A new walk trail at Karrakatta Cemetery honours 22 inspiring women who left enduring legacies on the State of Western Australia.
Create a free account to read this article
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Walking with Western Australian Women celebrates achievements in areas such as health, aged care, disability support, indigenous welfare and protection of the marginalised.
Louise Fry is proud that her mother Margaret Hubery is included in the trail.
Margaret received the honour of Member of the Order of Australia in 1993 in recognition of her service to nursing and the community and was inducted into the WA Women's Hall of Fame in 2015, the year she died.
Sixteen of the women are WA Women's Hall of Fame inductees. Among them are reformers, politicians, artists and activists.
"Mum would be absolutely delighted and is certainly in very good company," Louise, 56, said.
Louise followed in her mother's footsteps and went into nursing but says that is where the similarities end.
"My mum climbed the Mount Everest of nursing, she had a stellar career. There were all these stories about her back in the day," she said.
"Mum was very tall and had red hair. Nurses wore veils back then and Mum walked very fast. She was a charge sister at a very young age and the joke was that she could fly and see around corners."
Born in 1929, after training at Royal Perth Hospital and completing her midwifery training at Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney, Margaret married Percy Hubery in 1967 and spent seven years on a dairy farm in Bridgetown where she had her two daughters, Louise and Liz.
She established a Silver Chain District Nursing Service, ran a Red Cross First Aid Post and served on the Bridgetown Hospital Board.
"There was no childcare so my sister and I used to go on rounds with her, I can remember visiting patients with her," Louise said.
Margaret later became the first female president of Silver Chain and served as a member of the Silver Chain Board of Management.
In 1978 she was appointed director of nursing at Mt Henry Hospital for the Aged and six years later was appointed Royal Perth Hospital's Director of Nursing.
Louise can recall her mother always being very hands-on.
"We would visit her at work and she would introduce us to patients and if somebody needed a hand or needed to be fed, she would just do it, she wouldn't ring the bell and get somebody else.
"She used to say "show me, don't tell me", that was one of her mottos. She always led by example and was an advocate for her staff.
"Mum could mix it with the best of them, she was on a lot of boards and committees and quite often she was the only woman."
Margaret was dedicated to taking care of the elderly at Southern Cross Care (WA). From 1985 to 2005 she was on the Southern Cross Care Board, its first female member. She was chair from 1997 to 1999.
In the last two years of her life, she lived in an aged care facility named in her honour.
Other names on the walking trail include Edith Cowan, the first woman member of any Australian parliament; Mary Jane Levitzke, founder of the Deaf Society of WA; women's rights activist Bessie Rischbieth; Australian flag designer Annie Dorrington; pioneer settler Mary Millsteed and Sussan Casson, community activist and Justice of the Peace.
Each grave site or memorial along the five-kilometre trail is marked with a plaque providing a short biography and a QR code to access more information from the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board website.
To participate in the walk, download a copy of the map or collect a copy from the Karrakatta Cemetery office near the main entrance.
The walk takes around three hours to complete. It is possible to start, leave or re-join at any stage.
