"Rosemary Opala (nee Fielding) was born in Bundaberg, Queensland in 1923. She trained as a nurse at Brisbane General Hospital during World War II, worked at the Peel Island Lazaret in the late 1940s, and eventually became a nursing supervisor at Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she wrote popular magazine fiction and now writes non-fiction, with an emphasis on Queensland and its history." (Biographical summary from Opala's papers held in the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland, UQFL361)
Her mother was the short story writer and poet, Ethel Fielding.
