A surgical procedure - removal by scissors of part of the silverfished back card cover -had to be performed on the above volume, The Diary of Sister Grace Francis , M.B.E., who served at the Birdsville Nursing Home, run by the Australian Inland Mission.The snipping of the nibbled part was in the style of the varied medical operations Sister Grace was called upon to perform.
She was one of two nurses , Catherine Boyd the other , who in September 1923 set out from Brisbane by car , stretchers packed aboard for sleeping out , to establish the nursing home in an old pub at Birdsville, Queensland , serving a vast area of the outback known as the Birdsville Corner . Sister Francis had a camera and over the years built up an invaluable collection of photos which captured life in the outback .
The diary tells how they changed into various vehicles along the way-the service car, the mail lorry on which three male passengers sat on a mountain of mail bags .
Experiencing the heat of the "Never Never" country,umbrellas raised to protect them from the sun blew inside out . They called at the hut of a boundary rider , met women in isolated situations with children , one family with a governess, carriers with their wives camped on the banks of the Cooper .
At Windorah ,which consisted of two pubs, a post office , a store , three private dwellings and a police station , they waited for transport . Francis became concerned about the four year old son of the police sergeant and accompanied him 60 miles to the Jundah Hospital where he was found to be suffering from typhoid . There was a fierce dust storm and a surveyor gave dark glasses to Sister Boyd to protect her eyes during the journey . Several temporary fillings were inserted while they were in town .
The furniture destined for the nursing home in Birdsville , being transported by Afghan cameleers from Marree in South Australia , took ages to arrive , so boxes were used to make tables and chairs . Boxes were even used like a bed on which to lay a drover and lance with scissors, the only instrument available , a boil on his face. The bedroom in the home used to be the pub's bar.
Nurse Francis extracted two teeth from an Afghan , Roy Khan , who responded by giving her a box of apples , a real treat , a case selling for 35 shillings , and donated one pound to AIM . Later on , another box of apples arrived from the thankful Afghans. Blue stone was bought from a store to treat a man's infected toe.
Three packages of books from America were a welcome arrival , more books came from Sydney and Melbourne, a library eventually set up in the building . A key was provided for an old locked piano on which discordant tunes were played .
Entertainment included ping pong ( table tennis ) tournaments , card games , tennis , dances , race meetings, picnics , swimming , horseback riding, sing songs . A ping pong tournament did not get underway because no ball could be found, but then a man arrived with a dented ball and play took place after tea . The nurses also ran Sunday School and conducted sewing classes.
A fox terrier given the nurses had to be shot because it was thought to have hydatids. The arrival of mail , some of it delivered by packhorse , was a big event . River flooding caused delays on the mail run , some transferred to a donkey wagon . Election papers for a vote on prohibition failed to arrive on time , Francis indicating she and the other nurse would have voted for prohibition .
A mailman described as being addicted to drink had been given a bottle of cough medicine . Then there was an episode in which a horse had been seen without a rider, a man on the ground nearby , worse for drink , who got up and staggered about .
A fox terrier given the nurses had to be shot because it was thought to have hydatids. The arrival of mail , some of it delivered by packhorse , was a big event . River flooding caused delays on the mail run , some transferred to a donkey wagon . Election papers for a vote on prohibition failed to arrive on time , Francis indicating she and the other nurse would have voted for prohibition .
A mailman described as being addicted to drink had been given a bottle of cough medicine . Then there was an episode in which a horse had been seen without a rider, a man on the ground nearby , worse for drink , who got up and staggered about .
Oldtimers said 1924 was the dustiest they could remember-fierce duststorms , some lasting all day , filling dwellings , two kerosene tins of dust removed from nursing home rooms , many children suffering colds , a case of bronchial pneumonia . A visit was made to a frail old hermit who lived in a shelter of boxes with a small vegetable patch .
An astonishing 2000 patients had been treated by December 6 ,1924, many teeth pulled and filled . Mobs of cattle , up to 1600 in number , passed through the district . Camel trains , one containing 20 of the animals and another 22 , came through and were photographed by Francis , who developed her own films at night . The camels , one named General Joffre after the French WWl Commander-in-Chief , brought welcome potatoes and onions .
A fancy dress ball held as part of the 1925 Birdsville Races "turned out rather a failure " because the man who played the accordion had to be taken to the hotel for a drink between each dance . The Birdsville Pub ran short of drinks (beer or soft drinks ?) and sold fruit salts for one shilling a glass. Sister Francis wrote this was an amusing situation , much better "than the strong stuff", still profiteering pure and simply at that price.
Many hot days , the temperature over 100, school closed due to excessive heat ( 118), a nice cool change at 98 . A man who rode in with the Windorah mail reminded Francis of "The Fizzer " from the book We of the Never , by Aeneas Gunn .
A man who camped out was brought in suffering from advanced heart disease. He had been treating himself for Berri Berri , begged to have his mattress on the ground as the wire mattress was too soft for him . The diary entry said he was typical of "poor old bushmen " who were used to sleeping on the ground , uncomfortable on a bed . He died after an eight hour struggle during which he signed his will.
His funeral took place the next day , the police car acting as the hearse, the two nurses in the front . Sister Francis read the burial service . Because no timber was available , no coffin was made , the body sewn up in cloth and then in white calico. Sister Francis also wrote to the man's wife in Adelaide .
A party of four , including members of the Kidman cattle empire family, " had a narrow escape from perishing" when they took a wrong track and went without food for two days and began to run short of water and petrol before they reached Birdsville .
Sister Francis admitted a man who had been accidently shot in the foot and he insisted the bullet was still imbedded in the wound , despite any trace ; the bullet was later found in his boot out at the place where the shooting had taken place.
Near the end of the diary there is mention of tests being carried out with early radio equipment by the Australian Inland Mission to spread the mantle of safety in the outback .
Amazing Grace Francis in her published diary , our copy containing an insert from Reverend Fred McKay, O.B.E.,M.A.,B.D.,Administrator of the Australian Inland Mission in which he said she was a pioneer of the truest sense . She and Sister Boyd were in the vanguard of the first medical team to give security to the isolated area known as "The Birdsville Corner ". There was also a correction : Sister Francis had died September 28, l959.
