O'KANE, Rosa
| Service Number: | Staff Nurse |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 7 October 1918 |
| Last Rank: | Staff Nurse |
| Last Unit: | Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1) |
| Born: | Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia , 14 April 1890 |
| Home Town: | Charters Towers, Charters Towers, Queensland |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Nurse |
| Died: | Pneumonic Influenza, Quarantine Station, Fremantle, Western Australia, 21 December 1918, aged 28 years |
| Cemetery: |
Quarantine Station, Woodman Point, Perth, Western Australia |
| Memorials: | Australian Military Nurses Memorial, Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Kapunda Dutton Park Memorial Bullwinkel Memorial, Maryborough Nurses Honour Board, Melbourne St. Paul's Cathedral Australian Army Nursing Service Great War Roll of Honour, Queensland Australian Army Nursing Service Roll of Honour |
World War 1 Service
| 7 Oct 1918: | Enlisted Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), Staff Nurse, Staff Nurse, Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1) | |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct 1918: |
Involvement
Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), Staff Nurse, Staff Nurse, Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '23' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: SS Wyreema embarkation_ship_number: '' public_note: '' |
|
| 14 Oct 1918: | Embarked Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), Staff Nurse, Staff Nurse, Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), SS Wyreema, Sydney | |
| 21 Dec 1918: | Involvement Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: awm_unit: Australian Army Nursing Service awm_rank: Staff Nurse awm_died_date: 1918-12-21 |
Friends of Woodman Point Recreation Camp Inc
For nearly 25 years, volunteers have been assisting the government of Western Australia in its efforts to preserve and interpret the former quarantine station (now recreation camp) at Woodman Point, Western Australia. Friends’ volunteers are mainly driven by a passion for the site’s social history and want to celebrate the bravery of carers and to commemorate the dreadful loss of life of sufferers. Through guided walks, museum displays, academic theses, books, podcasts, publications, signage and social media, their mission is for others to understand how the station operated and how society functioned in dealing with quarantine.
Twenty-eight-year-old Rosa O’Kane was one of four nurses who died at Woodman Point while caring for troops infected with Spanish Flu: Ada Thompson (33 years); Doris Ridgway (27 years), and civilian nurse, Hilda Williams (26 years). Rosa died on 21 December 1918 and was buried on site but Ada and Doris were exhumed and reinterred at Fremantle Cemetery and Perth War Cemetery, respectively. In 2022 Friends installed an impressive headstone on Hilda's grave to replace a simple wooden cross. Hilda and Rosa's gravesites are tended by Friends and commemorated on ANZAC days.
'A museum display at Woodman Point and the book, ‘The ‘Boonah Tragedy’ by Ian Darroch relates the shocking tale which led to Rosa’s death. Relatives have kept in touch with Friends and visited the site. Although the bodies of all service personnel originally buried at Woodman Point, except Rosa, were reinterred, Rosa’s memorial, and that of civilian Nurse, Hilda Williams, remain as reminders of the sacrifice of those who cared for others in that desperate post-war pandemic.'
A three-metre high granite memorial marks Rosa's plot. It is inscribed, 'For Valour/In honoured and revered memory of Sister Rosa O'Kane, AAN Service/late of Charters Towers, Queensland died here 21st December, 1918 of/Pneumonic influenza./Only daughter of Mrs J.G. O'Kane and sister of Frank and John G. O'Kane/R.I.P./Erected by the Patriotic Committee, Charters Towers, Comrades, Nurses and Queensland Friends.
Rosa is memorialised on the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour Panel 188 and at the Perth War Cemetery Wall 6 A.
Lest We Forget.
Submitted 19 April 2025 by gail dodd
Biography contributed by Sharyn Roberts
Daughter of John Gregory and Jeanie Elizabeth O'KANE
Of Deane St., Charters Towers, North Queensland
Trained at Townsville General Hospital
Appointed Matron of the Winton Hospital, resigning to go to the front.
NURSES "DEVOTION."
