Dookie couple Michael and Jeanette Ryan spent much of their lives married to each other, before they died only a week apart.
The couple was well known in the Dookie area and throughout the wider Goulburn Valley.
They met at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne.
Mr Ryan had broken his nose while ice skating years earlier and was having it operated on.
Mrs Ryan was one of the nurses at the hospital.
The couple’s daughter Joanne Bowmaker remembers hearing the story of when her parents met.
“The first time they met, she (Mrs Ryan) came into the ward and said ‘Mr Ryan you have your gown on back to front’,” she said.
When they married, Mrs Ryan moved to Dookie where her new husband had lived most of his life.
Mr Ryan was the youngest of four boys of a farming family that had been in the district since the late 1850s.
In the early years of their marriage, Mr Ryan worked the farm by day and ran a cleaning business at night.
Mrs Ryan threw herself into nursing in Shepparton, where she steadily climbed the ranks.
She had a 50-year career as a nurse, which started in Melbourne and later moved to management levels of Goulburn Valley Health and aged care facilities in Shepparton.
Mrs Bowmaker remembers her mother’s passion for her career and thirst for learning.
“She was very driven in regards to nursing,” she said.
“She wanted to bring St Vincent’s intensive care practices to GV Health.”
Mrs Bowmaker said Mrs Ryan had a passion for learning, earning her Masters in Nursing Administration while in her 50s.
During her career in Shepparton, Mrs Ryan worked her way up to the position of deputy director of nursing at Goulburn Valley Base Hospital.
Working in Shepparton and Mooroopna, among her achievements was playing an instrumental role in upgrading the children’s ward, as well as helping to establish the endoscopy unit, rural intensive care course for nurses, and setting up a liaison and transport for Indigenous anti-natal patients.
After retiring from the hospital, Mrs Ryan went back to work a year later at Shepparton Villages, where she served in roles including director of nursing, executive manager of care services and on the Shepparton Villages board in a career that spanned 15 years before she retired at the age of 72.
From 2011 she was chairperson of the Greater Shepparton Positive Ageing Advisory Strategy and the Positive Ageing Action Plan, which is assisting Greater Shepparton City Council in developing an age-friendly community.
Mrs Ryan was also heavily involved in the Dookie community and was at the forefront of many projects that would improve the community.
Over the past six years she had been the Dookie and District Development Forum chairperson and in this time she always endeavoured to increase the tourism prospects and economic viability of her town.
Just four days after she died, Mrs Ryan was named the Dookie and City of Greater Shepparton Senior Citizen of the Year at the Australia Day awards.
Accepting the award on behalf of her mother, Mrs Bowmaker told the audience she was “incredibly proud” of her mother and her achievements.
Among his efforts in the community, Mr Ryan chaired the Dookie Silo committee that successfully stopped the silos from being closed and instead they received a large upgrade.
In the 1980s he was a pioneer in soil salinity control and after years of work on local committees not getting very far, he somehow organised a personal meeting with then Victorian Premier Joan Kirner and convinced her government to invest heavily in the issue.
Back on the farm, Mr Ryan put lights on his tractors and harvesters and was the first farmer in the region to farm at night.
After retiring from full-time farming in his 50s, he turned his talents to poetry and had numerous poems published and placed second in a national poetry competition.
“They were very happy with what they achieved. And they loved Dookie with a passion,” Mrs Bowmaker said.
“They were very pleased we (their children) grew up here.”
Mrs Bowmaker remembers her parents as people who loved each other, their family and their community.
“Dad was the gentlest, kindest, most loving father you could have had,” she said.
“He was absolutely devoted to Mum.”
She said when Mrs Ryan became ill with bowel cancer in her 70s, Mr Ryan looked after her.
He was also the one to look after Mrs Bowmaker’s own children, his grandchildren, when she moved back to the area and went back to work.
“He was just a beautiful man,” she said.
Mrs Bowmaker also spoke highly of her mother.
“She was a great mum,” she said.
“She was so enthusiastic about education and doing the best we could in terms of learning.
“She was absolutely devoted and passionate about the farm, her children and nursing.
“Dad always had the brilliant sense of humour and Mum was the organiser.
“She taught us to be independent.”
Mr and Mrs Ryan died from COVID-19-related complications.
Both had tested positive to the virus on New Year’s Eve and were admitted to hospital at Goulburn Valley Health 10 days later.
Mr Ryan was 84 when he died on January 15.
Mrs Ryan was 82 when she died just seven days after her husband, on January 22.
Their daughter Joanne Bowmaker said they were both triple-vaccinated, but were elderly and had underlying medical conditions.
“They thought being triple-vaccinated they would be safe,” she said.
“But they had become very frail.
“The message is it is not over yet.”
Mr and Mrs Ryan are survived by their children Joanne (Bowmaker), Michael, Damien and Olivia (Mitchell), 11 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, with another one on the way.