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Name: JACKSON, Ysobel Evelyn 'Nootie'
Nee: Jackson, dau of Herbert Kendall Jackson and Winifred Gladys jackson
Birth Date: 13.4.1904 Aldershot
Death Date: 12.11.1991 Godmanchester
First Date: 1924
Last Date: 1972
Profession: Plant collector
Area: Nairobi
Married: In Kitale 22 Apr 1933 Albert William Symes b. 1903 London
Children: Max Elliot (17.9.1935 Witnesham): Patricia Rosemary (3.11.1937 Witnesham); Veronica Winifred (15.4.1939 Kenya); Peter Alan (20.12.1946 Kenya)
Book Reference: KAD
General Information:
Nicholas Symes: Mrs Ysobel ('Nooty') Symes was the sister of Thomas (‘Pinkie’) Jackson (q.v.) and came, with her parents, to live with him on Elgon in 1924. She married Bill Symes in 1933 and they went to farm in the UK near Ipswich. They returned to Kenya in 1938 and bought a farm beneath the Cherangani Hills, where they developed a very successful Jersey herd. Encouraged by her family and Marjorie Tweedie (q.v.) she collected between 1957 and 1966, mostly in K3/5, U3, around Elgon, but also U1, Karamoja, in June 1959, and U2, western Uganda, in May 1961. In 1966 they retired to the coast, where she continued to collect in K7 until the family moved to England in 1972. The specimens are at K, EA and BR. Her number 592 was collected in 1959 in Karamoja and she probably collected several hundred more afterwards. The specimens are neatly prepared and well annotated in the tradition of her mentors. She continued to keep in touch with Marjorie Tweedie, visiting her at Kew after they were both in England. Kew Det. Lists H1803/59 1–592, Symes, P.: Diary of Wynne Jackson (1879–1931): www.wynnesdiary.com; also photo.
Letter from Max Shaw to Max Elliot Symes: I think your mother and her sister had no intimate friends of their own age at all, and so were very greatly cut off from the sort of life that the average girl leads at about that age. It was their mother who was the dominating spirit of that house. I shall find it difficult to convey any picture of the charm of her personality; her vigour, intelligence, humour and sympathy were all so active and vital. Her conversation was always stimulating. She was a great reader and her views were always worth listening to. I must confess that when I visited her house I had little or no attention to spare for her daughters who, I thought, were both rather shy and silent. I do think, perhaps, that they were too greatly overshadowed by their mother and that the strength of that personality may have retarded the growth of their own. I think their father, the General, did not marry until he was about forty six or so, and he always seemed, therefore, a rather old man in comparison. It surprised me greatly that he could have seen his way so late in life to make such a complete change as living definitely in Kenya would mean to him. He had been in the Indian Army - of the old school.