When the troopship Wyreema was recalled from Capetown, owing to the signing of the Armistice, she carried a detachment of 40 Australian army nursing sisters as reinforcements for Salonika. The troopship Boonah was two days behind the Wyreema, and a number of the troops on board contracted pneumonic influenza. A request was received by Lieutenant Colonel P. M. McFarlane, who was in command of the troops on the Wyreema, to land 20 nursing sisters to help nurse the Boonah patients at the Woodman's Point quarantine station, Fremantle. Volunteers were invited, and so many offered that the names were placed in a hat and 20 drawn out. Three of them made the supreme sacrifice—Sister Rosa O'Kane, Nurse Hilda Williams, and Nurse Ridgeway— and a number of the others contracted the disease. Sister Rosa O'Kane was the only daughter of Mrs. J. G. O'Kane, of Charters Towers, and the late Mr. J. G. O'Kane, sister of Messrs. Frank and J. G. O'Kane, and grand-daughter of the late Mr. Thaddeus O'Kane, formerly proprietor of "The Northern Miner," and a prominent journalist of his time. Sister O'Kane's grave, with a headstone erected by the patriotic committee of Charters Towers in memory of her magnificent self-sacrifice, is in the only military cemetery in Australia— that at Woodman's Point— and each Anzac Day a contingent of returned soldiers visits the cemetery and places wreathes on the graves of the three nurses who made the supreme sacrifice.
The Brisbane Courier Wednesday 11 November 1931 page 13
Nurse Dies on Duty
Sister Rosa O'Kane, whose death is reported from Perth through influenza, left Victoria about eight weeks ago on a transport for "service somewhere." On the voyage a wireless message was received from the military authorities in South Africa, calling for volunteers to nurse influenza patients in quarantine. In responding to the call of duty, Sister O'Kane made the supreme sacrifice.
Sister O'Kane is a daughter of Mrs J. E. O'Kane, Ryan street, Charters Towers, Queensland. She joined the military service in Queensland on October 7 and embarked at Sydney for overseas duty as a staff nurse on
October 14.
Weekly Times Saturday 28 December 1918 page 38
To the Editor.
Sir,-In your issue of December 23 last I read a report of the military funeral of my niece, Sister Rosa O'Kane, of Victoria, who bad died of pneumonic influenza at Woodman's Point, and should like you to know that Sister
O'Kane was from Charters Towers, North Queensland, and was trained in the Townsville Hospital. After passing her final examination she was appointed matron of the Winton Hospital, but a short time afterwards was called up for military service and spent eleven months in the military hospital, Brisbane, awaiting her call to the front. The call came too late, as peace was declared before she reached the Cape and the ship was turned back to Australia. Sister O'Kane's last letter was dated December 9 and she expected to be in Fremantle next day and home for Christmas. The next news I got was of her illness and death. I write this just to ask that Queensland (where Sister Rosa O'Kane had many friends) be given the credit of her great sacrifice.
-Yours, etc.,(Mrs.) It. J. HALL. Titles Office. Brisbane, Jan. .10.
The West Australia Wednesday 22 January 1919 page 6
General regret was expressed in Townsville, when' it became known that Sister Rosa O'Kane Had made the supreme sacrifice, dying from the effects of that dread scourge, Spanish influenza, whilst nursing the soldier patients at Woodman's Point, Western Australia. Sister O'Kane, who received her training at the Townsville
Hospital, was a splendid type of Irish Australian womanhood, and during her course of training in Townsville made hosts of friends by her lovable disposition. Heart felt sympathy is extended to her mother, Mrs. O'Kane, in her irreparable loss --
RIP
The Catholic Press Thursday 16 January 1919 page 42
A touching picture is conveyed in a letter from one of the quarantine sisters, describing burial of Sister 0'Kane:—'Between. 2 a.m.,and. 3 a.m. on a beautiful moonlight night, writes Sister Morris, 'four sailors carried the body, (wrapped in a winding sheet of the Union Jack) to the mortuary out in the scrub. Later in the day the burial took place at the quarantine station. The nurses made little wreaths from West Australian wild flowers, which were placed on the coffin with the Union Jack. I did not leave the grave side till the 'Last Post' was sounded. 'Over Sister O'Kane's grave is a granite column; erected by her friends in Queensland and upon the other nurses' graves, as well as on the 17 or 18 graves of the soldier victims, are the simple white crosses, which mark our soldiers' graves the world over. The men buried here are from the Eastern States and New Zealand.
Let us, then, on Anzac Day, - think fora moment of that lonely little cemetery in the bush and those white sanded graves lying in the sunlight in the sound of the murmuring sea.
The West Australian Tuesday 25 April 1933 page 4
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