The Trundle Hotel

Patron Saint of the Trundle Hotel

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In August 1900, Trundle’s resident doctor Dagmar Berne died on the spot of the current bar. At the time Dr Berne was very weak and sick herself. However just before she died she got out of her own sick bed and saved the life of a hotel patron.  Shortly after saving the life a patron she passed away of exhaustion.  She has therefore become the hotel’s patron saint.

 

Dr Dagmar Berne was the first lady to be accepted into a Medicine degree at Sydney University.  She completed her medical degree in Edinburgh and established a successful medical practice in Sydney before moving west.

 

In 1900 Dagmar Berne moved to Trundle as the local doctor. At the time the doctors quarters where next door to the Trundle Hotel on the corner of Parkes and Forbes Streets (ie where the current bar is).  She is still honoured with awards in her name at Sydney University

 

Below is a transcript from her story from the Sydney University Archives.

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“By 1898, her health was failing and she was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis. She moved to Springwood in the Blue Mountains, which was renowned for its health giving properties. But by January 1900, her health had worsened and she moved to the drier and warmer western township of Trundle in NSW.
 

The services of a doctor in the town were required and for a time, she practised from Yarrabundie Station and also from professional rooms at the southern end of the Trundle Hotel. She was especially concerned with the well-being of women after childbirth, insisting they receive adequate rest away from the demands of their household: in this, she was ahead of her time. Dagmar ministered to people of all denominations, often offering her services for little or no charge. Even on the night of her death she treated a man who had injured himself at the Trundle Hotel, herself so frail that “she could hardly shake a bottle of medicine.” Dagmar hemorrhaged and died of pulmonary phthisis and exhaustion on a bitter winter night on August 22, 1900, aged 34.”

 

Thanks to article writer Dr Vanessa Witton & the Sydney University Archives. Download the Sydney University Archive Article here

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