Nursing Private Patients

After she graduated she was a nurse to private patients in their homes in Sydney. As well she nursed women and elderly patients on boat trips interstate and overseas. In 1914 she sailed as a nurse with an elderly patient to England and was nearly stranded there by the outbreak of World War I. By 1916, aged 30, both her parents had died and her oldest brother James who lived at Castle Hill was her closest sibling.

Dudley Private Hospital.

The hospital in William St was not the first incarnation of Dudley Private Hospital. Prior to Blanche's arrival  the Dudley Hospital had already moved from Anson Street to a smaller house in William Street in 1913.

In 1918 when Sister Blanche and Sister Punch took over they retained the name of Dudley Private Hospital and ran it together up until 1922 when Blanche left to get married.

Private hospitals were very important to the women of Orange and district as Orange District Hospital, did not have a maternity section or offer gynaecological or obstetric services. All women gave birth at home or in a private hospital. Dudley Hospital acted as a ‘lying-in’ hospital for maternity patients (In Sickness and in Health p.129). In Dudley Hospital women had safer and healthier births in hygienic facilities attended by qualified nurses.

Blanche was a dedicated and as a local journalist wrote a ‘popular’ matron who enjoyed her work and had a successful career nursing for 14 years. 

Blanche's children all became prominent members of the Orange community. Blanche ensured her three daughters Marg, Bet and Ruth and two sons, Bob and Lel completed the most senior high school year (year 11 at that time). Her sons continued in their tertiary studies to qualify as optometrists; one daughter graduated as a nurse and another worked at McCarthy’s pharmacy.

Her sons Bob and Lel Hansen and daughter Margaret took over their father’s optometry practice, Hansens Optometrists, and provided eye care services to the Orange and district community since 1886. This tradition has continued, with her grandchildren and a great grandchild currently operating Hansens Optometrists for the past 45 years. 

Socially Blanche was gregarious and held afternoon teas for the ophthalmologists’ wives and the doctors’ wives at her home to help further Fred’s optometry practice which was dependent on referrals as there was no Medicare. Very independent, she had her own bank account, a cheque book, managed her own money and liked to have a “flutter” which was a bet on a horse race on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Blanche was an active member of the Orange community and participated on fund raising committees and in charitable organisations. She was one of the few women members of the Orange Golf Club (Leader 23 May 1919) along with Olla Hansen her best friend and sister-in-law.

As with most women there is little detailed documentation of her activities. She was mentioned by Joe Glasson in his articles in the local newspaper, the Central Western Daily, around 1946 and 1953, now collected into the book Gentleman of the Inky Way.

When she was in her 40s (sometime in the 1930s) she was matron of honour at several debutante balls.

Blanche converted to Catholicism prior to her marriage and was a fervent Catholic. She was involved in many charitable activities of St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Orange including fund raising for the Catholic Convent (Freeman’s Journal 25 August 1921, p17) and the De La Salle Ball (Leader, 28 July 1939, p3). Blanche ‘donated considerably’ towards a memorial for a local Matron Dooly (Leader, 1 March, 1922). In the Leader newspaper (18 April 1922 p5) she was described as a ‘well known and popular resident’ in an item about her engagement to Fred Hansen. 

After Fred died in 1952 Blanche continued to live in her own home with her eldest daughter Marg, and adjusted well to being a widow for the next 20 years. Around 1960 she moved with Marg and her husband Bob to an apartment on the first floor of the Hansens optometry building at 201 Anson St (now Woolworths). In 1963 Marg, Bob and their two children, Robert and Lesley moved to a new home and a few years later

Blanche moved with the practice to a new apartment at 170 Summer St. She enjoyed the daily contact with her sons working downstairs and regularly saw her grandchildren who visited often. Several of her siblings including James, Emily and Hilda and their families were in regular contact and visited Orange. She was a happy person doing her daily shopping, chats with locals and time spent with her daughters and their families.

At home she played cards and had a ‘flutter’ on Saturdays and Wednesdays when we knew not to visit as she only wanted to listen to the races. Her health was good until her last year and she lived independently.

As a matriarch for the family she was a strong woman, an advocate of women’s education and supportive of her five children and her 32 grandchildren. Blanche died on 5 March 1974 and her funeral was at St Joseph’s Catholic Church. She was buried in the old Catholic section of the Orange Cemetery beside her husband Fred (1886-1952) and their child Phyllis Clare who died at 3 in 1931. As was usual at that time for women there was no obituary in the local newspaper for Blanche but Fred had one, as did his father Henry.

All 21 references to Blanche Wharfe (Blanche Hansen/ Mrs Fred Hansen) in Australian newspapers are found in the Trove database (a national digitised database) and publicly available under Blanche Wharfe Public List and Frederick Hansen Public List.

Trove Links for Blanche Wharfe https://trove.nla.gov.au/list/167255

Blanche is featured with photographs in two local history books (available at Orange Library):

Edwards, Elizabeth (ed) Gentleman of the Inky Way, Orange through Joe Glasson’s Looking Glass, Orange, 2011

Edwards, Elizabeth In Sickness and in Health how medicine helped shape Orange’s history, Orange, 2011

Written and compiled by:

Janet Hansen

Granddaughter

April 2025