The usual methods of identifying nurses from a specific area – eg place of birth, address on the Embarkation Roll, address of next-of-kin, name on school honour roll etc – only go so far.  In More than Bombs and Bandages, Australian Army nurses at work in World War I (Big Sky Publishing, Newport 2011) Kirsty Harris has included a very useful appendix of training hospitals of AANS nursing members (pp.239-259).  Kirsty’s research has allowed me to identify more women who graduated from Newcastle and Maitland hospitals.  I am gradually adding these names as I research their service records.  Today’s additions are Staff Nurse Aimée Michie known to her patients as Sister Mick and Sister Jessie Elizabeth Slack – Jessie Slack’s service record indicates that she was mentioned in despatches  although as yet I have not discovered the particular action that led to this.

These are the Great War medals of Matron Ida Greaves of the Australian Voluntary Hospital, Wimereux France.  Left to right, they are the Royal Red Cross 1st Class, 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.  This set of medals is exceptional not only because the Royal Red Cross 1st Class was only awarded to approximately 44 Australian women during the course of the War but because this particular medal was one of the first two to be awarded to an Australian. Matron Greaves  and Matron Nora Fletcher BRCS of Sydney received their awards at Buckingham Palace on 12 July 1915.

Medals of Matron Ida Greaves, RRC. Courtesy Greaves family archive.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported the award on 25 June 1915, p5, with the comment that “Nurse Greaves is a native of Newcastle and is very well known here.” What a pity that the memory of this exceptional woman seems to have faded, unlike that of the Hunter’s Victoria Cross recipients.