Rhoda Isabella Plush

Rhoda Plush, formerly Ely, nee Harry, was the daughter of a Birkenhead carrier. At twelve and a half Rhoda left the LeFevre School to work locally as a live-in nursemaid. Her second job was as a housekeeper at Owen. Soon after her return, and in ignorance, Rhoda became pregnant and had to marry in 1910, aged seventeen. Her first son was born two months later. During the next ten years a second son was born and she suffered a miscarriage and the death of her third son when the family was living in Shanty Town at Port Augusta where her husband was working on the East-West Line. For her it was a loveless marriage and in 1920 she decided to have a break and went to the Oodnadatta Hotel as a cook. There she met Bill Plush, a stockman, who convinced her to return with him to the North. During the 1920s they lived on various Kidman properties and Rhoda divorced her husband. She stayed in the Outback for almost fifty years. She and Bill married in 1968.