with Natalie Poole

A lifetime of service  

Trentham’s Edith Kathleen (Kath) Tresidder was born on March 12, 1907 in Blue Mountain, Trentham the second of five children to Martin and Ada  Tresidder. Her father was a farmer at Cold Spring Farm, near Trentham and her mother kept house.  

After leaving school she was a domestic, but yearned to help people. In 1934,  Kath with her eldest sister Frances, left home to commence nursing training at the Mooroopna Base Hospital in the Goulburn Valley.  

Kath graduated from her training and continued to work at the Mooroopna Base Hospital. A few years later, in July 1939, she qualified as a midwife at St George’s  Hospital, Horsham.  During World War II, Kath was nursing at Wembley Private Hospital in Horsham when she enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service on December 16, 1941, aged 34 years.

She saw service on Thursday Island and Rabaul from August 30,  1943 to May 16, 1947 serving 1817 days. She was promoted to lieutenant in 1943.  

While serving, she contracted tuberculosis and entered the Heidelberg  Repatriation Hospital upon her discharge from the armed forces in May 1947. She  lost a lung due to the condition.

Immediately following her discharge from the  Repatriation Hospital, Kath returned to Cold Spring Farm near Trentham where she  looked after her ageing parents, and sister Sarah who had chronic arthritis.  

She returned to full-time nursing in 1948 when she began at the Trentham Bush Nursing Hospital. Kath eventually became matron of the hospital and was the sole nurse for the six-bed hospital. She was assisted by a young woman who worked as the cook and laundress.  

The demarcation between nursing duties and domestic duties was not so clear in  those days and Kath involved herself in the preparation of meals and laundry duty as well as her matron and sole nurse commitments.

Dr Gweneth Wisewould was the town doctor at this time and Kath and Gwen got on very well and became friends.  

From the Trentham Bush Nursing Hospital, Kath went on to nurse at Clunes District Hospital where she continued until her retirement in 1980, aged 73 years.  

She moved to Bendigo in 1981 and became a resident of the Returned Serviceman’s League units. With a nursing background and having never married,  Kath continued in an informal way to serve the profession she had entered as a young woman by attending to other residents when the need arose.  

In her 90th year, Kath returned to the district in which she had been born and had lived a large part of her life.

In January 1997, she became a resident in the  Trentham Hostel, a facility attached to the then Bush Nursing Hospital.  

She had lived a wonderful life, serving many communities with her nursing skills  but ultimately wanted to return to the place she called home for her final goodbyes.  

Kath passed away peacefully on March 30, 1997 and is remembered on the Mooroopna Base Hospital Graduates’ Honour Roll and on her gravesite at Tylden, with the symbol of the Armed Forces.   

Trentham’s Catherine (Kit) Anne Trewhella , pictured below was born on February 23, 1897 to William Trewhella and Margaret Landrigan.

William, was the designer of Trewhella Jacks and other innovative tools which he patented and manufactured at Trewhella Brothers’ Engineers, known locally as the Foundry. 

After leaving school, Kit went to Melbourne to learn the skill of drafting with Johns and Waygood. She became a draftsman which was a rare profession for a woman of the time and on returning to Trentham, joined the office staff at the foundry.

Following with family tradition while working at the foundry, Kit was a trailblazer, inventing and patenting an automatic door closer. The family business was managed by male family members, while Kit managed the office in the roles of secretary and paymaster. 

Financial decisions were usually made by males but that didn’t bother her at all. Kit, highlighting her individuality and technical expertise, was the owner of the first motor garage and hire car business in 1921 in High Street, Trentham where mechanical repairs were undertaken, petrol pumped, and cars hired with a driver. Her brother Harry was placed in the role of manager. 

Kit was fortunate enough to be one of the first women in Trentham to drive a car and in fact own one herself. She realised cars were to be a way of life then and into the future. Kit never married.

She was a devout Catholic and her association with the church made her aware of the disadvantaged people in the town.

With her great friend, Dr Gweneth Wisewould, the local family doctor for the district, and Kit the office manager of the main employer in town, the private circumstances of most residents were known to them. 

When crisis hit the town Kit and/or Dr Gwen would provide medical support, money, food, a place to sleep or whatever was needed, promptly and without the need for recognition.

Helping people in the community and hosting children from Catholic schools and orphanages at her farm in Newbury over the summer holidays was her way of giving back to the district. She was a role model for women and was looked up to in town.

For many years, she was the secretary of the Roman  Catholic Church, taking a role often played by men, rather  than the traditional female role in the Catholic Women’s Guild where they would run euchre parties and sell homemade goods.  

Over a long life, she was a trend-setter, taking on female roles if necessary but determined to break with  tradition and relishing in the male roles.  

Though not universally loved later in life due to her forthrightness and abrasive manner, the town still  respected and remembered her, putting her name forward for the Heather Mutimer Hepburn Shire Women’s Day Honour Roll.

Kit was posthumously added to the Honour Roll in 2015.  (A local tells me Kit was fond of a man named Norm who helped out at the farm, but Norm never asked Kit to marry him.

A friend asked why she didn’t ask him and her reply: “It is manners for a lady to wait until she is asked. Hence, wedding bells  never rang.”)  

Words: Natalie Poole | Images: Courtesy of Trentham Historical Society