Obituaries - Edna (teddie) Curwen-walker - Nurse

The Age

Wednesday April 24, 2002

Susan Hudson

24-11-1896 - 27-3-2002

Teddie Curwen-Walker, who has died at 105 was a passionate conservationist, nurse, traveller and vegetarian. She explored rural Australia in the early 1900s by camping out with her sister Kathleen. The formidable pair planned and executed ``safaris", travelling with their packs on the ``Sundowner Bus" to reach isolated destinations and bring back plant species for botanist friends.

The sisters adored the primitive west coast of Tasmania, yet there were few decent roads then to help them get to the pristine beaches where they swam naked. ``We only stopped camping when I couldn't kneel to hammer in the tent pegs and my sister developed heart trouble," she said a few years before her death.

Teddie also used planes and ships - for forays to England, South Africa and Japan, but preferred to see and feel this earth while traversing it.

Teddie was one of seven children born to NSW sheep farmers John and Lucy Jane Curwen-Walker. When her father died the family came to Victoria. She attended Melbourne Girls Grammar School. When Kathleen enrolled in nursing at the Royal Melbourne, Teddie applied to the Children's Hospital and, once qualified, the two women set up their own nursing agency in Melbourne. They employed a housekeeper to take calls while they went out to nurse private patients or take assignments in private hospitals. They both worked in this way well into their middle years. The sisters never married, and the two were inseparable until Kathleen died at 75. Teddie retired at 60 and lived independently until her death in March.

Susan Hudson is a freelance journalist.

© 2002 The Age

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