BAILEY Trissie

Trissie Bailey was born at Tumbarumba in the Colony of New South Wales on 6 December 1892. Her mother was Ellen Venables and her father, Ellen€™s second husband, William Bailey Dixon. Her mother died in 1904 at Byron Bay where her husband was postmaster. The family later moved to Pomona in the Colony of Queensland.

Trissie undertook a three year nursing training at the Rockhampton Hospital and she was registered as a general nurse in July 1917. By 25 October 1917, Trissie, aged 24 years was in 1st Military District, Brisbane as a staff nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). In less than two weeks, Trissie embarked from Sydney on HMT €œCanberra€ sailing for Bombay. She was one of around 560 AANS nurses in India between 1916 and 1919.

The AANS in India were not on the frontline and felt they were wasted in India. A. G. Butler saw the nurses as finding the social atmosphere of India, indicative of the Raj, as alien and not liked by the Australians who saw themselves as classless. The prevalence of disease in India was a professional challenge to the AANS and was also a threat to the nurses€™ health although Trissie€™s record shows no illnesses recorded. Trissie worked at the Victoria War Hospital in Bombay where illnesses treated included dysentery, malaria and beriberi and other tropical diseases with which the Australian nurses were not familiar. Other hospitals where Trissie worked were the 1000 bed Gerald Freeman Thomas War Hospital also in Bombay, the King George War Hospital in Poona and the 19th British General Hospital in Rawalpindi. It was not until October 1919 that Trissie embarked for Brisbane. She was discharged from the AANS on 19 December 1919 and was eligible for the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

On return from the war, Trissie continued her civilian nursing career. By 1921 she was training as a midwife at the Lady Bowen Hospital in Brisbane. She was registered as a midwife in April 1922. In 1925, Trissie was Matron of the Maleny Hospital from where she went as Matron of Longreach Hospital in the same year. In 1927 she was Matron as St Anne€™s Private Hospital, Cleveland. She then worked in New South Wales hospitals.

Trissie married twice. In 1939 she married Robert Gavin Ralston in Queensland. Robert died in December 1947. Around 1951 Trissie was a sister at the Stanthorpe Hospital in Queensland. Her second marriage was to Clarence Walter Weis on 31 August 1963 when Trissie was aged 70. The couple lived at Dunedoo in New South Wales where Clarence died on 8 July 1988. Trissie died on 31 July 1991 and was buried with Clarence at the Dunedoo General Cemetery. She was 98 years old and had lived a varied and interesting life.

AWM Embarkation Rolls

"Nominal roll of Australian nurses who served in India", AWM 373-133