Connection to the Hunter Valley – Staff Nurse Catherine Thomas was born in Minmi and trained at Maitland Hospital. She is named on Kurri Kurri Congregational Church Memorial and Pelaw Main Public School Memorial Gates.
Left side of memorial gates, Pelaw Main Public School, and detail. Catherine’s name appears third from the end in left column. Click on image to enlarge.
Photo: A John Bramble 2010
Training and experience – graduated Maitland Hospital 1916
Service – Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS)
Service location – Fremantle Quarantine Station. Catherine had been destined for Salonika, but her transport, the Wyreema, was recalled at sea because an armistice had been signed. She disembarked in Western Australia and nursed casualties of the great influenza epidemic.
Medals & awards – British War Medal
Do you know more?
References:
National Archives of Australia B2455 THOMAS C B
Embarkation Roll of the First AIF AWM Nurses (July 1915 – November 1918)
Newcastle Morning Herald, 2 October 1919
Ruth Rae, Veiled Lives: threading Australian nursing history into the fabric of the First World War, The College of Nursing, Burwood NSW, 2009
© Christine Bramble 2013
Great War Nurses from the Hunter 