Histories

Biographical Information: NANCY LEAKE (NANCE), born 30th September 1908 at Forbes, New South Wales, died 2nd February 1990. Educated at Wollongong, New South Wales, and trained as a nurse at Sydney Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, she worked as a private nurse in Great Britain. Being in Hampstead, London, England, when World War II broke out, she joined Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corp (Q.A.R.A.N.C.) and was posted to the hospital at Halmieth, Cairo, Egypt, where she met her husband and returned (1942) to Australia. After the war they received a block of land “Gunnawarra”, Woodstock, near Cowra, New South Wales, where her garden was a showpiece, appearing on the front cover of the Agricultural Gazette, and where she did pottery and taught crafts to the aboriginees and migrants. She took up dried flowers, writing several books illustrated with her husband's photographs, including Dried Flower Arrangement and Having Fun with Dried Flowers. On retirement she moved to Newport, New South Wales, took up spinning and working with wool, especially brown and black wool, and wrote The Handspun Crochet Book. She then moved to Western Australia, close to her younger son, and was active in the Western Australian Writers Guild in Esperance, Western Australia. Latterly she lived at Cutler Village, a retirement home at Narrabeen, New South Wales. Married (July 1943 at Epping, Sydney) Gilbert Hazeon Millard (Gil) (born 1911, died 1970), Captain with 2/1 Battalion, Australian 6th Division, during World War II, in the Middle East (1939-42) and in Australia (1942-46), farmer at "Gunnawarra", Woodstock, having two sons:-