Elizabeth Bridget Grover. Elizabeth Bridget Grover. Elizabeth Bridget Grover. Elizabeth Bridget Grover. Elizabeth Bridget Grover. Elizabeth Bridget Grover.
Elizabeth Bridget Grover.
Her life in her words.
Elizabeth Bridget Grover
I, Elizabeth Bridget Grover, was born at ‘Indinup‘ in Katanning on 9 July, 1875, the sixth child of William Grover and Bridget Mary Grover.
My people first lived in tents and later built a home of wattle and daub with rushes for the roof. Only the parlour had a wooden floor and glass window, the rest had calico windows and earth floors beaten hard and lime washed; same as the walls, quite clean and comfortable. Three bedrooms, kitchen, two storerooms and parlour. Food was plentiful as there were kangaroos, tammars, wild turkeys and wild ducks of various kinds, mushrooms galore although vegetables scarce as they did not find out how to grow them.
Our playmates were little natives who taught us about various food, jetties and small white star flowers which grew in the creeks and had a bulb – yarchies – shaped like a small soft root of some tree, which also had to be cooked. The natives ate bardies, cooked snakes, lizards and grubs. The adult natives used to cook us possums and the shanks of kangaroos, which they called ‘the mart’, and a great treat for the children. The women made candles out of tallow and wax and we also used tins of tallow with a wick down the centre.
Later, when sandalwood and ‘roo skins came in, there were occasional trips to Albany and some improvement in living. When I was a few years old we all went in a covered wagon to Albany. It took six days and was a wonderful treat. The women and children slept in the wagon which was filled with mattresses and pillows; the men slept under the wagon.
The natives minded the sheep around the homestead and one year mother and I minded some where Mervyn Conning now lives. We stayed out all day and brought them back to ‘lndinup‘ at night. I must have been small because they used to put me on the top of the gate post whilst they yarded the sheep as I was afraid of dingoes.
Miss Mary Handley came from Albany to act as Mother’s help and teach the simple things, reading, writing and arithmetic. Miss Handley was a lovely person and lived with us for eleven years. I went with her to Albany for a couple of months, when I was about seven years old. Mother thought I was too quiet and wanted me checked up by a doctor. His verdict was “there was nothing wrong with me organically but that I was not very robust”.
A few years later Mother took us to Albany where we went to St. Josephs Nuns School. We did not like it much. We missed the freedom of riding, climbing trees and swimming. However our house at ‘lndinup’ was burnt down and Mother took us all back home.
Mr Gus Piesse taught me telegraphing and I was appointed to John DeBaurn’s Palace Hotel Cable Office, Perth. This was a large office right on the front steps. The mining at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie was in full swing and the Palace Hotel was the meeting place for all the big mining men. They handed all their cable for London into the office and we relayed them to the G.P.O. We made friends with other States cable men and spent all our spare time on the river rowing and sailing or cycling. We cycled many miles. Rockingham being our favourite place, although we had to push our bikes through a good deal of sand.
The office closed after about eighteen months and I was appointed to Collie. It was too lonely and I did not like the postal work. I was at Victoria Park, Dardanup and finally Broomehill [1], from where I rode home every weekend. I still did not like postal work and wanted to train as a nurse but did not know how to “get to it”. I also meet strong opposition from Mother.
Becoming a nurse
I was feeling a bit desperate as I was getting on in years and would be too old to train if I did not do something about it. At last I made the plunge and wrote to the Matron at Perth Public Hospital and succeeded in getting a job. We had no quarters and were put up in old disused wards, divided into sections. Our section overlooked the morgue and laundry – lovely position.
In all my three years I never had a wardrobe or dressing table. Most of the time I was sleeping out on the front verandah with my tin box under the bed. In our first year we were paid one pound a month, the second year 15 pound a year and the third year 20 pounds. We used to go in a herd to theatres and only paid one shilling.
The hospital was surrounded by stone with broken glass on top. The ward walls were six foot high and the isolation nine foot. Isolation contained mental cases, D.T’s and infectious cases – mainly diphtheria. The mental cases sometimes broke out, and nearly always in the nude. They had to be chased down Murray Street by orderlies and nurses armed with quilts and rugs.
We finished our training and received our certificates and good conduct records. Then, where would we do our obstetrics?
Together, Sister Spaven and I, followed by Sister Angela Ross went to Glasgow. We had never seen slums and after working in the hospital and getting the experience of about six cases we had to take cases alone in the slum area. Our limit was three miles and we attended real slum cases.
Again we got our certificates from “Glasgow Maternity and Women’s Hospital”, where patients were all free, no one was taken but the poorest, so we got some choice patients. Ross and I went together to sit for our C.M.B of England. Whilst waiting we saw the Coronation of King George and Queen Mary. Suffragettes from all over the world had come to London to have a monster march. Ross and I were asked to join in. We were delighted and found about ten women from WA with rods carrying the Black Swan. The march was five miles long, four abreast. What a sight.
We got our C.M.B (Central, Midwifery Board of England). Then, back to Australia. I thought Albany was the most beautiful place on earth – then home to “Indinup” and private nursing. Before we could settle down the 1914 war was on us.
World War One
Elizabeth Grover – World War Records
Group portrait of members of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) most of whom embarked
from Australia on the Orsova during July 1915, outside the Ivanhoe Hotel in London.
Identified from left to right, back row: Sisters Inez Clare Cronin; McKinnon; Catherine Christina McSpedden; Alice Tryphens le Mesurier (Messurier); Hannah Coonan; Victoria Dorothy Christenson; Annie McHardy; Toan.
