the service for his Dad, Jack, Robert had everyone wiping their eyes as he spoke of his father’s subtle sense of humour.

“When he was 93, Dad had fallen in the kitchen and, prior to the operation to replace his hip, he was asked if he wanted to be revived if things don’t go according to plan.

“He quickly responded saying, he had a cupboard full of Christmas presents he was planning to hand-out. The doctor smiled — ‘I’ll take that as a yes’! he said.”

“Dad was home with his new hip six weeks after his surgery.

“At 96, he was still active enough to help with mustering, lamb marking, and to drive a truck during hay carting.

He remarked that, although we had put a thousand tonnes of hay into the sheds that day, the only thing that got hot was the hydraulic oil. It was a vast change to the early days of pitchforks, drays, and sheaf hay.”

Jack continued in his advisory role and spent many hours cutting burrs and taking a great interest in what was going on around the farm. He tended the orange trees, kept his lawns mowed, and did plenty of walking and burr-cutting.

“Four days before Dad passed away, Marilyn took him to the trots to watch his horse ‘Eastagrin’ win, and he had a smile to remember.”

“His last week, consisted of winning the trivia at the village, viewing photos of his great grand-son Jake and Ash’s wedding, and watching his horse win at the trots.

“On his last day with us, he drove with me out to the farm, mowed his lawn, ate his favourite lunch of stewed fruit and custard, all the while talking of old times, about the horse teams while having a coffee in his mug.

“Around 1.30 Jack went to his room for a rest.

“A short time later, he called for me then, left us peacefully.”

Jack had fulfilled his wish to pass in his own home.