Detail of Hamilton Citizens’ memorial, Gregson Park
Photo: Christine Bramble 2010
Connection to the Hunter Valley – Staff Nurse Violet Amy Reid is named on Gregson Park Memorial, Hamilton, as “Sister A V Reid”. Nurses with the rank of Staff Nurse were often referred to as “Sister” as a courtesy. Amy graduated from Newcastle Hospital in 1914. Amy and her contemporary Staff Nurse Ivy Robbins embarked for overseas service on the Mooltan in 1917. Ivy had graduated from Newcastle Hospital a year after Amy, in 1915. Perhaps they had encouraged each other to join the AANS as soon as they had the necessary two years post-graduate experience.
Staff Nurse Amy Reid in the uniform of the AANS. Photo courtesy Pam Reid-Philip.
Service – Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS)
Service location – Salonika and UK.
Medals, awards and mentions – British War Medal and Victory Medal
References:
National Archives of Australia B2455 REID VIOLET AMY FLORENTINE
Nominal Roll of the First AIF Australian War Memorial (AWM) AWM133, 43-118
Embarkation Roll of the First AIF AWM Nurses (July 1915 – November 1918)
Sydney Morning Herald, 31 December 1913, retrieved from Trove 27 July 2012; 19 December 1928, retrieved from Trove 8 August 2010
Audrey Armitage, A Golden Age of Nursing, Royal Newcastle Hospital Graduates’ Association Book Committee, Newcastle, 1991
Do you know more?
© Christine Bramble 2013
Great War Nurses from the Hunter 
Amy Reid was the daughter of my great grandfather’s brother Robert Reid. I wrote a story of her service in WW1 in the “Murrumbidgee Ancestor” in the Oct 2012 journal of the Wagga Wagga & District Family History Society. Amy finished her nursing career in Canberra. She died in Kingston ACT in July 1960, aged 75. I did not know there was a Newcastle connection. Her embarkation address was Darlinghurst. My mother was a Reid. Cheers Rob Walker.
Thanks, Rob, good to fill in a little more of the jigsaw! Have you got an address for the Wagga Wagga & District FHS? – I’d like to obtain a copy of your article. Cheers, Christine