From Egypt, France to WA, selfless Morphett Vale nurse Roselena Higgins dedicated life to others

ROSELENA Higgins was one of the selfless Adelaide nurses who volunteered to care for the Australian wounded in World War I.

15/1/15 Copy pic of WWI nurse Roselena Higgins from Morphett Vale. Her neice, Margaret O'Sullivan, 85, from Morphett Vale. pic by Michael Milnes.

ROSELENA Higgins was one of the selfless Adelaide nurses who volunteered to care for the Australian wounded.

The Morphett Vale woman was 36 and single when she joined the Australian Army Nursing Service on July 20, 1915.

She embarked for Egypt from Melbourne on the HMAT A71 Nestor on October 11, 1915.

She was one of about 2500 Australian nurses who served overseas.

Higgins was posted to the 2nd Australian General Hospital and the 2nd Australian Auxiliary Hospital.

He niece Margaret O’Sullivan, 85, also from Morphett Vale, remembers her aunt as a very strict woman who never married.

A portrait of WWI nurse Roselena Higgins, from Morphett Vale.

“I don’t remember much about her, but I was told she was a very good nurse in the war,” Mrs O’Sullivan says.

“I think she was one of the first ones to go.

“She made several trips when they brought the wounded back to Australia on hospital ships.”

Her record shows she was transferred to England suffering “overwork” after nursing in France.

She received the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, but other details of her service are all but lost to time.

Mrs O’Sullivan said when her aunt returned in May, 1918, she went nursing in Western Australia before moving to Hamley Bridge and then to back to Morphett Vale.

Her house was on the site of the current Woolworths supermarket on Main South Rd, Morphett Vale.

“When we moved back to Morphett Vale in 1947 she moved across the road to where the Century 21 office is now, and we moved into the house she was living in,” Mrs O’Sullivan said.

She died in 1961 aged 81 and is buried at St Mary’s Church, Morphett Vale, only 400m from her niece’s home and less than 1km from when she was born.

The house WWI nurse Roselena Higgins was born in, where Woolworths on Main South Rd, Morphett Vale now stands.

Originally published as From Egypt, France to WA, selfless Morphett Vale nurse Roselena Higgins dedicated life to others