Janet Thelma (‘Jennie’) Harrington – Warwick’s iconic recycler
Happily, there is one extraordinary person who, despite the
treatment meted out to her, remained kind and generous and was widely respected
for her honesty – Janet Thelma (‘Jennie’) Harrington, affectionately known as
‘The Can Lady’.
Born in Cairns in 1938, Jennie (she always insisted on that
spelling) was adopted from a Brisbane orphanage by Ada and Allister Pearce of Dragon
St. During her time with the Pearces and their other adopted child, Peter
Spreadborough/Pearce, she attended Central School and underwent surgery to
correct a cleft palate. After leaving school, she worked in the kitchen at St
Catherine’s Anglican Girls School.
After her adoptive father died in 1961, followed in April
1962 by her adoptive mother, Jennie married elderly widower, Francis James (‘Poppy’)
Harrington, who had lived alone since the death of his first wife, Harriet, in
1949. Jennie was just 29 when ‘Poppy’ died at the age of 92 on 22 May 1968 but
she never remarried and never forgot him, posting a large ‘In Memoriam’ notice
in the Warwick Daily News every year on the anniversary of his death and continuing
to live in the simple home they shared at 4 William St.
Jennie adored babies and had dearly wanted children of her own, but instead gave thoughtful gifts to new mothers, remembered local children’s birthdays, and would regularly go to the orphanage in Brisbane at Christmas to make sure the children received presents. She knew what it was like not to receive gifts.
She was able to afford this by collecting aluminium cans, bottles
and newspapers. (Cans were plentiful beside highways until the Clean Up
Australia campaign began in 1989 and, as recently as 2014, Queensland was
officially the worst State in Australia for littering rural highways, with over 53 items of
rubbish per square kilometre.)
Her dedicated recycling efforts also enabled her to buy the small antiques, porcelain figurines, dolls and fine china that she enjoyed collecting. It also meant she could attend performances of ballroom dancing and classical ballet, both of which she loved. She even travelled to Sydney one year to see Swan Lake.
Jennie became a familiar sight as she cycled around the city,
her bike festooned with bags of cans, and was known to pedal as far as
Toowoomba. However, when she acquired a car, she travelled throughout the
district – she was once spotted at Cunningham’s Gap, laying her collection of
cans on the road and driving over them to crush them. She certainly enjoyed the
freedom the car gave her although on one memorable occasion, when she was pulled
over for not indicating, she responded indignantly that she’d been told the car
was automatic!
Jennie often attended weddings and funerals, slipping quietly into
the back of the church for the service and even attending wakes, but regrettably,
she was not always well treated. Her hip was broken when she was knocked from
her bike by a group of drunken men; her most precious possession (a photograph
of her father) was lost when thieves broke into her home; and, on her 80th
birthday, she learned that her affairs had been placed under the control of the
Public Trustee and that her home and all possessions had been sold without her
knowledge.
While her William St home was demolished, some 40 of her
porcelain dolls were purchased by a local resident and are now treasured by a
new generation of collectors.
Jennie's genuine Shirley Temple doll, one of her treasured collection of porcelain dolls.
Throughout her life, those who took the time to know Jennie treated her with kindness and understanding – a local hairdressing salon washed her hair each week for just $2.00; the Fire Brigade regularly checked on her and did tasks such as changing light bulbs; the boys from a local butcher shop taught her to drive; a service station gave her bacon and eggs for breakfast in exchange for her hosing their driveway; one person made dresses for her, others gave her lifts, and the community took up a collection to purchase a disability scooter for her when she became less mobile.
The level of public concern and affection for Jennie was evident when she was hospitalised in 2015. When the hospital was unable to find a local care placement for her in December that year, she was taken to a nursing home in Millmerran. The then 77-year-old had been such a familiar and loved figure in town that concerned residents called for her to be brought ‘home’. She returned to Warwick in July 2016 to live at Akooramak Care of Older Persons, the service owned and operated by the Warwick community since its establishment by The Warwick Benevolent Society in 1876 – the year her beloved ‘Poppy’ was born.
Jennie continues to live at Akooramak where friends such as Vince Hemmings have visited her with gifts of her favourite chocolates (and a Pepsi!). Jennie has also been able to make contact with her birth mother's sister and her family, living in Collinsville.
‘Lost Faces’ member, Jackie Hawthorne Salske, summed up the feelings of many when she commented: “The dear Lord had better have a brand new bike ready for Jennie when she arrives so she can carry on collecting bottles and cans in Heaven”.
The story above has been drawn from the recollections posted by literally hundreds of members of Lost Faces of Warwick Facebook group in early 2020, as well as from public records and newspaper stories such as the one below, published in 1983.
