Three generations.
Tom Healy researching The Maitland Hospital Minute Books, October 2019
Tom Healy is a Maitland Hospital Volunteer and, in 2020, a member of the Arts Working Group. His family has been associated with the hospital and with nursing over three generations.
Tom has generously shared his family history research to provide profiles of family members involved with Maitland Hospital.
Tom’s grandparents and parents on his parents’ wedding day, 1952
Left to right: Benedict and Ethel Idstein, Adele Idstein and Paul Healy, Hugh and Mary Healy.
Ethel May Idstein (nee Nugent) (1889-1968)
Tom’s maternal grandmother, Ethel Idstein, joined Maitland Hospital as a probationer nurse in early 1914, and worked at the hospital until mid-1918.
In 1915 she was in charge of the men’s surgical ward and, at Christmas time, she enlivened it with ‘blue hydrangeas’. Two years later she again played a part in creating Christmas decorations for the men’s medical and surgical wards:
… a pretty colour scheme in red and white ... Hoops of asparagus, relieved with red and white roses, the colours of the Duntroon College, adorned each gas bracket, and festoons of greenery and red poppies and chrysanthemums were otherwise skilfully used with charming effectiveness.
In December 1917 her work attracted a note of appreciation from a patient, F. Fleet of East Greta, who wrote thanking ‘Sister Nugent and the Nursing Staff of the Maitland Hospital for the care and attention bestowed upon him while in the institution.’
Ethel Nugent also continued with extra training as, just before she resigned in May 1918, she successfully completed a course and examination in ‘invalid cookery’.
Her resignation is recorded in the Minutes of the Meeting of the General Committee of the Maitland Hospital on 29 May 1918.
Ethel Nugent married Benedict Idstein in 1918 and did not return to nursing.
Ethel Nugent’s Certificate of Registration with the ATNA (Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association), 12 June 1918
Mary Stanislaus Healy (nee White) (1886-1971)
Tom’s paternal grandmother was also a registered nurse. She was born and grew up on the family property ‘Kilkee’ in the Paterson district. She left there in November 1915 in order to commence her training at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, graduating in January 1919.
There is a possibility that, after she completed her training, Sister White returned to the district and joined the staff of the Maitland Hospital in order to assist with the care of patients during the 1919 influenza pandemic. There is a Sister White mentioned in newspaper reports and in the Maitland Hospital minute books. However, it is unclear whether this was Mary White.
Mary White married Hugh Healy in April 1922.
Hugh Owen Healy (c1889-1954)
Tom’s paternal grandfather, Hugh Owen Healy, was a member of the Maitland Hospital Committee in the 1920s.
Studio portrait of Hugh Healy, Paris, c1917
(Ancestry: Dominic White family tree)
Born in Ireland, Hugh Healy was in Maitland by November 1915 and working as a farm labourer in Aberglassyn when he enlisted as a gunner in the Australian army. He served in France, survived the war and returned to Australia in June 1919.
By September 1920 Hugh Healy was back in Aberglassyn.
In the early 1920s he was a member of the Maitland Hospital Committee and played a significant role in the development of the Maitland Ambulance Movement. As Secretary of the ambulance movement he lobbied for the introduction of motor ambulances, and was actively involved in fundraising for the new ambulance building. In 1936 his name was included on the marble honour board of life members of the Maitland Ambulance, and in 1947 he was described as ‘founder of the Maitland Ambulance’.
Adele Idstein (later Healy,and Schofield) (1926-2007)
Tom’s mother, Adele Idstein, trained as a general nurse at Maitland Hospital from 1948 to 1952. She married in 1952 returning to work as a nurse at the Maitland Hospital from 1956 to 1965 and again from 1968 to 1972.
Adele Idstein, as she was then, excelled in her nursing studies at Maitland Hospital. She gained prizes for her achievements in the medical and gynaecology courses in 1950 and 1951 respectively, was among the top ten in the state in her final examinations and, in 1953, was awarded Maitland Hospital’s Gold Medal which was given to ‘the nurse who achieved the highest proficiency throughout her training.’
In the mid-1990s, in reflecting on her nursing career at Maitland Hospital, Adele Schofield particularly recalled the benefits of ‘gaining so much knowledge and accepting responsibility in … everyday work’, of ‘studying regularly’ and of ‘nursing patients with a disease already described by lecturing medical officers’. She noted, perhaps with a touch of amazement or frustration, the ‘strict rules regarding uniform’ and the need to wear ‘regulation dress for lectures and exams’. She also found ‘the arrival of the new P.T.S. [Preliminary Training School]’ a memory worth recording.
Tom Healy
Tom Healy recalls that, after leaving school, he worked in the building trade. He later decided to follow his mother and grandmothers’ profession, and did his nurse training at Maitland Hospital from 1973 to 1976.
Of his training he notes:
Preliminary Training School was completed in Blocks at the Newcastle TAFE for all the local and regional hospitals at the time. I used to look forward to meeting all the teachers and trainees and sharing experiences from the different places. Basic bedside training was quite adequate at The Maitland Hospital but specialisation was starting and one had to go away to the big teaching hospitals in the cities to gain experience and complete training courses
Tom Healy has kept a box of mementoes about his Mum’s and his own nursing careers. The collection includes the Maitland Hospital Gold Medal awarded to his Mum.
RIght: Tom Healy’s box of mementoes. His Mum’s Maitland Hospital Gold Medal is at the front of the box.
References and resources
McCallum, Alison, Report on research into nursing record of Mary Stanislaus white and Mary Vera White conducted for Tom Healy, 12 August 2018, Tom Healy collection.
Meehan, Esme, Maitland Hospital: The Way We Were, Maitland, 1996.
Hugh Owen Healy, AIF Personnel file, National Archives of Australia: B2455, Healy H O 11072
Maitland Mercury, 12 Feb 1914, 30 May 1918, 27 Dec 1915, 26 Dec 1917,3 Sep 1920, 14 July 1923, 21 Dec 1923, 1 Dec 1924
Tom Healy, personal communication, September 2020
Views of Maitland (online database), entries for Ethel Idstein, Mary Healy, Hugh Healy, Adele Schofield
Note: Unless otherwise specified, the photographs and other documents used in the story come from Tom Healy’s personal collection.
Posted: 1 Jan 2021
Updated: 17 Dec 2021