Joseph Patrick (Joe) ROURKE

Joseph Patrick (Joe) ROURKE Update Details

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ROURKE, Joseph Patrick

Service Number:	W71441
Enlisted:	5 April 1942
Last Rank:	Private
Last Unit:	6th (WA) Battalion Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC)
Born:	Albany, Western Australia, 17 March 1905
Home Town:	Kojonup, Kojonup, Western Australia
Schooling:	Not yet discovered
Occupation:	Picture Theatre Proprietor
Died:	Kojonup, Western Australia, 19 July 1972, aged 67 years, cause of death not yet discovered
Cemetery:	Karrakatta Cemetery & Crematorium, Western Australia
Memorials:

World War 2 Service

5 Apr 1942:	Enlisted Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Private, W71441
2 Jan 1946:	Discharged Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Private, W71441, 6th (WA) Battalion Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC)

Help us honour Joseph Patrick Rourke's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Chris Buckley

Private Joseph Patrick Rourke (Service No:W71441) served in the ACMF with 6th Battalion (WA) VDC from 5 April 1942 to 2 January 1946. Private Rourke enlisted in the Militia on 2 January 1922 and served with 10th Light Horse Regiment Katanning (Service No:Ve/240110).

Born in 1905 in Albany Western Australia, Joe (aka Patrick Joseph) was fifth of six children of Henry Joseph Rourke (b1867 in Ballarat, Victoria) and Matilda (Tilly) Moroney (b1871 in Bendigo, Victoria). Henry (a Moulder) and Tilly married in Fremantle, WA in 1895 and lived in Guildford and Albany where they raised their family and Henry worked as an Iron Moulder. By 1916 they had settled in Tambellup where Henry was a Farmer.

Joe worked as a Farmer in Tambellup where, in 1933 he married Jeanne Marcella Smith (b1903 in Boulder, WA). Joe and Jeanne settled in Tambellup where Joe was a Farmer. Following Jeanne's death in 1934, Joe remarried in 1939 in Katanning WA to Kathleen (Kath) Elise Palmer (b1914 in Cranbrook, WA) - Kath was a Nurse at the Princess Margaret Children's Hospital. Joe and Kath settled in Kojonup where Joe worked as Showman and Picture Theatre Proprietor. Joe died in 1972 and Kath in 2005.

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