Adelaide Miethke

Adelaide Laetitia Miethke born 8 June 1881 Manoora to school teacher, Carl Rudolph Alexander Miethke and Emma Caroline (Louisa), nee Schultze. She was educated at country schools and Woodville Public School and became a pupil-teacher in 1899 before attending 1903-04 the University Training College. She was appointed to Lefevre Peninsula School. In 1915 she had taught at the Woodville High School and from 1920 was a senior mistress. In 1916 she became the vice-president of the South Australian Public School Teachers' Union.

During World War 1, Miethke organised the South Australian Children's Patriotic Fund.

Adelaide Miethke promoted the view that girls should have a chance to develop to their fullest.The Director of Education took on her cause by recognizing the contributions of women teachers by initiating the placement of women as headmistresses. He appointed appointed Miethke as an inspector of schools in 1924.

In 1936 Adelaide Miethke was president of the Women's Centenary Council of South Australia that raised £5000 to establish the Alice Springs base of the Australian Aerial Medical Service (later Royal Flying Doctor Service) as a memorial to pioneer women,and built the Pioneer Women's Memorial garden in Adelaide. Her efforts saw her awarded the OBE.

During World War 2 she mobilised schoolchildren into fund-raising and scrap-collecting as the Schools Patriotic Fund of South Australia raising £402,133. Surplus funds were used to purchase a hostel, Adelaide Miethke House (opened 1951), for country girls studying in Adelaide. Adelaide devised and set up the world's first School of the Air at Alice Springs Higher Primary School in 1950, using individual, pedal-wireless sets on remote homesteads to link the children.

Adelaide Laetitia Miethke never married, dying at her Woodville home on 4 February 1962 and was buried in Cheltenham cemetery.