Spanish flu: The inspiring story of Mullewa matron Mignon Rose (nee Lewis)

Mignon Lewis only wanted to be a nurse. William Rose only wanted her to be his wife. It sounds as though it ended as it started — but the early settlers of Mullewa and the Mid West were lucky he got his way on the other side of the country 137 years ago. Ms Lewis was just 16 when her future husband — either English or Scottish born, reared in Germany and who worked on ships and got to Australia by “accident or luck” — was brought into a Bendigo hospital following an accident. Mr Rose fell in love and asked Ms Lewis, known as Minnie, to marry him. She replied in the negative, saying: “I only want to be a nurse.” When he recovered, William Rose got on his bike, literally, and cycled to meet Mr Lewis, Mignon’s father, at Morwell in Gippsland, where he worked as bookkeeper and accountant, to ask for his daughter’s hand. The Lewis family moved there from Heathcote after the goldmines in central Victoria dried up. Mr Lewis gave his consent to the marriage request. When word reached Ms Lewis, she left on a train from Bendigo to Melbourne — only to be met by her father and future husband. She was married on October 31, 1883, aged only 17. Her fifth child, Margaret, who was known as Peg, was born at Mirboo North in Gippsland, as her two brothers and sisters were. For whatever reason, the Rose family moved west soon after, their last three children born in Cottesloe. One, who shared his father’s Christian name, lived just eight months. At some stage, Mignon must have returned to her first love, nursing, because in 1919 she was sent to Mullewa to establish a nursing post to assist the victims of the Spanish flu. Records show there were 60 cases of the disease in Mullewa, with six people succumbing to it. Mrs Rose later opened ‘Heathcote’, a private hospital whose name honoured the town where she was born. Some surviving local ‘old-timers’ were born in the maternity ward of her hospital. Her daughter Margaret (Peg) Dyer became matron of the new hospital, which was built in 1934. Mrs Rose died on March 14, 1947 and was laid to rest in the Mullewa Pioneer Cemetery. William Rose died at Quellagetting on the last day of 1932 and was buried at Meckering on New Year’s day.