My aunts trained at the hospital.

Sisters Reta and Pat Fleming both trained as nurses at Maitland Hospital. Reta graduated in 1943, Pat in 1957.

Their niece, Diane Klasen (right), shares their stories below and also records other family connections to Maitland Hospital.

The illustrated timeline created for the Maitland Hospital entrance foyer in 2010 includes two photographs of hospital floats made for parades. Reta Fleming is in the Second World War float, Patricia Fleming is in the bicentenary float.

Maitland Hospital float in the Victory Parade, June 1946.

(Maitland Hospital Collection 165.30)

Reta Fleming is the nurse in the dark uniform with white veil in the middle of the photograph.

Other people in the photograph: Jack Churches, Sister Logan?, Sister Holiday, Sister Haggety, Jack Hayden, Lloyd Stone, Sister Cant and Sister Toovey.

The Victory Parade included ‘about 40 gaily decorated floats’ and ‘took half an hour to pass a given point’ (Newcastle Morning Herald, 10 June 1946). A request to have the parade re-routed past the hospital proved too difficult to implement, although ‘people sponsoring floats would be asked to drive them past the hospital prior to assembling at the Courthouse’ (Newcastle Morning Herald, 8 June 1946.)

Maitland Hospital float for the Captain Cook bicentenary, 1970.

(Maitland Hospital Collection)

Patricia Fleming is third from the right. She is dressed as ‘a patient in her nightie’ and is wearing a blonde wig.

Maree Harris, Sep 2021, notes ‘the District Nurse on the float (5th from left) was Nita Frost who lived in Woodville.’

Graphic design for the timeline in the foyer of The Maitland Hospital, installed in 2010.

Reta (nee Fleming) Reed

Reta was born at Bingleburra in Dungog Shire in 1916.  Later the family moved to Rosebrook where they had a dairy farm.  The following excerpt is taken from the eulogy at Reta’s funeral in 2011.

Reta went on to attend secondary school in Maitland as a boarder. On leaving school she was a governess on a property out of Singleton until she was called for general nursing training in 1939, which she undertook at Maitland Hospital.

 Later she did midwifery training at Crown Street Women's Hospital in Surry Hills, Sydney. The Second World War was on at that time and she and her colleagues were called out to do deliveries in homes around Surry Hills. Reta notes:

Following deliveries, the midwives returned daily to attend the mothers and their babies. At that time mothers were supposed to remain in bed for 10 days following the birth. In the course of these return visits, the older children would see the nurses getting off the tram. On entering the house the nurse would find the mother in bed as instructed but the dirty soles of their feet told the real story about how much bed rest had taken place!

 Reta thoroughly enjoyed her time at Crown Street Women's Hospital. She also worked for Tresillian Family Care at Petersham in Sydney, an outreach organisation which, to this day, provides advice on early childhood care to parents of the inner west.

 She returned to Maitland Hospital and became Charge Sister of the operating theatre there. Recently she related the following anecdote:

A surgeon was carrying out an operative procedure, and at a certain point, for reasons best known to him, lost his temper and threw a number of instruments on to the floor of theatre. A nurse in attendance went to pick the instruments up. Reta said, "Leave them nurse, doctor will pick them up when he is finished"... and he did!

That night she told her father about this incident. He quietly questioned both the wisdom and propriety of her actions, particularly given the doctor was a friend of the family. Reta, however, was not particularly chastened, judging by the smile on her face as she related this story. For her, the important outcome was that the doctor never again repeated this behaviour in theatre.

Reta’s friend and fellow nurse trainee, Coie Haggarty, from Singleton met and married Jack Reed and moved to South Australia.  Whilst visiting Coie in South Australia Reta met her future husband, Bill Reed, Jack’s brother.  Reta finished working at Maitland Hospital when she married Bill in 1950 and moved to Goolwa in South Australia.  There she took up a nursing position at Victor Harbour and later moved to Adelaide where Reta and Bill raised their three children.  Years later Reta returned part-time to nursing at a local hospital and then an aged care hostel.  Following her retirement Reta continued ‘working’ at both the hospital and the aged care centre for 15 years as a volunteer.

Patricia Fleming

Patricia, or Pat as she preferred to be known, grew up on her parents’ dairy farm at Rosebrook.

When Pat left school she was too young to commence her nurse training so she began as a nurse cadet at Maitland Hospital under the guidance of Sister Martha Smith.  As a cadet she worked in E Ward, which was the Men’s and Intermediate Private Ward.

In 1953, when Pat was 17 years of age, she commenced her general nurse training, which was undertaken over four years.  Pat said Maitland Hospital had an excellent reputation for teaching. Girls from all over the state came to Maitland to do their training, including Pat’s lifelong friends who came from Cundletown, near Taree, and Murwillumbah.

First year nurses in-training had one stripe on their caps, followed by two stripes for second year, three stripes for third year and four stripes for the fourth and final year of their training.  It was expected that the Sisters would starch their own veil – the veils had to be very stiff to be able to stand high.

Maitland Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (built in late 1920s, extended in 1930s), about 1940.

(Maitland City Library)

The nurses’ residence that Patricia Fleming lived in during her training.

All nurses had to live in the nurses’ home. Pat lived on the top floor of the building with three other trainees.  She remembers one of the girls used to borrow her civilian clothes to wear on her days off!  Matron Brandt resided on the ground floor in a room directly below the four trainees.  Matron often complained that the girls above made too much noise.

Pat recalls one day as she was descending the staircase, she smiled at Matron Brandt.  However, Matron was not happy, accusing her of laughing!

Pat also remembers when two of the trainees decided to perform a prank.  One nurse lay on the trolley covered with a sheet while the other nurse wheeled the trolley into the mortuary.  As she handed over the trolley to a mortuary staff member, the nurse on the trolley sat up scaring the staff!  Pat does not recall if the nurses were punished for this incident, but no doubt the punishment would have been swift and fierce.

After her four years of training, Pat worked in the operating theatre and then F Ward.  F Ward was the Female Intermediate Private Ward.

Pat subsequently went on to do obstetrics training and an intensive care course. She worked at the Royal Newcastle Hospital and then at the Mater in Waratah. She was still at the Mater Hospital when she retired in 2014.

Mum also worked at the hospital.

Diane Klasen’s Mum, Eileen Garland, worked in administration at Maitland Hospital for a short time in 1941-1942, after she left school.

(right) Eileen Garland, about 1946.

Correspondence relating to Eileen Garland’s employment at The Maitland Hospital in 1941-1942.

We were born at The Maitland Hospital.

Diane Klasen with her siblings and Mum, 1994.

‘We were all born at The Maitland Hospital between 1949 and 1960.’

Left to right: Ross, Julie, Eileen Fleming (nee Garland), Diane, Ian.