Grace Patricia Gooder (22 March 1924 – 21 March 1983) was a New Zealand

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er and nurse. She played cricket as a right-arm

medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...

bowler. She played one

Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

for

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in 1949. She is one of thirteen cricketers to have taken a

five-wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Takin ...

on their debut in women's Test cricket. On her only international appearance, she claimed six wickets for the concession of 42 runs in the first innings against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. She played domestic cricket for

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

. Gooder later trained as a nurse and was the head nurse at Mt Eden Prison from 1974 until her death.

Early life

Gooder was born in 1924 in

Ruawai Ruawai is a small town located 30 km south of Dargaville in Northland, New Zealand. The name literally translated from Maori means 'two waters' referring to the nearby Northern Wairoa River and Kaipara Harbour. The township primarily serv ...

, where she grew up on the family farm and attended Ruawai School with her two sisters. The farm was lost during the Depression and the family moved to

Takapuna Takapuna is a suburb located on the North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. The suburb is situated at the beginning of a south-east-facing peninsula forming the northern side of the Waitematā Harbour. While very small in terms of population, it ...

, where Gooder was enrolled at

Takapuna Grammar School Takapuna Grammar School is a state coeducational secondary school located in the suburb of Belmont on the North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. Established in 1927, the school mainly serves the eponymous suburb of Takapuna and the entire Devo ...

Career

Gooder worked as a clerk for North Shore Transport before training in England as a nurse. She trained in psychiatric nursing at

Netherne Hospital Netherne Hospital, formerly The Surrey County Asylum at Netherne or Netherne Asylum was a psychiatric hospital in Hooley, Surrey in the United Kingdom. History Design and Construction Netherne Asylum was founded on 18 October 1905 to alleviate ...

and later trained in general nursing. She was awarded a gold medal for nursing at the St James Hospital in London. Gooder became a pioneer of integrated nursing, the inclusion of psychiatric considerations in treating patients, and published articles promoting the approach. She worked as a senior nurse at Oakley Hospital in Auckland from the early 1960s, and then in 1974 moved to Mt Eden Prison, where she was appointed as head nurse. She worked at the prison until her sudden death from

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

in 1983.

Private life

As a teenager Gooder had a boyfriend, who was killed in 1942 while serving overseas when his

Wellington bomber The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engined, long-range medium bomber. It was designed during the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey. Led by Vickers-Armstrongs' chief designer Rex Pierson; a key feature of the aircraft is its ...

crashed. Gooder was however a lesbian, and sought help for her attraction to women at the Queen Mary Hospital in

Hanmer Springs Hanmer Springs is a small town in the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand. The Māori name for Hanmer Springs is Te Whakatakanga o te Ngārahu o te ahi a Tamatea, which means “where the ashes of Tamate’s (sic) fire lay” ...

. There a staff member suggested to her that "she simply had to accept who she was". Gooder later formed a life-long relationship with a nurse she met at Oakley Hospital.

References

External links

* * 1924 births 1983 deaths Cricketers from Auckland New Zealand women cricketers New Zealand women Test cricketers Auckland Hearts cricketers New Zealand lesbian sportswomen 20th-century New Zealand LGBT people 20th-century New Zealand women {{NewZealand-cricket-bio-1920s-stub