Highly skilled nurse and mum
Ruth enjoyed reading and swimming
RUTH Harriet Dickie was born in Toowoomba on April 12, 1923. She was the last and fifth child of Thomas and Susan Dickie. The family home where Mum grew up was in Alderly Street.
Ruth attended Rangeville State School enrolling at the age of four at the beginning of the year in 1928. She enjoyed her school years, especially swimming and netball. She excelled at English and developed a love of reading and writing. On several occasions she represented Toowoomba in Brisbane, swimming for her school. She enjoyed swimming all her life, and even at the age of 89, she swam in the Millmerran pool.
In 1936 at the age of 13 she sat her scholarship examination, (the only girl in the class), and did well. She had vivid memories of practising for her scholarship exams by drawing maps of world countries in the sand at the beach during her holidays.
After scholarship, she attended the Toowoomba Technical College and in 1938 sat the Junior Public Examination. In 1939 she completed scholarship extension studies by undergoing a commercial course.
Her first employed position was at JE Searle & Sons Pty Ltd – butcher and ice manufacturer in Toowoomba. After two years of struggling to work in a cold room she decided to enrol in general nursing training at Toowoomba Hospital.
During this time she joined and became an active member of the Nurses Christian Movement, making many friendships that endured even up until her death. After two years of general training, in 1945, she enrolled in an obstetric and midwifery course at the Brisbane Women’s Hospital.
During 1946 she worked as a relieving sister at both Boonah and Warwick Hospitals.
After her time at Boonah and Warwick hospitals, Ruth returned to Brisbane where she completed her maternal and child welfare training in 1947. The following year she returned to Toowoomba Hospital as a triple certificate sister and nursed for another two years.
In 1950 Ruth headed for Sydney where she enrolled in a 12 month course at the Sydney Missionary and Bible College, gathering even more lifelong friends, one of whom continued corresponding with her until her death.
She returned to the Darling Downs in 1952 to be closer to her parents and worked as a sister and acting matron at Millmerran Hospital for two years.
“Sister Dickie” became well known in the community as a conscientious and efficient nursing sister. It was during these years that she began to attend St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Millmerran and its fellowship group at the time, and met her future husband, Oliver Carter.
In 1955 the current Millmerran doctor, Dr McCulloch, returned to Toowoomba and requested that Ruth become his practice nurse. She willingly took up this offer as it brought her closer to her aging Mother.
At about this time she became engaged to Oliver Carter who travelled to Toowoomba to visit her. In those days this was quite a long journey and took Oliver away from his farming duties. In January 1956, 62 years ago, she married Oliver in the Neil St Methodist Church and began married life on Ellerslie at Millmerran.
Over the next few years, their marriage was blessed with the arrival of three children, John, Mary and Wendy. This was a busy time for her – she had to learn how to sew wheat bags, wash clothes in the copper over an open fire, kill and pluck chooks, preserve fruit and make jams and cook for shearers and her young family in a home with no electricity or other modern day appliances.
With the support of Oliver’s mother, Phyllis, who willingly helped her to learn her new role as farmer’s wife, Ruth became a confident cook.
Ruth’s nursing career developed within her a heightened sense of the need to be organised, efficient and business-like. These skills saw her begin a lifelong habit of keeping regular diary entries which began with records of farm activities and she continued to record daily events of her personal life until she was about 90.
Having grown up during the depression years, Ruth became a master of economy and thriftiness in the house. Nothing was ever wasted.
To this day her children can remember slivers of soap being saved for later use, toothpaste tubes cut open to get the very last scrape, and the pineapple skins and cores boiled up to make pineapple syrup – our first cordial.
Even ordinary items such as string, rubber bands, wrapping paper were saved.
Her children clearly remember Ruth rinsing out the first plastic shopping bags, and hanging them on the line for reuse. She went without new shoes and dresses and makeup to ensure her children had leather shoes for school, regular check ups with a private dentist, music lessons and good nutrition.
Because of good management and personal sacrifice by Ruth and Oliver, the ups and particularly the downs of farm income, over many years, seemed to have little or no impact on the lives of their three children while growing up.
Ruth taught her children how to catch yabbies, the right mushrooms to pick, to ride bikes, to write thankyou letters to her many friends who had sent gifts or money to the children and she taught her daughters how to knit, sew and cook.
Somehow she also made time to ensure that the children could all swim competently, and passed on to them her love of reading.
The family lived in an isolated pocket of the community, but Ruth and Oliver drove into Millmerran every week to attend church, Sunday school, Scouts and Pathfinders.
Ruth was a Sunday School teacher and superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday School for many years, and enjoyed being a member of the Presbyterian choir.
After 24 years, in 1980 “Ellerslie” was sold and Ruth and Oliver moved to Toowoomba and purchased a home in Harristown.
They lived there in retirement where she enjoyed attending Bible study, visiting friends and neighbours, gardening, church, writing letters, tapestry, knitting for impoverished overseas children and visits from her grandchildren.
Early in 2012, a fall forced Ruth to relocate back to Millmerran where she lived the next six years of her life in Millmerran Centenary Retirement Village.
Her family is thankful for the care and attention given to her, the dignity and respect with which she was treated and the love given to her by the staff at the village. Ruth died on February 7, 2018.