When I arrived in Coolgardie 38 years ago, it was midnight. In the morning, what a sight! White small canvas tents, tents and more tents. The same could be said of men — men everywhere. No roads — everyone ankle-deep in dust. Nobody wore a coat — I mean the men, of course, as there were no women to be seen anywhere. So the arrival of we two nursing sisters caused quite a stir. Wearing our uniforms on all occasions served as great protection to us, as we had many and difficult errands to perform.

So many requests from men “to be good enough to come and see his mate”

who was suffering from typhoid, which was then the scourge in this mining town. The nurse’s uniform of those days stood out. Navy cloak and bonnet with long flowing veil at the back, and large white tie strings — now discarded by the profession. A fellow traveller (Dr K.) on the coach offered to take us into De Baun’s Hotel dining-room for breakfast. He thought we might be a little nervous to enter alone. I kept my tryst, but my companion sister, suffering from a headache, did not make the attempt. When the door was opened for me to enter, I caught a glimpse of at least one hundred men at breakfast, coatless and hatless. Just grey flannels, some without shirts.

I fled — and a kindly barmaid brought us some tea and toast to our bedroom. This apartment is well worth describing. When we entered it, there were two women asleep on stretchers, and there was one left for us. Luckily it was of the pallias type, so one of us used the mattress on the floor, and the other the hard pallias. There were no blinds on the windows, so we used our nurses’ cloaks fastened up with hairpins. Neither water nor a washstand was available, so we had a “dry wash,” just rubbed ourselves vigorously with our towels. Nor were these things the worst.

When we woke up in the morning, there were sixteen occupants in this one room — arrivals during the night. There were women and children, including one boy of twelve years. However, we survived it all and set about finding a tradesman to erect our nursing tents. We called on Warden Finnerty, and he offered us the use of part of the Government reserve, and there we erected our four tents made of ship’s canvas, each tent holding a bed in each corner, and soon we were busy, more patients coming forward than we could ever accommodate. This, of course, was the only private hospital accommodation on the “fields.”