Jessie Ellen Spatch was first married to a man named RichardWhelan/Wheelan in 1870 at Wellingrove NSW and in 1871 Jessie produced a child to this man named Alice.

For reasons unknown, the marriage was not a success because in 1873 in Queensland Jessie had a child Cecilia (Cis) to a James Cameron and two years later in Warwick Queensland, she had another child to James - Kate (who later married Lars Bek.)

In 1879 Jessie Ellen gave birth to another son by James Cameron in 1879 at Orange.

James Cameron and Jessie did not marry until 1880 in Orange NSW and I don't think that Jessie ever divorced her first husband as that would have been almost impossible given the social stigma in those days.

However Francis Bertie Boyce, the minister at The Holy Trinity Church in Orange who married James and Jessie in 1880 was apparently a very liberal minded man way ahead of his time who looked very understandingly and kindly on couples who already had children but were not married in the church Reverend Boyce was a very "colourful" character and it seemed, may have done things in the bush that the Sydney Church authorities and some civil authorities were none too happy about.

Interestingly Reverend Boyce also performed the marriage 16 years later in Sydney of Kate Cameron and Lars Bek.

I haven't been able to find out very much about James Cameron. He was born in England ? when or where and at the time of his marriage, he was a carpenter and a widower.

In 1898 he is shown on Kate's marriage certificate as a railway official-deceased so I have put his death somewhere between 1887(when Stanley was born) and 1898 when Kate married Lars Bek.

After the 1880 marriage James and Jessie had three other children all born in Orange,
Annabella( Dolly)- born 1882.

Ellen (Nellie) born 1885.
Stanley born 1887.

As for Alice, Jessie's child by her first marriage, she took James Cameron' s name and grew up with the rest of her siblings probably believing that he was her father.