After attending a Catholic boarding school on the Mornington Peninsula, Dorothy became a nursing sister and met her husband, John, when he was a patient at Dubbo base hospital.
A “bush nurse” of the old school, as matron of the Country Women’s Association hospital at Mendoorin she delivered most of the babies in the district as well as performing much of the surgery when the local doctor was not available.
On occasions, her willingness to help those in medical need paid handsome dividends for her collecting passion.
One of these was a local grazier who had unsuccessfully tried to castrate a stallion, only to be injured in a delicate part of his anatomy, which required stitching. Arriving at the homestead, Dorothy completed the task without qualms after which the grateful grazier pointed to a whisky and brandy tantalus (Lot 120 ) in his lounge room and said “Matron, when I die that tantalus will be yours” – to which she replied “There is no time like the present” and it promptly became part of her collection.
Mossgreen will auction this extensive single owner collection from 6.30pm on Monday March 15, 2010 at 310 Toorak Road, South Yarra and it is sure to attract plenty of attention.
Despite her lifelong fascination with antiquities, Dorothy’s collecting really did not begin in earnest in the 1950s after she had moved to Dubbo with John to “retire”.
Shortly after their arrival, a doctor approached her to care for a lady who was not ill enough to be in hospital but in need of convalescence. One patient became two and so on until the Sheey home was no longer large enough to accommodate everyone.
It was then they acquired another property, which Dorothy named Allawah (place of rest). Allawah went on to become one of the first registered convalescent homes and private hospitals in regional NSW.
Operating the home gave Dorothy scope to indulge her penchant for antiques, paintings, fine china and jewellery which she collected from throughout Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and America.
Through her collecting, she developed a love of travel, sailing on every P&O cruise ship afloat including the final voyage of the Queen Mary between London and New York.
Dorothy’s life also was characterized by her extraordinary generosity – sometimes to her own cost. One of these occasions was the theft of part of her collection when, in an act of civic generosity, she had agreed to it being on public display at the Dubbo civic centre.
Although she wanted to remain anonymous, the local newspaper published an article identifying the collection as hers, leading to the theft. One of the items stolen was a large and ornate silver tray (Lot 124 ). When the thieves discovered it was not sterling, they dumped it and police subsequently recovered it from a creek near Warwick Farm Racecourse in Sydney.
