biographies

Crameri, Jean Frances ("Cram") (1909 - )

RN RM Cert. R. San 1

Born
28 March 1909
Albury, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
Midwife
Summary

Prepared by Ann Westmore PhD, 2006


Jean Frances (“Cram”) Crameri RN RM Cert. R. San 1 (1909-2005) spent 41 years of her working life on the staff of the Royal Women’s Hospital, starting as a pupil midwife in 1934 and retiring as Deputy Matron in 1975.

In between she saw the hospital re-built and helped in its re-birth; applied the teaching and organisational skills she developed in the Australian Army Nursing Service to her many and varied hospital responsibilities; earned qualifications to work in infant welfare and as a health inspector; and amassed an extraordinary knowledge of the hospital and its history.

Details

Born at Albury Hospital on 28 March 1909 of Swiss, Irish, Cornish and French ancestry, “Cram” (as she was known throughout the hospital) was raised on a farm at Allans Flat, near Yackandandah in north-eastern Victoria. She was the oldest of three siblings, two girls and a boy. Her parents, Martin and Lilian Crameri, rewarded initiative and disciplined their children in a kindly way and by example taught them to do “their best, and then a little more”.

Her first association with the Women’s Hospital occurred through her mother who, at one stage, was cared for by Sr Dempsey, head midwife 1890-1896. Her earliest memories were of wanting to be a nurse. “Everything I did throughout my early years was with nursing in view,” she wrote.

She attended Yackandandah State and High Schools to merit certificate level before moving to Melbourne at age sixteen. After completing typing and shorthand instruction at Caulfield Technical School she gained employment at the Myer Emporium as an Accounting Machine Operator. When she left Myer in March, 1930, her reference stated that she had “proved a very reliable and efficient member of staff” and had given “entire satisfaction with her work”.

Nurse training
In 1930 on her 21st birthday and just days after finishing at the Myer Emporium, she started three years’ nurse training at the Colac & District Hospital. “You had to want to be a nurse very much to be one in those days”, she said when reflecting on the poor pay and waiting period involved in gaining entry to a course of training.

In 1934, after working for a time at the Daylesford District Hospital she began her nine months midwifery training at the Women’s Hospital on a salary of 5 shillings a week. Being Depression years, this amount was eroded by the “temporary” weekly unemployment relief tax of fourpence.

Colleagues with whom she developed close friendships while training in midwifery included Jessica Place, who started nurse training at the hospital a year earlier and who went on to become a much loved nurse teacher at the hospital. She also valued the support of Bob Greenaway, who joined the staff in 1925 and who was staff foreman from 1935. He frequently put her through her paces as to her “milk mixtures” and so helped her gain access to “the wonderful world of the midwife”, a profession she later described as unique in terms of its “responsibility, trust and rewards”.

The hospital was a dangerous place for patients, with one in 340 women dying from puerperal infection after childbirth, a rate about a hundred times higher than in 1970. Young nurses could also find some situations in the hospital environs perilous, and Cram was no exception. Delivering the bed cards for newly admitted patients to the Grattan St flat of the new superintendent, Dr Arthur “Bung” Hill, was a “bit frightening . . . because you had a pretty good reputation”, she reminded Hill at her retirement function. For his part, Hill remembered her as a “very attractive, dark-eyed and vivacious young nurse”.

In 1935 she was appointed to the permanent staff of the hospital in the midwifery section under Matron Margaret McDonald. Short stints in Out-patients and Emergency Departments followed, after which she joined the Labour Ward as a staff nurse. By 1938, the Medical Superintendent, Dr Ronald Rome, had formed a high opinion of her. “She has acquired a wide knowledge of the management of obstetrical cases and their aftercare,” he said. “She is conscientious, thorough and reliable and possesses both enthusiasm and administrative ability. An excellent worker, she has a cheerful personality and is considerate in her dealings with patients.”

Matron McDonald was also fulsome in her praise, commending Cram’s efficiency as a sister, her competence as a teacher, together with her “talent for preparing rosters and administration generally”. She attributed her competence in administration to her “business training” and to her “cheerful and happy disposition”. When the Sister in Charge of the Labour Ward resigned at the beginning of 1938, Cram was appointed to take her place, filling it “most capably” until January 1941 when she was granted leave to join the Australian Army Nursing Service.

