CENTENARIAN DIES – Nurse in Franco-Prussian War

Thur 26^th Dec 1935 Kalgoorlie Miner

CENTENARIAN DIES
Nurse in the Franco-Prussian War

This photograph was taken a fortnight before Madam Eugenie Vauthier broke her leg and was admitted to the hospital. It shows her with Jack Frost, an old prospector who regarded her as his mother and took care of her. The dog is Marshall, a great pal of hers.

Madame Vauthier, Jack Frost and Marshall the dog.

Kalgoorlie 22^nd Dec 1935, The death occurred yesterday at the St John of God Hospital, Kalgoorlie of Madame Eugene Vauthier, a centenarian, who, for many years, had lived at Bulong. Even among her closest friends, there was doubt as to her correct age, but it is believed that she was 103.

Madame Vauthier was born in Paris on April 8^th 1931, and served as a nurse in the Franco-Prussian wars during which she nursed the late General Pau, who at the time held a humble rank. Shortly after the war, which was in 1870, she migrated to Queensland and worked for a time at a station homestead. Later, she became a stewardess for the A.U.S.N. company. During her career at sea, she was shipwrecked three times and made a voyage from Sydney to the Klondyke during the gold rush.

Following the discovery of gold at Coolgardie, she came to Western Australia earlier in the 1890s and almost immediately went to Bulong, where there was a prosperous alluvial field. This trip was not without adventure as the horses drawing the coach in which she travelled bolted. She became a cook at one of the restaurants in the town, and then later she acquired a hotel, which she maintained until the decline of mining in the district. Except for extremely rare visits to Kalgoorlie, she remained at Bulong until a month ag,o when she broke her right thigh, following which she was removed to the hospital.

During the visit of General Pau to Australia in 1918, she had the pleasure of again meeting her old patient when he travelled especially to Bulong to see her and last year she was visited by the French swimmers Jean Taris and Emil Poussard, who were the first persons for many years to whom she could converse in French to.

General Pau at the Kalgoorlie Railway Station in 1918

Madame Vauthier, who was unmarried, lived at the old schoolhouse at Bulong, which she bought from the Education Dept. Although she was an old woman when the Great War was fought, she was an active worker for the Red Cross.

There was a large gathering of her friends from Bulong at her burial in the Roman Catholic portion of the Kalgoorlie Cemetery. Among them were many old prospectors who had known her for many years and who referred feelingly to her high qualities as a woman and a friend.

Madame Vauthier’s grave is those featured in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery Heritage Trail published in 2004 and written and researched by Tess Thomson. The self-guided trail book can be purchased at the Kalgoorlie Boulder Cemetery office.

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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