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Overview
Barbara Cook (née Coleman) used this pin during her training and employment as a Karitane nurse. She used it to secure her veil in place, folding five pleats into the veil before pinning it.
Barbara began her training at the Truby King Karitane Hospital in January 1947. She trained for 16 months, learning to care for premature babies, newborns, and infants who did not feed well. The hospital had an annex where mothers were taught Mothercraft and how to breastfeed their babies, but most babies were in the wards where they were cared for by nurses. The nurses wore blue uniforms with white collars and cuffs, and their veils. They would take the babies out walking in prams and Barbara recalls feeling very proud in her smart uniform.
Barbara completed her training in 1948 and spent a year working in New Zealand. She visited all sorts of homes in rural and urban areas; Karitane nursing required adaptability as every family had slightly different requirements. Some former Karitane nurses recall instances of exploitation and harassment in homes they worked at, while others forged lifelong connections with families and children they nursed.
In 1950 Barbara sailed to England; one of a number of Karitane nurses who found work in the United Kingdom and Australia. The benefit of working as a Karitane nurse was that Barbara was her own boss so could save money during winter and then hitchhike around Europe in summer.
She was very good at nursing, but with so many sleepless nights Barbara got burnt out. There was no one to help if she got into trouble, and she sometimes experienced harassment from men in the homes she worked in. She found it useful to wear a uniform and veil so she would look ‘stiff and starchy and not approachable’. After four years in England Barbara returned to New Zealand to restore herself, and worked in Hamilton writing advertising copy for radio. She moved to Canada in 1961 and married Alleyne Cook.
Further reading:
Bryder, Linda. 2003. A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant Welfare 1907-2000. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
Powell, Joyce. 2007. A Suitable Job for Young Ladies: The Karitane Story 1907 to 2007. Palmerston North: Heritage Press.
Sullivan, Jim. 2007. I Was a Plunket Baby: 100 Years of the Royal New Zealand Society (Inc). Auckland: Random House New Zealand.
Tennant, Margaret, and Lesley Courtney. 2017. ‘“The Karitane” The Rise and Fall of a Semi-Profession for Women’. New Zealand Journal of History 51, no. 1, pp. 113-134.