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Grace Morrison

Filed Under: Fiji Wonderful Women 14 Comments

Nurse Grace MorrisonMORRISON, GRACE ANNE M.B.E., I.M.
(July, 06 1893 — November 27, 1978)
Nurse and Midwife
Founder, Nurse Morrison’s Nursing Home
Fijian Government Independence Medal.

By Jennifer (Mune) Willmott

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William Mune had migrated from Scotland to Queensland in 1863 and in 1870 he married Martha Fountain. They had six children before 1881 and in 1883 William took his family to Fiji where he had been appointed manager of the Rewa Sugar Company at Koronivia.

A number of young men worked on Koronivia. One of them was young engineer named John Morrison who had come to Fiji in 1884 and worked at Ellington Sugar Mill before moving to Koronivia. He married William Mune’s daughter Jane Emmeline, better known as Cissie, in 1892.

Nurse Grace Morrison
Grace at seventeen or so.

The marriage was written up in the paper on the 11th of May, 1892:

“Marriage: Morrison-Mune. At Nasamabula, Fiji on the 3rd instant by the Rev F Jones of Suva, John G Morrison to Cissie, eldest daughter of William Mune Esq.”

John and Cissie Morrison’s first child was Grace Anne, born on the 6th of July 1893. Grace trained as a nurse at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva then went on to the Crown Street Women’s Hospital in Sydney to do midwifery.

She came home in 1924 and placed the following advertisement in the FIJI TIMES & HERALD on the 1st of October, 1924:

Nurse G Morrison, ATNA,
Waimanu Road.
Obstetric Cases Only.
Telephone 342

Nurse Grace Morrison
In 1995 the old Nursing Home building was still there. I can’t remember the name of the street but I don’t think it was Walu so that must be where the new Morrison wing is now situated. This was a little street off Waimanu Rd on the left as you leave Suva – the old Morrison home where the rest of the family lived was on the corner of Waimanu Rd and on the other side of this little street. Whenever our parents visited we’d slip through the garden and over the road to see Grace and all the new babies!
Nurse Grace Morrison
And this is Grace with a handful of children she’d brought into the world. I don’t know the name of the little girl on the left but the baby who was old enough to sit by herself is Elizabeth Stokes and the little boy is her brother Rex. The three Grace is holding are, from left to right, Judy Elphick, Jill Woolley and Jennifer Mune. This picture was taken in early 1939, before the war.

In 1951 Grace delivered her one thousandth baby but sadly in 1956 her health began to fail and she was forced to close the Nursing Home. The CWM Hospital opened a maternity annexe and named it The Morrison Wing.

She was awarded an MBE in 1952 and in 1970 the newly independent Fijian Government awarded her the Independence Medal. Grace died on 27th November 1978.

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Entry By: Jennifer (Mune) Willmott, Perth, Western Australia.

Ed. Note: Nurse Grace Morrison was one of Fiji’s treasures. As a midwife she brought many of the Baby Boomer generation (1946-1964), including the editor and his five siblings, into the world in her Nurse Morrison’s Nursing Home, which used to be located on the corners of Amy & Brown Street in Suva, next to the CWM Hospital. The CWM Hospital maternity wing is now known as the Morrison Maternity Unit. Nurse Morrison lived out her retirement at her home in Colo-i-Suva. Thank you to Frost Borgia (see Comments below) for the location of Nurse Morrison’s Nursing Home – Walu Street, Suva.

Walu Street, Suva, Fiji
Walu Street, Suva, Fiji – Click on image for larger view
Nurse Grace Morrison
Nurse Grace Morrison at the Editors’ sister Jennifer Box’s wedding with Nana Jesse Tarr – 1966

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