The Australian Women's Register

The eldest child of Amelia Maria and Norman Salisbury Laffer, Constance was known to family and friends as Consie, and grew up in Adelaide with her younger sister Lorna and brother Peter. She attended St Peters’ Girls College until she gained her Leaving Certificate, when she moved to the Presbyterian Girls’ College and became one of the foundation scholars there.

Consie undertook an 18-month nurse training course at the Mareeba Babies Hospital at Woodville, which she completed in October 1926. In February of the following year, she transferred to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where she completed her General Nursing Training and became Head Nurse in 1929. She left South Australia in 1930 to do a midwifery course at the Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney, and from 1937 was working at the Broken Hill and District Hospital in the Isolation and Medical wards.

On 7 May 1938, Consie married Ronald Leslie Caskey and moved to Byrnedale Station, near Menindee, New South Wales. The couple had four children, and in 1945 Consie began teaching them through the New South Wales Correspondence School. She became a member of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Royal Flying Doctor’s Service, and was voted Treasurer of the Menindee branch. In the early 1950s she also held the position of Treasurer of the Menindee Gun Club.

After her husband’s death in 1974, Consie left Byrnedale Station and moved to Broken Hill. She became president of the Penguin club, a public speaking group, and became a member of the Broken Hill Historical Society in 1985.

This entry was prepared and written by Georgia Moodie.