While her mind sought greater things, her heart stayed in the country, and with those who inspired her.
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My cousin, Bernadette Radburn, fondly known as "Berna", was born in the Blayney Shire, and was returned there to rest after her unexpected death in May.
Bernadette was born to Ralph Radburn and Kath (nee Connolly) in the Carcoar District Hospital, where her mother, and my mother, were also born; the following year her brother Paul was welcomed.
The little hospital in historic Carcoar was built in the early 1860s and is one of the most intact early colonial hospitals around; services ceased in the 1980s and it now houses a museum.
Kath was training to be a nurse at the hospital when she was killed in a car accident; Bernadette was then only 15 months old and Paul an infant.
Their father went on to marry Elaine (nee Nixon, a family associated with meatworks in the Blayney area since 1955).
Bernadette and Paul were then brought up by their grandparents Bill and Kath Radburn ("Fardy and Nanna").
![Bernadette's university graduation with her proud Nanna Kath Radburn Bernadette's university graduation with her proud Nanna Kath Radburn](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/GHcbaSNijNeVS4SULWDX8n/bb9303d3-0f71-4251-8af4-b2c30fb68d5b_rotated_90.jpg/r0_0_1680_2520_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The Radburn name is well-known in the area - Bernadette was a descendant of Thomas and Harriett Radburn who settled in Neville in 1954.
Her grandmother, Kath Radburn was a Bird, also from Neville, but born in Trunkey Creek.
Fardy and Nanna Radburn raised Bernadette and Paul on Werribee station, outside Woodstock on the road to Cowra; their home was the same little weatherboard worker's cottage that their father and my mother had grown up in.
![Holmwood Public School. Bernadette 3rd row back in the Peter Pan collar. Holmwood Public School. Bernadette 3rd row back in the Peter Pan collar.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/GHcbaSNijNeVS4SULWDX8n/fcd36551-146f-40f7-a459-0542ad84484d.JPG/r0_54_640_414_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Fardy was a farm hand and stud manager on the large property owned by the Rowlands family.
Berna loved to accompany him as he checked on lambs and ewes, or watch his gentle horse-breaking skills.
My siblings and I loved visiting our cousins, even though we might bathe in only an inch of tank water.
We'd catch yabbies in the dam, play hide-and-seek around the hay stacks and shearing sheds, bottle-feed poddy lambs and toast thick bread on a long fork over the kitchen fire.
We'd eat green-tomato pickles, stewed cherries and home-made ice-cream scraped from an aluminium tray.
![Bernadette being Christened at Carcoar with her mother Kath Radburn (nee Connolly) and aunties. Berna and Kath are 2nd from R. Bernadette being Christened at Carcoar with her mother Kath Radburn (nee Connolly) and aunties. Berna and Kath are 2nd from R.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/GHcbaSNijNeVS4SULWDX8n/a6f1878c-62a2-4814-bf55-828d32cb448e.jpg/r115_230_1392_970_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
It was often a lonely life for a young girl on the farm, and Nanna was very strict, but her wonderful cottage garden provided Bernadette respite, accompanied by her cat Darl, dressed in doll's clothes and popped in a pram.
Bernadette and her brother attended the little Holmwood Public School which, since the late 1800s, has educated children from properties around Cowra. Today its enrolment numbers are still around 40 pupils a year.
It was then off to boarding school - Bernadette to St Joseph's College Perthville, which closed down several years ago, and Paul to St Stannies at Bathurst; their grandparents retired to Orange during this time.
Bernadette then completed a General Nursing Certificate at Orange Base Hospital; her late mother would have been proud. In those days all training was hospital-based and attracted a small wage; nurses wore blue dresses, panty hose and sensible shoes, with their hair held up in caps.
Like many young people, Bernadette gravitated to the city and she embarked on a journey of learning. She had many positive role models - Nanna Radburn always valued education, having been denied further studies as a young woman herself; my late mother, Leone Healy, the first woman elected to Orange City Council back in the 1970s, had great faith in her niece's abilities.
![A photo portrait of Berna A photo portrait of Berna](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/GHcbaSNijNeVS4SULWDX8n/9435b8e8-3313-4ac7-9940-17b60d39d9fd.jpg/r0_0_3360_4761_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Bernadette gained a second nursing certificate, in psychiatry, before embarking on university studies (compliments of the Whitlam legacy of free tuition up until 1989).
After completing a double major in political science and sociology at the University of NSW, she then graduated with a law degree from Macquarie University.
Despite these significant qualifications, Bernadette continued her nursing work, in the aged care sector in particular, which she had come to love.
She held the position of Nurse Unit Manager at several residential facilities where she was credited with lifting the standards and securing accreditation where others had failed.
She always spoke kindly of staff and residents. Berna helped my sister and I nurse our mother in her dying months; she provided motherly advice to her legal colleagues. She was a humble but highly effective advocate.
Bernadette never lost her love of the country areas where she grew up.
She remained very close to the Connolly family of her late mother. Her great, great-grandfather, Nathaniel, was an early magistrate in Carcoar, appointed in 1860, and the rich history of the village spoke to her as she visited her Nan Connolly, whose old house in Belubula Street had a lower rear section serviced by a dumb waiter and hessian fabric lined the walls of the dark lounge-room.
Her aunts lived in historic inns across the street (one still does) and further down was her aunt Colleen Howarth's Enterprise Stores, where the day's sales were still recorded with pencil in an exercise book.
That shop had apparently serviced the local community since 1851; after 46 years under Colleen, it finally closed in 2016.
Bernadette often visited Blayney to stay with her aunt Margaret Toohey (nee Connolly) and family, and people from all around the district and beyond farewelled her at St James Catholic Church on June 14.
Berna was then buried close to family that have passed before her, at the peaceful Neville Cemetery, the entrance of which is marked by a beautiful big gum tree that reminds us of the nature of things and of the country to which we eventually return.
Obituary contributed by Dr Marie Healy