Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

A MUCH-TRAVELLED NURSE

The Late Sister Coleman.

Word has been received in Perth of the death of Sister Mary K. Coleman at Loomis Hospital, Liberty, New York, on April 11 last. She was 53 years of age. The late Sister Coleman came to Western Australia with her parents in 1897, and subsequently travelled to many parts of the world, on several occasions being referred to as "Australia's most-travelled nurse. In March, 1906, she was accepted as a probationer in the Government Hospitals of this State, qualifying as a fully trained nurse after three years' work at the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie hospitals. She registered as a member of the Australian Trained Nurses' Association in 1910 and in the following January obtained a certificate of efficiency in the Australian Army Nursing Services. During the following 18 months she practised private nursing in Perth and late in 1913 went to England to further her studies in different branches of her profession. She did a six months' course at Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital in London, gaining a diploma, and also a course of training at the Royal Sanitary Institute of London, subsequently being awarded a diploma. She also nursed for some time in the slums of London. She was then admitted as a member of the Royal British Nurses' Association and when the Great War broke out she joined an Imperial Nursing Unit and went on active service in France.

She had the distinction of being the first Australian nurse on service in the war and remained in France until March, 1915. She then returned to London and joined Lady Pogett's nursing unit, comprising 40 nurses - and several doctors who went to Serbia in April, 1915. After many months of service in Serbia the members of this unit were made prisoners of war by the Bulgarians and were interned for some months. As a result of negotiations between the British and Bulgarian authorities they were released, a condition of release being that they should leave Bulgaria via a neutral country. This meant proceeding through Rumania to Russia, thence to England via Norway and Sweden. For her services in Serbia Miss Coleman received a testimonial from the Serbian Relief Fund Committee, and, in addition, the Cross of Charity was conferred upon her by His Majesty King Peter, King of the Serbs, Croates and Slovenes. In 1916 Miss Coleman returned to Australia and soon after received an appointment to the Australian Army Nursing Service. Late in the same year she embarked as a member of an A.I.F. nursing unit for service abroad, where she remained in the military hospitals of France and England until 1919, in which year she returned to Australia.

After serving for a year in the No. 8 Australian General Hospital, Fremantle, she applied for and obtained her discharge. Before leaving England Sister Coleman had received a highly complimentary ad-dress from the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in recognition of services rendered during the war.

In 1921 she was appointed to the position of matron of the Coonamble Hospital in N.S.W., which she filled for a period of 18 months. She then went to the United States of America where she practised in hospitals of New York and other cities for some years. In 1923 the Board of Health of California conferred upon her the title of Registered Nurse under the medical laws of America. In the same year she was admitted as registered nurse by the General Nursing Council for England and Wales. In 1924 she qualified in the University of the State of New York as a registered nurse and received her diploma. In 1926 she took a position with the Medical Department of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and served in their hospitals in various parts of South America until within a few months of her death. In 1933 she was selected to attend an international nurses' congress in Paris. She was a student of foreign languages and spoke French, Italian and Spanish fluently. She cultivated a taste for classical music and followed the political trends of the world with interest and intelligence.

The late Miss Mary K. Coleman, photographed while serving with the Australian Army Nursing Service in France during the Great War.

The West Australia Wednesday 08 June 1938 page 5

AUSTRALIAN EXILES
Found in Many Lands

Somewhere in South America, over a tiny bungalow, a little Australian flag flies defiantly in the face of the hot winds from Ecuador and the cooler breezes from the Caribbean Sea (states a writer in 'The Sun Pictorial." Melbourne). It was hoisted by Mollie K. Coleman. aventuresome young Western Australian woman, who has worked her way in many lands -without ever quite conquering her heart's desire to stay at home. Miss Coleman is one of many exiles ofwhose existence Australia does not know, but who are unobtrusively achieving things— some small, some big — in the older world. In the first days of the war, the High Commissioner's office in London was besieged by a small army of these exiles there must have been a thousand of them—who wanted to join the A.I.F. They came from the four corners of the earth. A picturesque crew they were, appearing, all the more burly, and breezy by contrast with the small and expressionless Londoners.

There was one giant who came across with the Canadians. He had chased the weight on pretty nearly every gold field in -the world, from Kalgoorlie to the Yukon, and when he heard there was a war on he had staked a claim at a point nearly, a thousand miles further north than Dawson City, Alaska. He took his first leave, in London after a year or two in the trenches, and he said the M.M. ribbon on his tunic was 'buck-shee.' .To return to Miss Coleman. Her earliest adventures were on the Western Australian goldfields, where she trained as a nurse. When the war started Miss Coleman was in London. Australian officialdom turned a cold eye on her, so she rushed across to Paris, joined a French unit, and was soon out near the lines nursing poilus.
Faced the Enemy
Service in several sections of the war zone followed, and then Sister Coleman joined up with Lady Paget's Hospital, and went into Serbia. She was there when Serbia collapsed, but elected to stick it out when the main part of the unit joined in the general retreat. Bulgars and Austrians seized the hospital and made her nurse their sick for a long time. Then she got away through Roumania, Russia, Sweden, and Norway.,
Back to London, another spell in France, the long trip to Australia to join the AIF nursing service, France again with the Diggers, and in due course home again. Miss Coleman later crossed the States, and then sailed south again, pulling up at Cartagena, Colombia, where she is in the medical department of the Tropical Oil Company.
Of course, there are Australians who are world famous actors, singers, --- explorers, and so on. It is not suggested that Miss.Coleman or the Alaskan prospector can be placed in the same category. Neither can A. H. Benjamin, one of the most powerful business men in the meat business in America; Frank Staines, who runs a highly, successful business in Victoria street, London; nor H. E.. How, the controller of a chain of hotels in Bloomsbury and elsewhere. But they, are interesting, and Australians ought to know something of them and others like them.

The Mail (Adelaide) Saturday 08 May 1926 page 5