"I like to be busy and I have plenty of time for being busy now. There's always something to do."
Being busy includes weeding and digging her garden, cooking, preserving, and doing a daily newspaper crossword. Flower gardens are front and back of her home and she also has a conservatory, spilling with plump, bright geraniums in pots.
And Jessie still heads out for her daily walk into town. She never walks alone, three or four of the neighbourhood dogs always tag along.
"They come every time and they lead the way. They take me for a walk."
The former Waimarino Hospital radiographer says she loves to look at the rolling hills of the district when walking.
"They are my blessings. I love them." She still takes small hikes around the "smaller" hills.
Jessie came to New Zealand from Dalmatia (now Croatia) in 1940 as a 14-year-old war refugee with her mum and her sister. She was a part of a large group of children evacuated during World War II. After arriving in Auckland they were taken to Gisborne, then manpowered into positions of work once they reached 16.
Two years later when she was 16, Jessie headed for Wanganui and the hospital hoping to be taken in as a nursing student.
"But they said I was too young, so sent me up to Raetihi to Waimarino Hospital to work as a nurse aide until I was old enough to study to be a nurse."
While Jessie thought Raetihi was the "last place God made" she loved the town immediately and still does.
"All I could see from the old hospital were hundreds of tree stumps. That's why I thought it had to be the last place on earth God made."
The people of Raetihi took young Jessie to their hearts and helped the young teen with hardly any English to speak and learn the language.
When her English improved, after three years she went on to train as a nurse and later a radiographer. She then returned to Raetihi and married local man Bud Seaman.
Her work was rewarded many years later. At 83 Jessie was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for community services.
She was very embarrassed and didn't want people to make a fuss.
"I don't like all that stuff. I love this community they have always helped me so I will always help them."
Two years later she was awarded the Raetihi Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellowship and the Rotarians had to trick her into turning up for the presentation.
"Look I have done no more than anyone else would have done. I'm just an ordinary person like everyone else. I'm damned well sure I am."
Jessie works tirelessly for organisations including St Joseph's Catholic Parish, the Waimarino theatre trust, the Raetihi Museum, Maungarongo Marae at Ohakune, the Raetihi Promotions charitable trust and is a life member of the former Raetihi (now Ruapehu) Rugby Club.
Every rugby season, going back three and four decades now, Jessie arrives every Saturday to schoolboy rugby games with plates laden with sandwiches for the lads.
"Well, they get very hungry those little boys."
She still takes groups of pensioners in her car through to Ohakune for shopping and appointments.
Jessie is adamant when she says it's not about what someone can do for her - it's what she can do for them.
Her passion for the area has meant that over the years she has spent many hours tramping the slopes of Mount Ruapehu and guiding trampers through the dozens of tracks available for walking.
As resident radiographer for many years in Raetihi, Jessie met most of the locals and their families at some time or other.
"So I know most people."
Next door to her are the pensioner flats where the "old folks" are, she said.
She often speaks on their behalf to the trustees, and helps them out whenever they need advice.
One of the garden sheds is filled with jams and preserves while fruit and tomatoes nestle in trays on the shelves in another shed. But there is one blot on the landscape in the small town theses days, she said.
"There are a lot of imports [outsiders] in Raetihi these days which means you have to lock your house and everything. You never used to have to.
"Things get taken, you see, especially food. But if they just asked me, I'd give it to them."