War years
On the day World War II started, Cram was on leave in Sydney undertaking Infant Welfare training. She enlisted in mid-1940 and was called up in December that year. The hospital granted her leave to join the Australian Army Nursing Services in January 1941 and, before departing Australian shores, she put her savings toward the purchase of a home in Adelaide St. Armadale where her parents and sister came to live. Professor R. Marshall Allan, University of Melbourne Professor of Obstetrics at the Women’s Hospital, wrote a reference “testifying to her ability not only as a nurse but more specially in an administrative capacity [and] in teaching students”.

She faced the unknowns of wartime service optimistically. “I don’t think anyone ever thought of being killed,” she wrote later. “I never did even the odd time we were involved in bombing raids.” Initially she saw service with the 2/9th Australian General Hospital, working in the Middle East at a remote railway siding near Tobruk “where sand storms lashed the tents and bombs dropped around her”. She tended soldiers in slit trenches near Alexandria as well as in Nazareth during the Syrian campaign. As a Sister-in-Charge of wards, she oversaw the care of many patients including the Earl of MacDuff, Queen Elizabeth’s cousin.

After returning home for six months’ leave, she was sent to Port Moresby in 1942, where she served for 18 months. There, she taught Nursing Orderlies for medical units and later assisted the Matron. She worked in a forward nursing hospital of 600 beds which overnight became a 1200 bed hospital. She nursed survivors from the Kokoda Trail, and walked a section of it! Part of her work involved caring for soldiers suffering from lethal scrub typhus infection using the new “wonder drug”, M&B 693. It was supposed to be a quick fix but, according to Matron Betty Lawson, “It (the drug) didn’t fix them. They died until the nurses looked after them.” Cram’s distinguished contribution in this setting was recognised by a mention in dispatches.

From 1945 to 1946 Cram served on the island of Moratai, and was one of the first to hear the declaration of peace in the South West Pacific by Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Army, Field Marshal Thomas Blamey. While on Moratai she was appointed to the rank of Captain.

Mavis Prytz – the first Army nurse called up in the war and, later, a Board Member (1952-80) and President of the Royal Women’s Hospital (1963-65) – had known Cram as her tutor when she was a midwife trainee at the hospital. Over the war years when both served in the AANS she said that as well as caring for the sick and wounded, Cram served as a liaison officer to many soldiers who had concerns about promotions or postings to other units. If anyone had a problem, they were told to “spend an evening with Sr Cram in the nurses’ mess and critical situations will disappear”.

Later, Cram wrote that to listen and give advice was a large part of a nurse’s role. “This became more so in the Services, as the boys needed to talk to someone neutral.” As a result, “the Sisters’ Mess of an evening would be full of visitors and would include perhaps a General, Officers and other ranks”.

During the war, Cram received six awards including the Defence Medal, the Australian Service Medal, the Pacific Star and the Africa Star. In her wartime activities, she was ably abetted by “her cobber”, Sr Marjorie Holding from 2/5th AGH. [Holding (1908-1986) became Matron at Epworth Hospital.] They always travelled in the same cabin, with Holding on the bottom bunk and Cram on the top. “If anything happened when we were unescorted, I’d have been the last out,” Cram said.

Post-war activities
After demobilisation, Cram undertook refresher courses in obstetrical nursing, rejoining the Women’s Hospital in mid-1946, at which time it was grossly overcrowded with extremely limited facilities. It was said that some patients never made it into a bed. They came in on a stretcher, were delivered in the emergency department, and left. It was then that she really appreciated her years in the AANS, describing them as providing “a wonderful training ground” in human understanding, particularly in difficult times. “This training has been to me the greatest boon, because one becomes tolerant,” she observed.

The Matron-in-Chief of the AANS, Sister Annie (‘Sammie’) Sage, commended Cram’s conscientious, reliable and painstaking service, personally recommending her “to any branch of nursing requiring efficiency and intelligent application”. When Sage was appointed Matron of the Women’s Hospital in 1948, Cram flourished under her leadership. She was promoted to Senior Sister in the Labour Ward, gaining a reputation for “sympathy and consideration to those in her care”. She was then appointed Supervisory Sister of the Midwife Section of the hospital, having demonstrated “her ability as a teacher” and her “thorough knowledge of nursing procedure”.

