25/07/2025
Sadie Canning (nee Corner) was Western Australia's first Aboriginal nurse. She was a member of the Stolen Generations and grew up at Mount Margaret Mission in the north eastern goldfields. This is her story:
This story is based on a 1996 interview with Sadie Canning MBE RIP.
"My name was Sadie - Sadie Miriam Corner when I was born in 1930"
"I was a Corner"
"The name Corner came from my white father who was German, but I never knew him. My mother was Milba Morton from round Laverton, a daughter of Bungin, King of the Linden tribes. So really, I'm sort of Royal stock (laughs).
"I have few memories of living with my mother because I was only four years old when I was taken to Mt Margaret Mission Home. A vague memory is getting my foot caught in one of old Bob Sukkivan's dingo traps"
"It was night when the police came. I came out of my hiding place under a blanket in the creek bed, and got caught (laughs). Police were always sort of chasing Aboriginal people, part-Aboriginal kids like me"
"There were about sixty kids at Mt Margaret Mission Home. We learned about Aboriginal culture from one another. There was an old man called Ngungoonoo who used to come up to the fence and tell us about our different skin groups. With the Aboriginal family you not only have your immediate family, but you have your skin group family too.
I am a Karimarra"
"I guess I must have cried being taken away from my mother, but being so young I don’t recall those things. Mrs Jackson looked after the little girls at Mt Margaret. Each year she would knit a new jumper for every girl in the home. Every spare minute she was knitting!"
"Really good work in the classroom at mission school was rewarded with a piece of fruit – an orange or an apple. At the end of the year, examples of the best schoolwork were exhibited in the church hall"
"I got punished just like any other child would have in those days. The punishment I experienced that affected me most was having a placard put on my back saying I was lazy. I stood up to the cane and so on, but that was humiliating"
"When I was twelve, I was baptised. There was a baptismal area at the old windmill, and it used to be filled up with water for whoever wanted to be baptised. They didn’t force you or anything, it was just when you wanted to"
"I was also part of the Mt Margaret Band. We travelled in an army truck as far as the eastern states giving concerts, to show mainstream people that Aboriginal people could do things. Among the musical instruments was a gum leaf. The town halls used to be packed with people coming to see us. It built up our self-confidence too. Knowing that we could do things. (laughs)"
"When I became a teenager, I decided I wanted to help others. So, I chose nursing and lived with Matron Murray at the Mt Margaret Mission hospital. Matron never got married, her life was entirely dedicated to nursing. She would sleep outside in the passage between the ward and the outpatients’ section - summer and winter - so she could hear her patients"
"I couldn’t formally train to be a nurse in Western Australia because I was an Aboriginal person. So, I left for Melbourne on the old trans steam train to go to nursing school. The only Aboriginal trainee in my class. At first, the homesickness got me. At night the tears would come and flood the room (laughs) just about"
"I returned to Western Australia and worked in Claremont and North Fremantle, but my long-term goal was always to go back to the bush. So, I went to look after the children at Roelands Mission, alongside my mentor Matron Murray. At Roelands they grew their own fruit and even exported grapefruit. There was also dairy farm. They had cows, whereas Mt Margaret had goats"
"In 1956, I started nursing at Leonora District Hospital. It was an old building with three wards and a big canopy hung over most of it. There was a lot of work to do and only three nursing staff"
"You had outpatients, you had emergencies, particularly accidents from the mine and so on. You had Aboriginal babies mainly in those days with gastroenteritis. They didn’t have a proper kids’ ward, so the kids were scattered among the adults. There were cots in the women’s ward, some in the men’s ward, and even in the old men’s ward. It was unheard of to have any elderly Aboriginal people in hospital"
"When the position came up for Matron, I saw it as an opportunity to improve the conditions for Aboriginal people. As nobody else applied, it was me who got the position. (laughs)"
"It was inside me, you know, this unfairness to the Aboriginal patients. The very first thing I changed was to have Aboriginal women over to the same ward as the white women, to deliver their babies. Ending the segregation of maternity patients at the hospital"
"We also starting telling people that if their babies were sick, not to be afraid and come to the hospital earlier. Aboriginal people had been frightened to go to the hospital, so put off coming until their babies were really, really sick. I was able to educate my staff on Aboriginal traditional ways to promote trust and patience. Things gradually improved"
"We also made the outpatient area more comfortable and changed it so people were seen in the order they came in. In those days white people were usually seen before Aboriginal people. I would tell the Aboriginal people that it was their turn and that they were just as good as the white people"
"Outside of the hospital, there was still blatant racism in town and Aboriginal people weren’t treated equally. So initially there was a bit of non-acceptance around my changes, but no hostility. I think most people realised that I was doing it for the betterment of everybody and gradually, you know, overall, everything changed"
NOTE - In 1964 Sadie was awarded an MBE, for her outstanding contribution and devoted service to nursing, improving facilities and Indigenous healthcare in Western Australia. News of the honour came via a phone call out of the blue…
“Government House calling me, what the heck do they want? So, when he said, "The Queen wishes to confer on you the Member of the British Empire" (laughs) it was all so surprising, you know, and I said, “What does she want to give me that for?” (laughter). (Sadie Canning, 1996)
When Sadie passed away in 2008, Professor Fiona Stanley wrote that Sadie had been an inspiration to many and in every way was an outstanding ambassador. Showing that an Aboriginal woman could get to the top in a white person’s world.
SOURCE - Interview with Sadie Canning [sound recording] Interviewed by Stuart Reid
Canning, Sadie, 1930-2008.
Oral History | 1996 (OH3974 Audio (Access)
Image, article/transcript compliments of State Library of Western Australia
