Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

  It's New Year's Eve so let's reflect on who has been revealed in Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries in 2023. The year has been filled with many published blogs about people who chose a life of service helping others as well as those who chose not to; tragedies that were heartbreaking and secrets and scandals that shocked us. A view of the Old Catholic section - author's own collection  My most popular blog was the one devoted to Lucy Farrow, mother of John Villiers Farrow, Hollywood producer and film maker and grandmother of Mia Farrow. The next most popular was that of the murder of Leticia Frances Cavanagh and followed by the Banka ferry disaster and slaughter of innocents. You also liked the story of the "bad" mother of Macdonaldtown, Sarah Makin. Henry Shiell, the City Coroner, was a popular read as was one about the secrets and scandals found in Section One of the Old Anglican Section. It seems I will need to find more titillating material to engage ...

Today's blog is one about a woman of service who gave her life for her country. She was one of the victims of a horrendous massacre during WW2 which causes shock upon reading all these years later. FLORENCE AUBIN SALMON Florence was born on 20th October 1915, the second child of John Henry Salmon and his wife Florence (nee Aubin). The family lived in Punchbowl a southwestern suburb of Sydney and were members of the Methodist Church. There is not a great deal on public record about Florence's early life, but we do know she passed her Nurses Registration Board exams whilst at the War Memorial Hospital in Waverley. Originally the private residence and grounds of property owned by Ebenezer Vickery, the estate was donated as a war hospital in 1919 opening its doors to its first patients after internal modifications in 1921. War Memorial Hospital Waverley - photograph author's own  Florence enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service at Victoria Barracks in Sydney in ...