Rosemary Opala facts for kids

Rosemary Opala (born Fielding) (1923–2008) was an amazing Australian artist, writer, and nurse. She is well-known for her work as an environmentalist, historian, and community helper in Queensland.

Rosemary Opala's art and writing often showed her own life experiences and how she saw the world. She focused on Queensland wildlife, nursing, women's lives, family, and the history of everyday people.

A big part of Opala's nursing career was spent on Peel Island. She worked at the Lazaret (a special hospital for people with Hansen's Disease). Through her art and writing, Opala shared important stories about the Lazaret's history. She also talked about how people misunderstood the disease and how patients were treated.

Her Early Life and Career

Rosemary Opala was born in Bundaberg on January 24, 1923. She grew up in Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Her mother, Ethel Fielding, was a writer who published poems and short stories. Rosemary went to Palmwoods Primary School and then Nambour High School.

In the 1940s, Opala moved to Brisbane to study art at George Street Technical College. But when World War II started, she decided to become a nurse. She felt it was "more useful than playing with paints." While training at Brisbane General Hospital, she also worked as a freelance writer. Many of her short stories and essays appeared in popular Australian women's magazines. At the same time, she started sketching and drawing. She drew patients, staff, and the hospital building.

While nursing in Brisbane, Opala met patients from Peel Island who had Hansen's Disease. She decided to move to the Lazaret on the island in the Moreton Bay area. From the late 1940s until 1959, when the Lazaret closed, Opala worked with Hansen's Disease patients. She also worked on the mainland sometimes. During the 1950s and 1960s, Opala kept writing and sketching about her experiences on the island and its native plants.

In the 1960s, after working at Peel Island, Opala and her husband, Marian, moved to Redland Bay. Later, they moved to Coochiemudlo Island and built a house. They did not have children. Opala left the island in the late 1960s and continued her nursing career. She worked in Cleveland, Bundaberg, and later at Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. In 1977, she earned her diploma in Nursing Administration. She became a supervisor at Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane in 1980. She retired from nursing in 1989 and lived in Victoria Point in Redland Bay.

Her Nursing Journey

Rosemary Opala received her nursing diploma on May 3, 1945. She became a Fellow of the College of Nursing in 1977. She chose nursing because many nurses were needed during World War II, even though she had artistic talents.

Throughout her career, Opala worked at places like St Anne's, Westwood TB Sanatorium, and Brisbane General Hospital. She also had two terms working on Peel Island.

When she first started as a qualified nurse at the Brisbane General Hospital (now Royal Brisbane Hospital), Opala felt a bit down about the job. She wrote about how nursing was changing. She noted how nurses' education moved from hospitals to colleges. She felt like a "glorified domestic" because her duties often involved cooking and cleaning, not just medical tasks.

While treating patients with Leprosy at St Anne's, Opala became very interested in the disease. She grew fond of her patients. The common fear and misunderstanding of Leprosy in Queensland at the time did not affect her care. Young and new to the job, Opala took her first role as a nurse at the Peel Island Lazaret in the 1940s. She wrote a lot about her time there, discussing treatments, patient names, how patients were kept separate, and the social life of nurses and patients on the island.

Later Years and Recognition

After retiring from nursing in 1989, Opala stayed very active. She was involved in many community, writing, and creative activities until she turned 80 in 2004. Living in Caloundra, she continued to write for various community groups, including the Sunshine Coast Daily. She also helped edit the newsletter for the Caloundra branch of the Wilderness Preservation Society of Queensland.

In 2004, Opala was honored at the Inaugural Women of Redlands exhibition. This award recognized her important work as an artist and community helper in the Redlands Bay area. She showed her artwork in local shows and donated pieces to help raise money for community groups. In 2002, the Friends of Peel Island Association and the Wilderness Preservation Society of Queensland nominated her to be an Australian Living Treasure.

Rosemary Opala was a founding and lifetime member of the Friends of Peel Island. Her nomination letter for Australian Living Treasure in 2002 said that Opala "supports the community through art and writing and keeps records of flora and fauna".

Her Writing Career

Rosemary Opala wrote for most of her life. She created many short stories, personal essays, and news articles. She learned to write at a young age from her mother, Ethel Fielding. Her mother sometimes had short stories and poems published in magazines. Opala said, "I've written and drawn since early childhood in the days when owning one's own book was a rare treat." Much of her writing showed her personal interests, experiences, and how she saw the world. Her work was published in many national and local magazines. Opala continued to write until she passed away in 2008.

Writing for Women's Magazines

From the 1950s to the mid-1960s, Opala worked as a freelance writer. She published short stories and personal essays in popular Australian women's magazines like The New Idea, Woman, Woman's Day, and The Australian Woman's Mirror. Opala wrote about topics important to women and Australian society at the time. These included family life (especially the role of mothers and wives), childhood, how new Australians settled in, how people saw nurses, and the outdoors and Australian environment.

Opala sometimes used pen names like Kay Brohm and Dymee Spokwi. She stopped writing fiction in the mid-1960s when she went back to full-time nursing.

Writing About Nature

In the 1990s, Opala started publishing her writing again. This time, she mostly focused on her love for natural history and conservation. She wrote newspaper columns for various community and national publications. She often wrote to promote local plants and animals. Opala would often mix personal stories and her opinions with facts to show how beautiful her subjects were. Many of her columns included her own illustrations. Some publications that featured her environmental articles include:

• Wildlife Australia Magazine
• Sunshine Coast Daily (including her regular column)
• Eco Echo (a quarterly magazine)
• The Queensland Naturalist (Official Journal of the Queensland Naturalist Club Inc.)
• Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland Bayside Newsletter
• USA Redlands Newsletter
• FOPI Flyer (Friends of Peel Island Newsletter)

Opala continued to write about natural history and conservation until the mid-2000s.

Writing About History and Helping Communities

Opala also became known for her writing about local history. She wrote many stories about her own experiences in Queensland. These were published in various places, including Australian Folklore Annual.

Peel Island

Opala wrote a lot about her time nursing on Peel Island. Much of her writing aimed to correct the 'myths' and 'misunderstandings' about the island and the Lazaret. In an article for Australian Folklore, Opala said that even after it closed, Peel Island continued to be a place of 'myths and legends'. She felt great sympathy for the patients. She wrote about how being isolated on the island affected them and the unfair ideas people had about them. Opala believed that the Queensland Health Department's decision to isolate patients, meant to calm public fears, actually made people think Hansen's disease was much worse than it really was.

Her Art

Rosemary Opala created art based on her life as a nurse, her time on Peel Island, her magazine writings, and her retirement on Coochiemudlo Island. You can see Opala's drawings from her time as a nurse at the Brisbane General Hospital in the Fryer Library at The University of Queensland. These drawings show what nurses and patients did, and what the hospital looked like between 1940 and 1945. They are important historical records of her view of the hospital.

One collection of her art includes watercolour, ink, and pencil drawings. They show scenes from the Brisbane General Hospital, including patients, doctors, and nurses, as well as the areas around the hospital. This collection gives us a look into the medical world and the buildings of Brisbane between 1940 and 1945.

As an environmentalist, Opala drew many pictures of the animals and plants in the greater Brisbane area. She especially focused on Peel and Coochiemudlo islands.