In the late 1990s, increasingly complex regulation requirements combined with an increasingly challenging market saw the Lutheran Church of Australia Queensland District establish an umbrella organisation – Lutheran Community Care – to manage all of the district’s aged care and community services operations, including Orana.

Having worked so hard and with such devotion to raise Orana over more than 25 years, many in the management committee, congregation and supporter network found this transition difficult. With the benefit of hindsight, we now see many aspects of this transition could have been handled better.

What didn’t change however were the Orana name, welcome and spirit.

Lutheran Community Care was renamed Lutheran Services in 2017. As the operator of Orana today, Lutheran Services recognises the considerable achievements and challenges of the past. We thank the many congregation and committee members, volunteers and supporters for their grace, devotion and hard work. Their efforts and endeavours continue to benefit Orana’s many residents, clients and staff today.

Lutheran Services was established to ensure the ministry of care envisaged and established by Orana’s founders would continue to thrive, so more people could experience Christ’s love through their services. We hope this origin story project will 
help to record, share and celebrate the incredible journey and spirit that built Orana 
and continue to make it such a special place.

In the 2020s, more than half a century on, Orana is home to around 100 aged care residents and a lively community of independent retirement living residents in some 
20 cottages. Orana provides home care/support and NDIS services for around 200 households throughout the South Burnett region. Orana is also a great place to work 
and is a respected and valued employer of more than 110 staff.

In the early 1960s, the need for an aged care home was put forward by Joyce Kucks to her doctor at that time, who agreed it was something that should be looked into. A meeting of all interested was called and many came to that meeting. It was decided that it would be an ecumenical home.

Many people became interested in raising funds for the home. Those I recall from other denominations were Jack and Dulcie Collett and Hazel Gurski from the Methodist Church, Mary Fitzpatrick from St Mary’s Catholic Church as well as Lutheran members from the district.

Joan Winter, who was a member of Kumbia congregation, made dozens of scones every Monday morning. These were sold at the saleyards in Kingaroy. (Joan’s daughter Marion married Joyce Kucks’ son Lyndell).

I was newly married and, as the wife of the Booie mailman, was invited to the fundraising efforts of Mary Fitzpatrick. Mary made no secret of the fact that she was hoping that an aged care home would be built in Kingaroy before her beloved Arthur needed care. Arthur was a World War I veteran who had been gassed during his service in France. He suffered badly with chest infection every winter. The nearest care home at that time was the RSL Veterans Home in Caboolture. Arthur passed away before he needed to go into care, however Mary still continued raising funds.

I attended many and enjoyed meeting others from the mail run. Mary was a very good cook and always provided morning or afternoon tea and we paid 5 shillings. Mary always had lots of goodies baked that she sold as well. Her date loaves always sold very quickly. I recall reading in the Kingaroy Herald that Mary was the first person to raise 100 pounds.

The service clubs—Apex, Lions, Rotary as well as the RSL Clubs—raised most of the money, with the Apex Club being the top fundraiser. When funds were raised and the committee wanted to start, the ‘powers that be’ threw a spanner in the works. They stated that it could not be an ecumenical home but had to be under the auspices of one the top 3 fund raisers—Methodist, Catholic or Lutheran.

At that time the Methodist Church was running St Aubyn’s Hospital—now the Lady Bjelke-Petersen Hospital—and felt they could not take on the home as well. St Mary’s was just branching out into a secondary school and felt they were out as well. So it came under the umbrella of the Lutheran Church.

When the home was opened in 1970, I took my Grandma to the service as she wanted to see Pastor FH Schmidt who performed the ceremony and had been our minister here for many years. Grandma always spoke fondly of him for the support he gave the family when their son, Alf Carl, was missing at sea during World War II.
When we looked through the home afterwards, Grandma commented that this was a lovely place and she would come up here when she got old. She was 90 at the time and passed away when she was 91 but didn’t make it to the home.

When the home was opened and had a fair not long afterwards, there was a poster competition for children. My boys were both good at art and David won the prize for best poster in his age group and Peter won in the category for religious content. He headed his up as ‘Showers of blessings’.

In later years, when the chapel was built, members of the Kingaroy congregation were 
asked to go on the wheelchair roster, which I did. I enjoyed that role as I knew many of 
the residents.

In later years, I attended morning service at Orana. Florence B-P was there at that time 
and said ‘How wonderful it is to see someone from our congregation.’ So after that I often attended Sunday service at Orana as I knew many of the residents there.

For many years, Barry and Desley Schmidt ran the catering booth for the Kingaroy Show 
and speedways. My parents Bert and Tilly Jorgensen always helped. Dad peeled and sliced many bags of onions as the onions did not affect his eyes. Mum buttered bread rolls and made burgers.

by Margaret O’Hanlon
St John’s Lutheran Church Kingaroy congregation

My memories relate to the period during the 1970s and early 1980s when money was being raised to build the nursing home at the Orana Rest Home and the period following the opening of the nursing home. My mother Beverley Corney and at times my father Les Corney worked in support of the auxiliary, mostly in catering. Our family worshiped at Trinity (now Peace) Lutheran Church in Kumbia. My father served as Secretary and LLL representative in the Kumbia Congregation.

As I understand it, the two main fundraising activities undertaken by the Lutheran Ladies Auxiliary were catering for weddings and functions and operating the café at the Kingaroy sale yards. I know the ladies also made preserves and cakes and slices for a monthly charity table in the main street of Kingaroy.

