 Jessica was the youngest of four children; her elder siblings were Alan Lindsay Queale (1908 – 1982), Vida Joan Queale (1910 – 1954), and Patricia Queale. While each features to some extent in her semi-autobiographical work, Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories, Anderson's relationship with her brother, Alan (Neal in the memoirs), who was eight years her senior, is the least developed in the collection. Indeed, Anderson stated in one interview that for many years, she and her brother "lived in different channels of the same family," and that it was only during the later years of his life, when they were the last surviving members of their immediate family that they grew close. Alan Queale rose to some renown in his own right as a prolific archivist, mostly of Australiana and artefacts of Queensland's history, and many of his collections remain in the State Library of Queensland and the National Library of Australia. Beyond the brief glimpses afforded by Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories, little is known about Anderson's relationships with her two sisters, Joan and Patricia. Her eldest sister, Joan, died in her early forties, when Anderson was in her thirties, tragically leaving behind several young children. Her other sister, Patricia, also died of cancer some years later. Anderson writes very affectionately of her sisters.
