Matron Rynne at Cherbourg Hospital c1960

Matron Cornelia Lillian Rynne was one of the longest serving matrons at Cherbourg Hospital, from 1936 to 1967.
This photograph was treasured by the late Naomi Malone

Matron Rynne was born at Roma in 1908 and was educated at St Columba’s Convent in Dalby. She began her nursing training at Dalby Hospital. As a doubly-certified sister she nursed at Charleville, Dalby and Maryborough.
Her appointment as a sister at Cherbourg Hospital began on 1 April 1936. Eighteen months later she was promoted to Matron. She held that position for twenty-nine and a half years. Shortly after her appointment she applied for leave to do her child welfare training. The authorities did not think she would be at Cherbourg long enough to warrant the expense. In her time, Matron Rynne took part in many changes to the hospital system in Cherbourg.
Matron Rynne retired in April 1967, and in June 1968 she was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Follwing her retirement, she continued to live in
the district at Castra, the retirement home in Murgon. She died in September 1988 and was buried in the Murgon Lawn Cemetery.
Upon her retirement the press wrote:
The woman who remembers the hospital laundry as a 10 gallon boiler in the middle of the hospital back-yard and three round tubs under the house has seen many changes at Cherbourg. The laundry is now fully automatic with washing machines and drying room. Matron Rynne remembered that the hospital refrigeration in her early days was one household ice box, and if the aboriginal ice-man, who went to Murgon for ice, paused on his way home for a game of cards, all she got was a wet ice-bag. Today the hospital has a walk-in cold room plus four modern refrigerators. The large modern hospital which is now Matron Rynne’s domain was taken over last October (1966) by the Burnett Hospitals Board.
— South Burnett Times 5 April 1967