During the late 1940s, she developed a close friendship with Mavis Braid (née Gunn). According to Braid, Cram’s warm personality helped diffuse the resentment that was felt in some quarters when nurses who had served overseas were appointed to senior positions, displacing those who had played important roles in running the hospital in wartime.

In 1950 and 1951, Cram’s thirst for new experiences saw her apply for leave to undertake further studies. In a letter supporting her application, Dr J.W. (“Hoppy”) Johnstone said he had worked with her for thirteen years and appreciated her ability, personality and moral integrity. He said, furthermore, that “Her character is such that the Hospital expects her to take a leading part in its future destiny”.

She undertook studies in sanitary inspection at London’s Royal Sanitary Institute, having been granted leave on full pay, a contract binding her to the hospital for three years, and a grant of £750 to cover the cost of the trip. Soon after her return in 1952 she was appointed Deputy to Matron Sage, about whom she “thought the world”. When Sage left soon after, Cram became Deputy to Matron Ruth Meaney who had been one of her pupils. From 1955 to 1975 she was Deputy to Matron Betty Lawson, another of her (1938) pupils.

As Deputy Matron, Cram took part in meetings of the Hospital Board and its sub-committees. Having previously had little personal contact with Board members except for a cheery greeting as they passed from the hospital to the Boardroom, it was a new and agreeable experience. She later applauded the placement of the Boardroom in the midst of the hospital as a way of improving hospital relationships.

She worked closely with James Gillespie (“dear J.G.” to her), Chairman of the Building Sub-Committee, and admired his wise counsel over the many years he oversaw the building of the new nurses’ home and hospital. “One had to be present, and luckily I was, during the detailed planning of the hospital to realise how he so cleverly wove together all the wants and views of the three sections of the hospital – administration, nursing and medical,” she said. “Nursing-wise, his monuments are a well-planned and functioning nurses home and hospital.”

She also collaborated with A.J. (“Jim”) Cunningham, who started working at the hospital the year after she arrived, and who had the onerous job of overseeing its extensive rebuilding. She felt privileged to work with him and with other talented staff members such as Arthur Wilson, John Green, Ivon Hayes, William Lemmon, “dear Prof Marshall Alan”, and Dr George Bearham who mainly practised in the gynaecological section and who was the oldest honorary she knew at the time of her retirement in 1975. When the hospital farewelled her, Hill showered her with praise, speaking of her ability to meet every situation, improvise and cope, earning the admiration of all who came into contact with her.

She took a special interest in recording the history of nursing and midwifery at the Women’s and, in 1987, the fruits of her labours appeared under the title, “One Hundred Years On 1856-1956: The Nurses and Midwives of the Royal Women’s Hospital”. It contained extracts from the minutes of meetings of the Committee of Management and from the hospital’s “Annual Reports” that concerned nursing matters, together with some reflections on the hospital’s Matrons up to 1956.

A lifetime’s lessons
Cram learned much from the Matrons she worked under, “asking no favours nor receiving any”. To be a Deputy, one had to learn “to say nothing at times but listen, and even look stupid”. The Deputy acted as “the safety valve to enable the Matron to keep her sanity”. She was “the buffer” who shielded the Matron as much as possible, particularly as relations between nurses, doctors and patients were becoming “increasingly difficult” in the 1970s.

It was “no good a Deputy having any ideas about herself as she must be prepared to be anyone from the junior clerk to the Matron and almost think as one with her”. After twenty years working with Matron Betty Lawson she could invariably guess her thoughts because the pair shared great confidence in each other.

While Cram was regarded as enormously loyal to the hospital she was, at the same time, described as having “been a personality”. “If Cram tells you she’s a vegetarian, don’t believe it,” Dr “Bung” Hill joked. “Her favourite diet is male doctors.”

