No one knows where Jerry came from, in need of help and a place to stay, he showed up one night in 1929 at the home of Lionel and Beatrice Orr in Upper Ferntree Gully. Lionel and Beatrice were in their fifties by this time, with no children of their own.
Lionel and Jerry quickly became best friends, and soon Jerry was going to work with Lionel who was either a fireman or driver on Puffing Billy, depending on what you’re reading at the time.
Photo: Cockatoo voices from the past by Cockatoo History and Heritage Group
Jerry began to run beside the train, he became famous, not just locally either, news of Jerry and the train appeared in the Horsham Times and the Melbourne Argus. Three or four times a week Jerry would run against the train, cutting corners and bends the agile little dog would arrive at the stations before the train.
He often jumped into a fire bucket to cool off, passengers on the train looked for him, locals left food and milk out for him on his runs. But one fateful day, on 29 August 1934 Jerry did not hear the train’s warning and was blinded by steam and crossed in front of the engine and was killed. Jerry was buried beside the railway line; his grave becoming a local landmark.
Jerry’s grave has been ravaged by fire twice over the years. Destroyed by the Black Friday fires of 1939, the gravesite was rebuilt and the marker replaced in 1952. by Ian Barkla and the boys from Scotch College and Caufield Grammar School Railway Clubs.
Then the Ash Wednesday fires of 16 February 1983 destroyed the grave and marker again. Jerry’s grave was rediscovered in 1998 and a permanent maker was placed by Bruce West and Peter Medlin. Thanks to the Cockatoo History and Heritage Group who mark the anniversary of his death every year, his memory lives on.
Sources:
Jerry’s memory lives on Pakenham Gazette 1 May 2013
Jerry’s legacy lives on Pakenham Gazette 30 April 2019
That Little Train by Peter Cuffley
Surveyed on: 29 March 2021
Surveyed by: Lynne & Eileen
Cockatoo VIC 3781, Australia
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