Connection to the Hunter Valley – graduated from Newcastle Hospital in 1910

Service – Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS)

Service location – Lemnos, Egypt, France and UK

Medals, awards and mentions – 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal and Mentioned in Despatches

A letter that Jessie wrote from France sometime after September 1917, probably from No 2 Australian General Hospital at Wimereux on the English Channel, describes an air raid that came so close that the walls of the hospital shook.  Mirrors had to be taken down from the walls and cups removed from shelves.  A frightening experience for the staff but even worse for patients immobilised in bed.

        References …

National Archives of Australia B2455 SLACK JESSIE ELIZABETH

Nominal Roll of the First AIF Australian War Memorial (AWM) AWM 133, 48-0035

Embarkation Roll of the First AIF AWM 3rd Australian General Hospital and Reinforcements (May 1915 – April 1916)

Sydney Morning Herald, 23 December 1909, p10 retrieved from Trove 3 June 2013; 21 April 1914, p.7 retrieved from Trove10 June 2013 (this latter article relates to a court case involving Jessie’s sister; Jessie is mentioned and it implies that she was living and therefore possibly nursing in Sydney at the time).

Audrey Armitage, A Golden Age of Nursing, Royal Newcastle Hospital Graduates’ Association Book Committee, Newcastle, 1991, p.195

Kirsty Harris, More than Bombs and Bandages, Big Sky Publishing Pty Ltd, Newport, 2011, p.252

Trevor Munro, “Letter from Jessie Elizabeth Slack AANS”, in Digger No 21 December 2007, p.6

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© Christine Bramble 2013