Feigning agreement or being diplomatic was not in her nature. Board member Gordon Leckie, recounted her forthrightness and the tenacity with which she held views she believed were “right, and right for the hospital”. Those who dared to differ could find they had a formidable adversary. For example, he once told Cram he thought the hospital could save money if the establishment of labour ward nurses was reduced. “I never repeated that silly remark,” he said. “The establishment wasn’t reduced. I was.”

After retiring in 1975, Cram devoted herself to renovating her Armidale home, supporting her beloved St Kilda football team, and expanding her vegetable patch, which she relied on extensively, as a result of lifelong protein intolerance. The first paediatrician appointed to the Women’s, Dame Kate Campbell, often told Cram that she was her greatest asset because, when caring for a baby who couldn’t digest protein, she’d think of Cram as having, “lived [as a vegetarian] and you’re all right”.

Still feisty in retirement
Cram enjoyed a long and active retirement, which included hosting numerous gatherings at her home in the company of friends who delighted in her excellent cooking, her home-brewed beer, and wines from her excellent cellar. Two former Women’s Hospital medical superintendents, Hill and Don Lawson, were among those to enjoy her hospitality on an informal basis as well, dropping in on her home from time to time when walking in her neighbourhood.

A series of falls in her final few years threatened her independence. After one such fall, which resulted in the insertion of a pin in her hip, her close friend and advisor, Mr Peter Dewan, thought she would not be going home. But as a result of “the tough nut she was, she came bouncing back” and lived at home until 2005 when she had another fall. She was taken to Cabrini Hospital where the Ward Sister was none other than Meg Ryan who had trained under her. “It will be my pleasure to look after her while she is at Cabrini,” Ryan told Dewan. Cram never left the hospital, dying two months later, on 27 May 2005, aged ninety-six.

Neither of Cram’s siblings, both of whom pre-deceased her, had children, making her the last of the line. She left an enduring legacy, however, which Hill remarked upon. During the time “the merry midwife” was at the hospital, a quarter of a million children were born, supervised by Cram or nurses she taught.

Sources;

Letter from J.W. Johnstone ‘To Whom It May Concern’, 20 January 1949, RWH Archives box 166;

Audio-tape on the occasion of Jean Crameri’s farewell dinner, 4 July, 1975;

Personal communication Mavis Braid and Peter Dewan to Ann Westmore;

‘Obituary; Jean (Cram) Frances Crameri’, “Herald Sun”, 1 July, 2005;

Jean Crameri, “One Hundred Years On 1856-1956; The Nurses and Midwives of The Royal Women’s Hospital”, 1987;

Gail Franzmann, ‘Sister Jean’s a very private nurse’, “The Herald”, undated but probably some time in 1974,

‘We’ve got to do a Linen Count!’, “RWH Bulletin”, 8,4,1975, p.1;

Natalia Cuthbertson, ‘Courage and care behind the lines’, Stonnington publication (unspecified), 1995.

Archival/Heritage Resources

Royal Women's Hospital Archives

  • Jean Crameri’s farewell function, 1975, Unaccessioned; Royal Women's Hospital Archives [ Details... ].
  • To whom it might concern, 20 January 1949, Unaccessioned Crameri Papers; Johnstone, Dr W J; Royal Women's Hospital Archives [ Details... ].

Published Resources

Books

  • Crameri, Jean Frances, One hundred years on, 1856-1956: the nurses and midwives of the Royal Women's Hospital, Royal Women's Hospital, Carlton, 1987. [ Details... ]
  • Crameri, Jean Frances, One hundred years on, 1856-1956: the nurses and midwives of the Royal Women's Hospital, Royal Women's Hospital, Carlton, 1987. [ Details... ]

Journal Articles

  • Anon, 'We’ve got to do a Linen Count!', Bulletin, vol. 8, no. 4, Royal Women's Hospital, Carlton, 1975, p. 1. [ Details... ]
  • Cuthbertson, Natalia, 'Courage and care behind the lines', 1995. [ Details... ]

Newspaper Articles

  • Franzmann, Gail, 'Sister Jean’s a very private nurse', The Herald, 1974. [ Details... ]

Prepared by: Robyn Waymouth

Created: 13 November 2006, Last modified: 25 November 2006