Constance Kent - Later Life

Later Life

Kent emigrated to Australia early in 1886 and joined her brother William in Tasmania, where he worked as a government adviser on fisheries. She changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye and trained as a nurse at the Alfred Hospital, Prahran, Melbourne, before being appointed sister-in-charge of the Female Lazaret at the Coast Hospital, Little Bay, in Sydney. She worked for a decade at the Parramatta Industrial School for Girls from 1898 to 1909, was domiciled in the New South Wales country town of Mittagong for a year, and was then made matron of the Pierce Memorial Nurses' Home at East Maitland, serving there from 1911 until she retired in 1932, Constance Kent died in a private hospital in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield at the age of 100, on 10 April 1944. The Sydney Morning Herald (on 11 April 1944) reported that she was cremated at nearby Rookwood Cemetery.