Jacqueline O’Brien OAM

Jacqueline O’Brien OAM

1926 - 2020

Jacqueline Moya O’Brien née Seale died 22^nd October 2020. She came every Thursday for more than twenty years as a volunteer for Charles Darwin University Nursing Museum. She was an important part of the early start and set up of the Museum. Always with a wonderful story to tell and a wealth of local nursing historical knowledge to share, she has been a significant and generous donor. Her last work for the Museum was to sort several boxes of her research papers for cataloguing and her last Thursday visit was November 2019.

Jaci was proud to be a third generation Darwinite. She was born in 1926 at the old stone hospital, Darwin’s first hospital in Packard Street, overlooking Doctors Gully. Her hotelier parents ran the Parap Pub. After early local schooling, she went to a Sydney boarding school. Returning for holidays, her Qantas flying boat was turned back as war came to Darwin. Her mother was later evacuated to Sydney. Her general nursing was completed at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney and midwifery in Hobart in the late 1940s and she was active in the CMF during the 1950s. She did a Diploma of Nursing Education and became a Fellow of the NSW College of Nursing in 1960.

From the early 1960s, Jaci played a significant role in developing the quality and currency of nurse training at Darwin Hospital on Myilly Point. She was for many years an active member of the NT Nurse Registration Board and an Examiner for the NSW nursing examinations. She retired a much loved and well-respected Tutor Sister in 1980 and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia [OAM] “for service to Nursing” in the 1984 Australia Day Honours.

Thank you for a long friendship and your work for the Nursing Museum from

Jenny Hanley [Volunteer – Retired]

Janie Mason [Curator]

Beryl McEwan [Volunteer]

Jessie Ng [IT support]

Angela Sheedy [Volunteer]

Libby Webb/Siebert [Volunteer]