Later she married a widower.
Nurse Jennie Mary Lawrence, early twentieth century.
(Maitland and District Historical Society 2011.21b)
This photograph is among a bundle of research notes about Maitland Hospital put together by Jackie Youldon and now housed in the Maitland and District Historical Society archives. The caption on the back of the photograph identifies the young woman as ‘Jennie Mary Lawrence, later Mrs W.H. Green, Dungog’ and associates her with the Pierce Memorial Nurses Home that was set up by the Maitland Hospital to provide home nursing care.
The photograph is accompanied by a note written by long-term Maitland and District Historical Society member and president, Mavis Newcombe. The note observes that Jennie Lawrence nursed Newcombe’s father, Cecil Wilcher (b. 1892), when he was about 12 to 13 years old. She writes:
He was operated on at Largs on their kitchen table for appendicitis by a Dr Harbinson (sic) and his brother, a Dr from Adelaide, who had come to Maitland to look after his brother’s practice while he went on a trip. Nurse Lynch and Lawrence helping and Nurse Lawrence stayed on to look after patient for some time after. Later she married a widower Walter Herbert Green in Dungog in early 1908 who was a shopkeeper in Dungog.
The back of the photograph and Mavis Newcombe’s handwritten note.
Dr Harbinson was presumably Dr John Wesley Harbison who practised in Maitland from around 1900 to the mid-1930s.
A 1906 newspaper report confirms Mavis Newcombe’s recollections.
Maitland Weekly Mercury, 28 April 1906, p. 14.
Jennie Lawrence’s association with this event and with the Pierce Memorial Nurses’ Home is documented through Mavis Newcombe’s recollections and Jackie Youldon’s notes. Her obituary (Dungog Chronicle, 6 July 1937) notes that she was born in Grafton, trained at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney and, just before her marriage, was matron of Dungog Cottage Hospital. It was presumably while at Dungog Hospital that she met her future husband who was an active board member and supporter of the hospital.
Jennie Lawrence was 27 years old when she married Walter Green. As was the expectation and practice at the time, on marrying she left her nursing profession. Green was a widower with two daughters. Jennie and Walter Green had a further two daughters.
The family lived in ‘Venton’, 57 Rens St, Dungog. In 1933 they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. Three years later Walter Green, who was a notable local figure with a high community profile, passed away. Jennie Green died the following year. (Dungog Chronicle, 24 February 1933, 17 July 1936 and 6 July 1937).