Sylvester, Joanne,
Van Os, Joanne,
Ansell, Joanne,
Name
Joanne Sylvester,
Collection
Territory Women,
HistoryNT,
Place of birth
Sydney (N.S.W.),
Date of birth
1955-05-08,
Occupation
Pastoralist,
Business Woman,
Biographical notes
Joanne came to the Northern Territory in 1976 and worked at the remote community of Wadeye or Port Keats as a radio operator. Joanne met Rod Ansell in 1977 and they married in 1978. The couple worked on properties across the Top End for ten years bull-catching and mustering in cattle and buffalo they had two sons Sean and Callum
In 1984, Joanne started a store at Bulman in southeast Arnhem Land after being approached by the local people and in 1985 she set up and managed the Gulin Gulin Resource Centre at Bulman, while her husband was taking up a new lease of Melaleuca Station. She also supervised son, Callum's correspondence lessons.
In 1988, Joanne was a pastoralist owning and managing Melaleuca Station in partnership with her husband Rod. She drove the Station, tractors, trucks, operated machinery, butchering and packing pet food; trucking buffalo to Point Stuart meatworks was the bookkeeper, nurse, teacher, chef and many other duties like all partners of many of the Northern Territory Stations owners.
Joanne divorce Rod and is now married to Darwin Lawyer Lex Sylvester and they have a daughter named Ali. Source: Northern Territory Women's Register 1948-1988. Darwin : Northern Territory Women's Advisory Council. 1991. p.12.,