The Aboriginal midwife who saved Gympie's pioneers

Her own life was not the only one Ma Ryan saved in a life of incredible adventure among the pioneers

LOOKING BACK: Goomboorian pioneers Mary Ann Gillis and Christina Copton, a well known midwife in the area. Christina is also remembered as Ma Ryan by family members descended from her and her de facto husband Michael Ryan. Picture: Contributed

IT'S spooky to think about all the families and people alive today who might not exist if not for the birthing skills of one woman, Ma Ryan.

And it is only because of her own family that she may yet be remembered, as an unsung hero of pioneer survival.

There were not a lot of doctors in the Wolvi-Goomboorian area, where Christina Copson, the common law wife of Irish settler Michael Ryan, became well known for her life-saving expertise as a midwife.

It was a time when an incredibly large proportion of women died in childbirth, often accompanied in death by the children they were attempting to bring into the world.

Many descendants of those early Gympie Region families might never have ever existed without her.

Her early story is closely linked with some of the area's most important settlers, many of whom developed close relationships with the Aboriginal people of the area.

"We have been researching Christina's life as there are many aspects to her story,” according to one of her greatest admirers, Elizabeth Slottje, of Yarraman, who is married to her great grandson, John.

Naturally, Christina was too busy giving birth to have been the midwife that saved her own family, but a close associate, Nurse Harriet Hendy, did that job, a few years before marrying into the Hillcoat family.

Christina with her common law husband, Irishman Michael Ryan lived on the Hillcoat's Oakleigh property on Cootharaba Rd, Wolvi.

"Their children, including our grandmother Eleanor, were delivered by Nurse Hillcoat between 1894 and 1902. Michael Ryan, was the first selector of a property on Ryan Rd, Wolvi, where the family lived from 1914 to 1939,” Dr Slottuje said.

"Our Aboriginal Gubbi Gubbi great grandmother Christina Copson was a well known identity in the Wolvi and Goomboorian area from the 1890s until her death at Tin Can Bay in 1953.

"My husband Jonathon and I have had a plaque commissioned to be erected at Christina's unmarked grave at Gympie Cemetery,” she said.

Dr Slottje said the plaque would be erected in the next few months.

"Christina was a well known and popular midwife, especially as a bush nurse who at one point lived at Zachariah Skyring's Tin Can Bay home and had a long association with Goomboorian pioneers Mary Ann and John Gillis.