Kenilworth Nursing Home
In February 1919 the Kenilworth Nursing Home opened. It was staffed by three nurses (Green, Long and Southgate), an assistant, and Dr. Cook as visiting surgeon. The Western Champion euphemistically described it as
an ideal and convenient institution where, during a time of great trial and anxiety in a woman’s life, best care and attention can be obtained.
Childbirth was hazardous if there were complications, Little could be done and others seldom entered hospital for confinement i the first thirty years of Barcaldine’s history. Before 1919 babies were born at home with the assistance of midwives. Best remembered of these are Mrs. Charlesworth, Mrs. Crink, Mrs. Cole and ‘Granny’ Moore.
Judging from the advertisements for the Home from 1919 to 1923, it was situated at different places, changing addresses about once per year. In 1919, it was advertised in Fir Street; in 1920, on the corner of Myrtle and Gidyea Streets, in 1921 and 1923 on the corner of Maple and Acacia Streets.
When Victoria Hospital opened a maternity ward in May 1924, Sister Ruby Green took charge there and Kenilworth evidently closed.
Glencoe Private Hospital
The Glencoe Private Hospital was opened in 1920 in Elm Street by Dr. J.P. O’Hara. It became ‘famous’ when Mr. T J Ryan died there in 1921.
Dr. O’Hara, after the death of his wife in a tragic accident sold his practice at Glencoe to Dr. W. D. Ryan in 1924. On 4 December 1923, Dr. O’Hara’s car overturned on the Aramac road, pinning his young wife under the windscreen. Although the doctor found the strength to life the car unaided, she died that night from a fractured spine.
Glencoe ceased being a hospital in the 1930s.
In 1942, when students from Rockhampton’s Range Convent School were evacuated to Barcaldine as part of the war arrangements, local priests Frs. Pyke and Page gave up their presbytery so it could become a boarding house for 22 girls. They moved into the disused Glencoe building for the duration.
T. J. Ryan, member for Barcoo 1909-1919, and premier of Queensland 1915-1919, died at Glencoe on August 1, 1921. He was then a member for West Sydney, NSW and had returned to support a Labor candidate in a by-election for Maranoa. His family requested that he be buried in Toowong cemetery and Barcaldine residents turned in hundreds for a solemn procession, as his body was borne to the railway station in a special casket prepared by Meacham and Leyland. Pall bearers (Lyons, Laracy, Lynch, Devery, Breen and McQuaid) were local men with long history of loyalty to Labor politics. The newspaper commented that Ryan’s political career had begun and ended in Barcaldine. That he should have had the same name (Thomas Joseph Ryan) as the first Labor member of parliament, and that hundreds of Labor supporters should have the opportunity for a show of respect by the Tree of Knowledge where it all began, is a strange coincidence.
Text Sources: Hoch, Isabel. 2008. Page 69 Between the Bougainvilleas. 2004. Page 32