In later years, from about the mid-1970s on, Mum and Lorna Reinbott were heavily involved with the organisation and operation of the auxiliary’s fundraising. Mum must have cooked hundreds of large pieces of meat, curries and sweet and sour dishes on our stove at the farm. Mum for a time was the convener of the sale yard café. Trips to Brisbane – a 3 hour drive – usually involved carrying several large eskies which returned full of ice and wholesale amounts prawns and other supplies for catering. Mum set up an arrangement with the Diary King truck, which passed our farm gate on the way back to Brisbane on a Friday afternoon. The company would load supplies on the truck on Monday morning in Brisbane and Mum would meet the truck on Friday afternoon to receive the goods and transfer them to the freezer.

During the design and build of the Orana nursing home, the original kitchen was upgraded. Mum travelled to Brisbane and spent time with the architect, being shown various industrial kitchens, and helped in the design of the new kitchen. Mum was one of the first kitchen managers when the new nursing home opened. In the early days, I used to attend work with Mum on a Saturday morning at Orana to make cakes and slices. I understand the clientele at the time had probably never eaten a shop bought biscuit or cake in their lives and were not about to start then. The solution was for me to help Mum on a Saturday by making our own recipes from home, making 20 times the usual quantities. These were frozen and used throughout the following week.

I remember on more than one occasion attending functions when the money raised by the ladies was officially handed over to the committee raising money for the nursing home. On each of these occasions more than $30,000 was handed over. My mother and Lorna Reinbott may have done a lot of the logistical work, but there were many other women and men from the local congregations who stood up and gave their time, notably including Lady Flo, who Mum described as having half the work done while others worried about how much there was to do.

The wife of one of our recent Bishops, Mrs Meg Noack, told me how she and many of her peers worked to deliver meals for large functions as teenagers. She mentioned that Bev Corney and Lorna Reinbott were ahead of their time placing emphasis on consistency of presentation – before the days of the cooking shows on TV. She said they set up a sample meal in the plating up area, which everyone used as a model, then every meal passed by one of them before it went to the table – if it wasn’t correct it was sent back for replacement.

by Bruce Corney
Formerly of Trinity Lutheran Church Kumbia congregation

We started raising money to build Orana two years before the first brick went down. We did catering, food stands and street stalls. We made wedding cakes, birthday cakes and fruit cakes. We went doorknocking homes, shops and businesses. This went on until the late 1980s.
Florence Dunemann, Myrtle Luck, Evelyn Keding and myself were regular workers on the street stalls once a month. Myrtle made stacks of bath mats to be sold amongst other things. She also worked at the saleyard café every Monday, also catering at weddings, etc. Florence worked non-stop for the street stalls and other things. She also was an original committee member. Evelyn worked every month on the street stalls and speedway catering, also at weddings. Her husband, Fred, was a regular cook at the barbecue at the speedway. I also remember Eddie and Rose Doetz cooking at the speedway barbecue.
Malcolm and Grace Campbell (Keith’s parents), Martha Wolski, and Dave and Hazel Siddans were also regular workers at the speedway catering. Florence’s daughter, Madge Fleischfresser, recalls others who regularly helped at Orana fundraising events were Lorna and Stan Reinbott, Gus and Hilda Bliesner and Lorna and Wally Reinbott.
Once a month, my husband, Ronald Chalmers, took two long, heavy wooden tables from the church hall up the street for the stall, before he went to work at the garage. He then took them back to the church hall after work in the evening. My husband spent the last three and a half months of his life at Orana, after spending three months at Greenslopes Hospital in Brisbane and Kingaroy General Hospital, having had a mild stroke and being unable to walk. He had his 93rd birthday a week after arriving at Orana.
Miriam Knopke made beautiful iced fruit cakes for prizes for our guessing competition on our street stall every Christmas and Mother’s Day for years. Miriam married her husband Walter during the second war and came out from England as a war bride. She didn’t know much about cooking when she came to Australia and my mother, Alma Weier, taught her how to cook. We lived in the same street, Arthur Street, when we first came to Kingaroy from the farm at Upper Yarraman (about 1946).
Miriam went on to make the most beautiful iced fruit cakes for special occasions like Christmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day, and weddings. Her husband Walter was an original Orana committee member, and a jolly good carpenter. He did a lot of work for the Lutheran Church when the two congregations (St Paul’s and Bethany) amalgamated in 1967. St Paul’s in Glendon Street was moved around to Bethany congregation in Youngman Street and was made into the church hall and Sunday school rooms. The two became St John’s. Walter did all the carpentry; he also cooked at the speedway barbecue.
Charlie and Beatty McCarthy were also great workers at the speedway barbecue, weddings, etc. They also spent the last years of their life at Orana. Wally and Joyce Franke were good workers also for Orana. Wally was on the original committee and was treasurer. He also was the cashier at the barbecue stalls at the speedway.
I potted plants for the street stalls – in fruit tins Orana would save for me. I probably made thousands of bottles of sweet mustard pickles, passionfruit butter, lemon butter and jam. People would come along with boxes of cucumbers, chokos or passionfruit so we could make more. I don’t know how many baby blankets I made. Every pram going up the street had a baby wrapped in one of my bunny rugs!
In the early days I remember having the youngest of my five children as a baby in a basket with me. Looking back now I don’t know how I did it. Lots of people came together to lend support. We all worked together and did what we could. Everybody wanted to help build an old folks’ home for Kingaroy. We visited other Lutheran aged care places getting ideas – Tabeel in Laidley, Salem in Toowoomba, Trinder Park in Woodridge.
When we were looking for a name, I suggested ‘Orana’. Joyce Kucks had a book of Aboriginal words that I took home and studied. I found the word ‘orana’, which it said meant ‘welcome’. I went to the next meeting and said ‘We ought to call this place Orana – it means welcome.’ Everybody agreed. They thought it was a good name. Right then and there we voted to have the name Orana.

by Esme Chalmers
Founding Committee Member
St John’s Lutheran Church Kingaroy congregation