International Nurses Day 2018
200+ years of nursing expertise in the room
On International Nurses Day, two centenarians living at Resthaven Malvern share memories of their early nursing days.
When Mrs Bernice Roberts (who turns 100 on 15 May) moved into Resthaven Malvern, she certainly wasn’t expecting to run into a former nursing colleague (also aged 100) – but that’s just what happened!
‘I was sitting in the dining room, and I saw a familiar face,’ she says.
‘I thought, “There’s something about her that I remember” – I just couldn’t work it out.’
The person who Mrs Roberts was looking at was Mrs Margaret Isaachsen (nee Robertson), who will turn 101 in June. Mrs Isaachsen enjoyed a long and distinguished nursing career as a young woman, including work on the front line during WWII. Mrs Isaachsen had trained with Mrs Roberts 80 years ago.
Mrs Roberts says, ‘Margaret, or “Robbie” as I knew her, was a year ahead of me at nursing school, back in 1939. I went over to her table and said, “You’re Robbie, aren’t you! We trained at the Women’s and Children’s. You were my senior.”’
Mrs Roberts and Mrs Isaachsen are now ‘neighbours,’ with rooms just around the corner from each other at Resthaven Malvern.
Mrs Roberts explains: ‘We trained there together from 1939-40 – she was only a year ahead. We worked long hours, for five shillings a week.’
‘The war was on of course, so all the sisters would knit caps, special gloves, and socks for the soldiers. Everyone had to do something – if you couldn’t knit, you had to untangle wool!’
A self-described ‘country girl and farmer’s daughter,’ Mrs Roberts was never fazed by hard work. Her father died when she just six, and her mother brought the family through the Great Depression of the 30s before moving the family to Wattle Street, Malvern, in 1940.
Mrs Roberts started her nursing training in 1939, and finished in 1942. Then she ‘did a bit of private nursing until I was called up to the Queen Vic, where I qualified as a midwife.’
After she qualified, she was briefly sent to Whyalla, before being called home to care for her sick mother. ‘I nursed mum for three weeks before she died,’ she says.
Mrs Roberts remained in the family home, working in doctor’s rooms on North Terrace.
In 1946, she married Jim Roberts, and the couple went on to have three children (two girls and a boy). She now has seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Mrs Roberts devoted herself to raising her children, only returning to work at a Salvation Army nursing home when the kids started high school. She nursed there for 13 years before retiring in 1962.
‘I’d always said to my family that I would move into care when I turned 100,’ she says, ‘Then this place came up at Malvern.’
‘I’m very happy with the services here.’