St Florence / St Kilda Hospital

This house was built in 1911 by Nurse Catherine Kucks and opened as St Florence Hospital. It operated on this site until her death in December 1917.  

In 1919 the hospital was bought by Nurse Stubbs and operated as St Kilda Private Hospital until the end of 1947, with the last birth there in January 1948. It reverted to the name St Florence Hospital for a few years under Nurse Hines, the daughter of Nurse Kucks, from 1921 – 1924 when the Stubbs family returned to the family farm at Mt Mort for a few years. 

St Kilda Hospital held a maximum of 12 patients.

Nurse Stubbs was born Augusta Phyllis Füllekrug in October 1882 at Mt Walker. She grew up on farms around Rosevale and Mr Mort, the daughter of German immigrants. In 1902 she began her training as a nurse at the Ipswich General Hospital. She was one of the youngest nurses there and was there during an outbreak of typhoid. She resigned in 1904 to take up a position at the Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum, Goodna. By 1910 she was working in Toowoomba at Willowburn Mental Hospital before working at Matron Morell’s ‘St Kilda Private Hospital’ Toowoomba which opened in 1912. She admired Matron Morell and later modelled her own hospital on hers even using the same name.

She married Arthur Herbert Stubbs in March 1914.

Although the hospital is most remembered for the number of births that occurred there, it is also a place where many people were taken due to illness or accidents.  Unfortunately, these are the ones most reported in the newspapers of the time. From the influenza epidemic in 1919 to a tragic rail accident in 1946, St Kilda and Nurse Stubbs feature in many reports