In response to a Letter to the Editor in the Gympie Today dated 5 May 2023, from Gympie Family History Society Inc.
EDITH FLORENCE AVENELL, known as ‘Queenie’, was born 30 March 1890 in Gympie.
‘Queenie’ was a family nickname and she was the daughter of Richard Goodall Avenell and Matilda Jane Lee.
Richard Goodall Avenell was born at Farnham, Surrey, England on 10 December, 1860.
He died in Bowen, Queensland on 7 May, 1914 when he drowned in the Bowen Baths.
Matilda Jane Lee was born in Buttevant, Cork, Ireland on a British Army Base, 29 June, 1862.
She died in Sydney on the 12 January 1941, at the age of 78.
Richard and Matilda were married on 6 August 1882, in St Pauls, Southwark, London.
They had 10 children.
Their first child was born in England and the following 9 children were all born in Queensland, Australia.
In 1883, the Avenell’s had been selected from five hundred applicants in England, to be schoolteachers to the Colony of Queensland.
In 1884 they boarded the ship ‘Nevasa’, arriving on 8 September 1884 at Moreton Bay, Queensland.
From here they were posted to the Two Mile School just north of Gympie.
Richard and Matilda were both qualified teachers in England.
While at the Two Mile school in Gympie, Matilda was also required to teach sewing and cooking.
Despite being a qualified teacher, she was never paid for this work.
Their daughter Queenie, an experienced hospital Nurse and Matron, enlisted on 26 April 1915, the day after our Anzac troops landed at Gallipoli.
At the time of her enlistment she was the busy Matron of the Innisfail Hospital.
After bidding farewell to her colleagues and friends, Queenie travelled from Innisfail to Cairns by train.
In Cairns she boarded the SS Kuranda for the trip to Townsville.
After spending time with her family, she boarded the SS Bombala, to Brisbane.
Once in Brisbane, the serious business of getting read for army nursing service began.
There were uniform fittings at Finney’s, then Brisbane’s premier dressmaking establishment, inoculations against typhoid, luggage to purchase and banking arrangements to send her mother a monthly allotment from her wages.
Throughout the war Queenie was to send the family the bulk of her earnings as well as gifts from wherever she was posted.
After travelling by train from Brisbane to Sydney, she embarked on 15 May 1915 aboard the Mooltan.
The Mooltan was a P&O passenger liner which had been requisitioned for war transport.
The ship after navigating the Suez Canal, docked in Egypt.
The nurses and soldiers disembarked for the six hour train trip to Cairo.
On arrival, Queenie and her colleagues, immediately begin nursing Gallipoli wounded in one of the military hospitals, which was a palace that had been converted into a hospital.
Queenie served in France, Egypt, England and Australia.
She returned to Australia on the ‘Euripides’ on 18 September 1917.
While nursing at the Army hospital at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane in late September, 1918, Queenie was struck down with acute ptomaine (food) poisoning.
She was saved from death by Dr Harvey Walsh, an army medical officer.
Queenie married Dr Harvey Sylvester Walsh in 1919.
They had two children, a daughter Rosslyn, born 30 July, 1923 and a son Richard, born 27 March, 1925.
Neither Richard nor Queenie spoke about the war.
Their favourite pass time, which they both enjoyed, was playing golf.
Queenie passed away on 23 October 1936 age 46 years, from an aneurism of the brain.
On the day she died, Queenie had been playing golf (she had reached A grade in golf), returned home and collapsed.
She is buried in the Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane, Queensland.
Under her nickname, ‘Queenie’, her story has been put together into a book.
This book gives a snapshot of her life through the letters she sent to her Mother.
A copy of the book can be found in the library of the Gympie Family History Society.
