Jean Henderson was quite a young girl when she determined that she would become a nurse and go to work overseas “to help those poor folk who needed care”.

 

This ambition led to her training at The Royal Melbourne Hospital in General Nursing, then Midwifery education, working for a time in Bush Nursing hospitals and eventually being called for Missionary service. Jean was posted to Papua New Guinea in January 1946, just months after World War II in the Pacific ended, and found a world still reeling from its effects.

 

She stayed until after Independence from Australia was celebrated in September 1975. A Daring Woman traces Jean’s story from her earliest days, through those amazing years in Papua New Guinea, to her life as a Nurse Educator and Matron following her return to Australia. There were challenges and adventures in every role she undertook and the way Jean approached them, even in retirement, was both inspiring and sometimes very funny. Like most of us, Jean was not always right but there was always in her actions a deep commitment both to nursing and to her God.