KNOWING THE SHARED HISTORY OF OUR ANCESTORS
Salome Jean White (1905 - 15 July 1974)
When Jean White graduated as a Doctor of Medicine at Melbourne University in 1929. It was a man’s world in which she found herself Australia’s first woman Flying Doctor. Young Anthropologist Ursula McConnell travelled on horseback to Aurukun around the same era in the 1930’s. Things were not easy for women like Jean White and Ursula McConnell, one in a plane and the other on horseback. They were both strong and wilful women. The young Doctor was posted to Normanton Hospital in 1937 and soon found herself in trouble for speaking her mind on arrangements in the Aboriginal ward there. Rev. John Flynn found her a position at Croydon where she became well liked throughout the region in those first years of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. She had a big region to cover and although she returned to Melbourne to establish herself back in Victoria not long after the crash, she clearly loved the people and bush work, and the people loved her. Some were worried about her flying around with her pilot Captain Doug Tennant over country where there were few roads and airports that were often very rough. The airport at Mitchell River Mission had been completed soon after 1937 providing a mail service and the new RFDS. The new strip would also become a surveillance Base in the 1940’s during World War 2 when it was upgraded to take light defence aircraft.
The Flying Doctor Service’s Doctor and the little two-winged Fox Moth ran a very busy service that often started as soon as the pilot could see the instruments in the early dawn light. It is clear from her account of the day they force landed on their way to Mitchell River Mission that she was a very special person. A section from a book is being reprinted for readers to enjoy. That both Doctor and Pilot survived the cash and were able to be rescued in February was sheer luck on their part. At that time of year often the geese are laying in the wetlands and the Magnificent Creek could have been flooded making travel to the landing very risky if not impossible. The Editor has printed the story as it was written and anyone who knows the country must excuse obvious errors about people and country but it is a clear and wonderful account of what happened.
Same kind of biplane that crashed in 1939
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