Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Dorothy Steer was born in Adelaide six months after her parents Herbert Steer and Wilmet Moseley arrived by ship from England with Dorothy's two older brothers.

Dorothy's father was a school teacher and headmaster who moved the family quite often so that he could find work. Dorothy spent the first 20 years of her life moving around with her family from Adelaide to Hahndorf and then Mount Gambier, then across the Victorian border to Horsham and then Melbourne, and then across to Tasmania where they lived at Ross, then Longford, and finally Zeehan on the rugged West coast.

Dorothy completed her training to be a nurse at Zeehan District Hospital from 1907 and in 1911, became the first nurse from the West Coast of Tasmania to pass the ATNA (Australasian Trained Nurses' Association) examination. Two months later she was granted an honorarium in recognition of the 'capable manner in which the duties of matron were carried out by her for several weeks.’

In 1912, Dorothy attained her obstetrics certificate from the Royal Melbourne Hospital and one year later was appointed in charge of the Bush Nursing Division near Dubbo, NSW. During this time Dorothy also worked with her brother the Rev. John Howard Steer through the Bush Brotherhood.

Dorothy was stationed for a time at Corinda on the Barwon River. The area she was responsible for was 100 miles radius from the Bush Nursing Centre (a small cottage with one bedroom, a kitchen and verandah). Transport was by horseback and a sulky.

Dorothy later joined her father (housemaster) and younger sister Effie (sub-Matron) as Matron, Junior House, Kings School, Parramatta.

During WW1 Dorothy resigned as Matron at Kings School and served with the Australian Army Nursing Service in Egypt. The majority of time was spent working at the 14th Army General Hospital in Abbassia.

On her return to Australia Dorothy worked in Sydney at the Scarborough House Red Cross Convalescent Home for wounded ex-servicemen. It was there she met Lt. Matthew Scott Findlay, recovering from wounds received in France serving in the AIF.

Dorothy and Matthew married on 12 February 1923 at Fenwick House in Ballina, where Dorothy's father was headmaster of the North Coast Grammar School for Boys. They settled in Merewether near Newcastle and raised a family of three children.

After Dorothy's death her cremated remains were buried in the same grave as two of her sisters and their parents at Rookwood.