A name synonymous with Mildura’s early history is the name de Garis. The de Garis family, who were French speaking Wesleyan Methodists, migrated to Australia from Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1854. Elisha de Garis (Mary’s father) was just three years old. He was educated at St. Peters College in Adelaide and then moved to Melbourne. He joined the Wesleyan Methodist ministry, and in 1876 was posted to the north west of Victoria where he met and married Elizabeth Buncle in 1881. They had eight children, but only six survived.
In 1888 he left the ministry, and Mildura, to join George Chaffey in an irrigation project in Werribee for three years, resettling in Mildura in 1891. His son C.J. de Garis, (Clement John), known as Jack, was born in 1884 and in time joined his father in business ventures which included a Real Estate agency, a motor garage and eventually a dried fruits packing shed in Mildura. Jack’s greatest gift however was his promotional and marketing skills. It was Jack who helped put Mildura on the map when he introduced Sun-Raysed sultanas to the world. At the time, an enormous
success.
This blog however is not about Elisha or Jack, but about Mary de Garis, first born, and a twin, starting life in Charlton Victoria, but growing up in Mildura. And what an interesting and fruitful life! She was educated at the Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne, and became the second woman to receive a medical doctorate from the University of Melbourne, graduating with high honours.
Mary was a doctor in Muttaburra Qld. for a short time. Travelled to the U.K. and the USA in 1908-1909 to get more experience. Returned and spent four years working in Tibooburra NSW where she met Colin Thompson to whom she became engaged. He enlisted for the war and went first to Gallipoli and then to France, but was unfortunately killed at Pozieres before they could get married.
She tried enlisting in the Australian Army Medical Corps but was rejected. The British Army also rejected her. She then joined the Scottish Women’s Hospital and was posted to the ‘American Unit’ at Ostrovo in Macedonia where she looked after Serbian soldiers with ‘motherly’ care. Surgeries were carried out under extreme conditions, and in winter she sometimes had to wear a fur coat whilst operating, as it was so cold. She was there for fourteen months where she dealt with snow storms, malaria, typhoid and other diseases.
For her time spent there, she was awarded the Serbian Order of St. Sava lll. St. Sava was a Serbian prince and a monk, and was known as the Enlightener. After the war she returned to Geelong where she practised medicine until 1960. She died in 1963, aged eighty-two years.
Just recently the Serbian government celebrated 110 years in honour of the Australian Medical Mission in Serbia with a series of postage stamps. Former Mildura woman, Dr. Mary Clementina de Garis is featured on one of those stamps.
