Information and personal details and facts and Eulogy of Stella Cynthia Nord

Stella Cynthia Nord

We are here today to celebrate the very full and colorful life of Stella Cynthia Nord.

Stella was born on the 2nd January 1920 in Bethnal Green, East End, London which at that time was the slums of London.
She had 2 brothers, Johnny and Charlie (actually Albert Charles and John Edward) and 1 sister, Mandia and was the third child of Johanis and Violet Olsen.

Stella was extremely bright student always topping the class. She received a scholarship for further study. Unfortunately because of the family's poverty and hardships she had to go to work. However this still did not prevent evictions and "moonlight flits'' and it did not stop Stella from studying, she went to night school to learn Pitmans' shorthand and typing.

Stella's learned about the sick, the poor, exploitation of workers and about socialism, from her father. Stella worked for a time on London's "Daily Worker", she also experienced a lot of friends go off to fight the Franco's fascist war in Spain and not return.

Around 1939 Stella and her girlfriend migrated to Australia. Her brother Charlie was already here. While on the high seas, World War 2 was declared. She arrived an Australia during the depression with a halfpenny in her pocket. They stayed with Stella's aunt and uncle. Being adventurous they took all kinds of employment traveling Queensland where she met her first husband, Jim Ingram, a drover, and delivered the mail by horse. Stella loved all aspects of the bush. They had a daughter Lindy, the marriage ended in divorce. In those days it was extremely difficult for a single working mother to manage financially. Stella did all kinds of work including working for the shearers.

It was there that she experienced racism.
The white shearers wouldn't allow an aboriginal shearer to eat with them, typical of Stella's upbringing, which taught her about equality, she said in a strong, clear and definite manner,'' as long as I'm the cook here everybody will eat at the same table, otherwise find yourself another cook'' In the late forties Stella met and married Eric Nord and lived at Hawthorne, South Brisbane and Wynnum. Over the course of her life she had many and varied types of employment: dressmaker, stenographer, meat worker, builders laborer, lecturer, liquor trades and author.

I think we all remember her zest for life, always full of such enthusiasm for everything and everybody. One of her life's passions was fighting for the rights of women. She led the struggle for equal pay for women in Queensland and the right of married women to work. If you tell the young women of today about this, they would be aghast, total belief.

Stella was a member of the Union of Australian Women and became the first woman elected to the Queensland Trades and Labor Council. This was a great victory for "Women's Rights" in this state. On behalf of the Union she toured the state campaigning for Equal Pay for Women and speaking at mass meetings to hundreds of workers. Stella was very active in the Federated Clerks Union, AMIEU (meat workers union), the famous builders Laborer's Union in Sydney.

In 1957 Stella was the Publicity Officer for a huge campaign in this area to get a hospital. It was supposed to be where we are today. The slogan;
"Here's the Land, where's the Hospital'' and "Wynnum; population, 34,000, DRIVE CAREFULLY- NO HOSPITAL".

It wasn't until many years later that the Wynnum hospital was built on Whites Rd at Lota. The Government of the day had decided to build Moreton Bay Nursing Care Unit on the land where we are today.
Another campaign Stella was involved in was for better quality of women's nylon stockings. This was in 1963. A young 35 year old bachelor, Manfred Cross, MHR ALP also got behind the campaign. The Prime Minister at the time was Sir Robert Menzies, even His wife Dame Pattie supported the campaign. Stella appeared on 4 Corners holding up dozens of pairs of laddered stockings to prove her point, another success for women, as this had a very successful outcome.

Stella moved to Sydney in the late 60's. With partner Pete Thomas they lived at Neutral Bay later moving to Mt. Victoria. Stella was the first female to work in the building industry. She worked on the high rises in Sydney as a builders laborer (commonly known as a B.L.) and later learning about the hoist, getting a license and becoming the Workplace Health And Safety Officer. You could just imagine the comments by the men about a female achievement in a male dominated industry. She became very involved in the now famous Green Bans campaign to save the "The Rocks'' area of Sydney. Today the Rocks and its history have been saved and restored and a 'must visit' area for every tourist.

When Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister, Stella who thrived on reading, writing and study was able to get a mature age scholarship. She enrolled at the University of Sydney where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honors). Later she did another course receiving a certificate in communications from the Sydney TAFE. During these studies she supplemented her income by working as stenographer for the ABC at Kings Cross.
In 1981 Stella was engaged by the South Coast of Sydney Labor Council to research difficulties facing migrant women. The Council funded the project with a $4,000.00 grant from the Federal Government Immigration Department. The booklet was published in three languages, English, Greek and Serbo-Croatian. The title "Migrant Women; Workers these are your rights". The publication received publicity from all aspects of the media. It was launched by the Minister for Immigration and another M.L.A.

Later Stella was involved in work opportunities for women a joint project of the NSW Department of Education, the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and the NSW Women's Action Centre.
Hence today we have females undertaking apprenticeships and working as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, mechanics etc. Girls can now access more non-traditional roles than in the past.

Stella suffered Industrial deafness but remained undeterred by the disability. She remained very active in Australian Hearing and gave a speech on behalf of people with hearing disabilities. This was very well received.

Stella returned to live in Lindum in the mid- nineties and lived the good life until a few years ago when her health began to fail and bought her to Moreton Bay Nursing Care Unit, which stands today, on the site where a hospital may well have been if Stella had her way!

Lindy and the family would like to thank staff at Moreton Bay for their wonderful care of Stella over the last five years.

Everybody is welcome at Lindy's place for refreshments after today's service.