55 YEARS LATER: Heather Rodgers and Marie Shaw reunited in Kingaroy last Friday.

FIFTY-five years ago a young woman gave birth to her first baby at Kingaroy Hospital.

She was assisted by a young nurse who was attending her first birth.

The newly-married mother-to-be was 17-year-old Heather Smith (now Rodgers, nee Parsons).

Her nurse was Marie Hansen (now Shaw), also 17, and she had only recently started her nursing training in the general ward before being asked to help out in midwifery.

"I was good at obeying orders," she said.

Mrs Shaw admitted she knew nothing about babies being born and when she asked the sister-in-charge how the baby would get out she was bluntly told, "The same way it got in, nurse."

Just after the birth of Jeffrey Smith on July 12, 1958, nurse Hansen fainted. But after her recovery she helped Mrs Smith learn to care for her baby.

A photo was taken of them in 1958 on the steps of the hospital as Mrs Smith took her baby home.

Late last year Mrs Rodgers was sorting through photos and creating an album to give her granddaughter for Christmas when she came upon the photo.

The photograph was passed around at the last Past and Present Nurses Association meeting in Kingaroy and Mrs Shaw was identified as the young nurse in the photo.

So Mrs Rodgers travelled to Kingaroy from her home in Bundaberg to have morning tea with Mrs Shaw.

After helping with that first birth, Mrs Shaw said she went on to deliver hundreds of babies - and she never again fainted at a birth.

She said she remembered hating the old starched uniforms and hardly recognised herself in the old photo.

"This has blown me away a little bit," she said.

"I never forgot this young mother."

Mrs Rodgers said she was filled with an overwhelming desire to find her nurse after she found the photo.

The pair was put in touch a few weeks ago.

After hugs and tears at their reunion the two women discovered they had both worked at drapers over the years and had worked in neighbouring shops for a time, but neither had realised who they were to each other.

"I was shy in those days, you didn't ask questions," Mrs Rodgers said.

"I never knew her name, all I knew is she was lovely to me, she was kind," she said of her nurse.

"I can't believe this is happening."

At the morning tea Mrs Shaw said she had picked up the photo and looked at it, but felt she was still in denial.

"I remember the girl, I remember the birth, I remember being so stupid," she said laughing.

"I think my grandkids at seven knew more about life than I did at 17."

Rose Hamilton-Barr

Source: southburnetttimes.com.au