Sister Shirley LUTTON (nee Grey) (25 June 2002,
aged 85 years)
Already a senior nursing sister at a Uniting Church hospital, Shirley offered
her services to overseas missions and undertook further training at the George
Brown Missionary Training School in Haberfield, Sydney, studying linguistics and
anthropology. There she met Rev. Wesley Lutton - they trained together and were
named to work in the same district in New Britain. Shirley was to take charge of
the hospital at Nakanai some 150 miles west of Rabaul as the crow flies, and
Wesley was posted to the Baining station in the mountains behind Rabaul. The
night Shirley sailed for Nakanai she and Wesley became engaged. Living
conditions at Nakanai were primitive, and the hospital could not take in
patients until construction was completed. In spite of the difficulties Shirley
began work with enthusiasm, and coerced patients back to health with a mixture
of commonsense and inventiveness. Rev. Jack Flentje who was at Nakanai at the
same time wrote, 'Shirley loved and cared for all of us in the area, black,
white, whether we belonged to the Methodist church, the Catholic church or no
church at all.'
Shirley is survived by her husband Wesley and children Peter, Linley, Ian and
Jennifer.
Rev. Jack Flentje (Una Voce - June 2003)