Fourth row: Sisters Wildash; Wearne (probably Dorothy Wearne); Kathleen Byrne; Florence Laura Lewis; Catherine McGillivray; Elizabeth Grover; Emily Cornelia Parish; Amelia Uren; Catherine Temby Uren; Kathleen L Walker; I Walker.
Third row: Sisters Kennedy; Florence Vines; Neta Burns; Pearl Lottie Trayhurn (later Mrs Harry Jackson); Dorothea Mary Agnes Burkitt; Grace Lacy Love; Neta May Smallwood; Bartlett; Fanny Isabella Hammersley; Leitch; Violet Grace Jenkins; Marchant; Ivy Norma Kathleen Ritchie; Laura May Begley; Catherine Louie Harden; Alice Bull; Edith Jones.
Second row: Sisters Ryan; Ethel Buchanan; Moffat; Elanor Edith Moore; Rachael Clouston; Collins; Ina Mary Were; Mary Ellen Fisher; Mary Morton McAnene; Matthers; Taylor (probably Ruth Stewart Taylor); Lillian May Clarke; Catrina Dawson; Beatrix Myra Thompson; Helen Kidder Gilham; Odgers; Ellen Mary Ellis; Violet Irene Clarke; Elsie Dora Smith; Annie Florence Roberts; Daisy Valerie Corkhill. Front row: Sisters Adeline Beatrice Gertrude Priestley; Laura Mary Lyne (Lyme); Ruth Stewart Taylor; Catherine Munro; Helena Caroline Symons (Symonds); Mary Eveline Nicholson; Gertrude Francis Moberley; Humphries; Matron Ethel M Strickland; Matron Alice Mary Cooper; Sisters Florence Mary Mulholland; Maggie Jones; Ida Marie Axelsen (Axelson); Alice Jane Camac (Carnac); Kitson; Winnifred Jane Smith
Harefield Military Hospital
All nurses who could, volunteered. Eventually I got away on 23 June, 1915 sailing with the Siege Brigade for England. The first we knew of war was we were sailing through wreckage and bodies when we were near the Eddystone Light House. I finished up at Harefield Military Hospital for Australian Gallipoli troops. They were terribly battered and a great number were ready for transport to Australia.
I listed for transport duty and arrived at old Fremantle Base Hospital. I stayed three or four months and again sailed with a new unit; this time for Egypt. We were camped at Abbassia in the Kitchener Barracks, about three miles from Cairo. All our Light Horse were there and it was good to see them.
One stunt they had there were quite a number of casualties, among them Ernie Bain, Artie Chipper and Bill Leonard all from Katanning, so I secured them for my ward. The Ladyman boys used to visit our quarters, Hugh Throssel and many more. It was grand having our own boys and we were happy.
Bill Hughes lent 400 Australian nurses to the British Medicals to go to Solonico. Geraldine Piesse, Doris Eastwood, Sister Johanna Fleming and I were the only West Australians. The hills were covered with tent hospitals.
We went to Mount Hortiack and I could see Mount Olympus in the distance. Dysentry and malignant malaria were raging. The heat was bad in summer and in winter we had snow land blizzards for about three months. In the worst of the winter we were brought down to the Prisoner or War Hospital. We liked the Turks and Bulgars and they liked us, so we got on well together.
We washed our clothes etc, in buckets as best we could and ironed them by folding them under our mattresses. It was very sad to see the soldiers, so many dying of diseases. Transport was dangerous and seldom. They were so depressed that they would not believe us when we told them the war was over.
The end of the war
However, things soon got moving and transport started. I went back to London with Matron Hart, Sister Dene Piesse, Sister Fleming and Doris Eastwood. We were sent on a trip through Scotland whilst transport could be arranged. We finally sailed for Australia with a ship packed with soldiers all longing to be home. We arrived in Fremantle on 4th July 1919.
I was transferred to A.A.W.S. Reserve and spent a few months in Fremantle Base Hospital getting injections and treatment for malaria, then home on leave for a few months. The next few years were spent getting over the war. I could not get used to the quietness after all the bombardments and being chased by submarines and the bombing of aeroplanes.
My dear Father was failing. I was with him when he died in 1920. Then I went to my sister, Mrs. Thomas Wilson, at Port Hedland. I asked to be appointed as Matron to Broome Hospital where my sister Madge (Mrs. Roberts) was in failing health, and I stayed near her until her death in 1921. I relieved the Matron at Marble Bar and Wyndham.
I came home just in time to be with my dear brother Martin, who only lived a short time longer. I was then appointed to the Edward Mullen Home for T.B. Soldiers, for about two years.
War Grave Pilgrimage
About 1931 Burns Phillip arranged a War Grave Pilgrimage, mainly to go to Gallipoli. I sailed with the trip to Egypt, went all over the Holy Land, visited the Australian Cemetery at Cairo, then Beirut to Java by boat to Gallipoli.
We went through the Dardenells then the Golden Gate to Constantinople, (Istanbul). The Turks were delighted to see us and showed us everything of note. Their museums were filled with wonderful old relics. Then on through the Straits of Messina to Naples.
We visited all the cemeteries in France where Australians were buried and then on to Paris and back to London. A friend, Mrs. Moncton, and I went to Australia House and there booked a short trip through central Europe.
I sailed for Australia via Melbourne and was met at the boat with the bad news that my sister May’s (Mrs. Ralph Duttson) husband had died suddenly and she asked me to live with her as she could not drive the car, and was very shocked at her husbands passing. We lived together until her death in 1960, which was a sad blow to me as we thought we might be together until the end.
Sister Grover died in May 1973 and was buried in the Katanning Cemetery. She was 97 years old.