Eumundi Voice - Issue 97, 11 July 2024

COMMUNITY

Building’s amazing century

Many may not be aware, but once upon a time the clubhouse at the Eumundi Showgrounds and Sports Complex had a very different and special purpose. It was a private hospital where the women of Eumundi and surrounds gave birth safely.

From 1924 to 1958 local resident Emily Luke, known simply as ‘Nurse’, ran the facility. She oversaw the delivery of a generation of babies, minor surgery and the treatment of injuries.

While visiting her family home in Sunny Brae in 1923, Nurse Emily was approached by a local doctor who asked her to establish the nursing home. In a gracious gesture, Emily’s parents donated the beautiful Queenslander to be used for this purpose.

Opening in January 1924, the nursing home focused on supporting soldiers returning from the Great War. However, in the years following Sunny Brae catered primarily for maternity patients and eventually it became a maternity hospital.

Eumundi Museum will host the 100-year celebration of the hospital on 20 July at 3pm with afternoon tea. Families and community members are welcome to tour the building, share their Eumundi stories and revisit Sunny Brae’s unique history. RSVPs are required for catering purposes. For details visit: facebook. com/eumundimuseum.

Attendees are encouraged to bring along any memorabilia from any period of Eumundi history to show and share with others, with the hope of capturing more stories about the town and the district. Donations of objects, letters and photographs would be greatly appreciated but the museum would also be grateful to borrow any memorabilia to copy for their records and future exhibitions and publications.

Sunshine Coast Libraries have conserved, rehoused, indexed and partially digitised the Sunny Brae Private Hospital Collection, made possible thanks to a generous donation by the family of Fay Miller (nee Peachey), niece of Nurse Emily. More than 1,500 images, documents, patient logs, maternity case records and more are in the collection. Digitised images from the collection can be accessed via: sunshinecoast. recollect.net.au.