Our 20th century outback nurses were some of the most independent and resilient women of the time.
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Dr Rebecca Jones, 2018 National Library of Australia research fellow, has uncovered fascinating stories about them during her research on ‘Crazy Weather: the physical and emotional effects of climate extremes’.
The nurses worked for the Australian Inland Mission, which was created by John Flynn in 1912.
Their job was to provide holistic healthcare to settlers in outback Australia.
They were often stationed in nursing homes for up to two years and were also looked on to bring social and moral strength to the inland.
Their incredible tales include:
• Working through crazy and extreme weather: droughts brought massive sandstorms that would envelope the nursing homes.
• This crazy weather meant access to food and fresh water was not always easy and sometimes these desperate times called for desperate measures: one nurse ended up eating a ‘palatable’ looking green succulent. She was sick for three days after. Another group of nurses had to burn the remains of a horse that was at the mouth of the town’s waterhole.
“The water from the town hole is thick and not good to drink,” Sister Grace Francis of Birdsville wrote in her 1924 diary.
“There is a dead horse which is not the most pleasant thing at the edge of the waterhole. Five of us we womenfolk burnt it, although the men told us floodwaters will not reach it. Still the carcass is at the main channel to the town hole.”
• Treating ghastly wounds and sicknesses: Barcoo rot, which were persistent ulcerous skin lesions, was a significant illness for settlers. Home remedies were invented but proved to have limited effectiveness.
• Having ‘adventurous’ tasks: on top of nursing patients back to health, the nurses often undertook many ‘adventurous’ tasks. They swam, they went shooting, fishing, and even rode camels!
• All of this, paired with the isolation of the AIM communities, lead to mental turmoil for many of the staff at the AIM.
Dr Jones uncovered this information from the NLA’s highly ambitious five-year Digital Library Infrastructure Replacement (DLIR) program.
The program has digitised millions of images, maps and manuscripts, including photographs and maps belonging to the AIM collection.
These can be accessed from anywhere in Australia. Every day, up to 70,000 people access these rich digital collections, which have tripled in volume since the program began in 2012.
To find out more about the secret lives of outback nurses, visit