The Death of a Royal Red Cross Nurse: Rena McLean

According to her military records, Rena Maude McLean was born on June 14, 1880 in Souris, P.E.I. (although family records indicate her birth was 1879). She was the daughter of John McLean—a businessman and Conservative politician—and Matilda Jane Jury.

Adele Townshend, in an article by in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, writes that Rena McLean was nicknamed Bird by her family. McLean attended Mount Allison ladies’ college in Sackville, New Brunswick between 1891 and 1892, and graduated from the Halifax Ladies’ College in 1896. She studied nursing at the Newport Hospital in Newport, Rhode Island, graduating in 1908. “She was head nurse in the operating room at the Henry Heywood Memorial Hospital in Gardner, Massachusetts,” writes Townshend, “when she enlisted for service in World War I and was appointed to the Canadian Army Medical Corps on 28 Sept. 1914.”

McLean left for Britain on October 7, 1914. Her military records describe her as 5’ 3” tall, weighing 133 pounds, with light brown hair, and hazel eyes. She listed her religious faith as Presbyterian. On November 8, 1914 she went to France with No.2 Canadian Stationary based in Le Touquet. She spent ten days with No.12 British Stationary Hospital at Rouen in October and November 1915, joining the Duchess of Connaught’s Canadian Red Cross Hospital in Taplow, England on November 30 of that year.

The quality of her nursing and her dedication was reflected in the fact that in June 1916 she was awarded the Royal Red Cross Second Class one of the highest honours awarded to nurses during the Great War.

On June 8, 1916, she was assigned to transport duty for one month. She returned to Taplow in July and stayed there until November, at which time she was transferred to Salonica, Greece, in October 1916 for service with No.1 Canadian Stationary Hospital. Conditions there were very poor, as Maureen Duffus writes in her book Battlefront Nurses: “Nothing, however, could fully protect them from the other enemies: the Macedonian climate—freezing winds, torrential rains in winter—and the notorious virulent mosquitoes breeding in Salonika’s many swamps in the hot, humid summers. Malaria and dystentery accounted for thousands of patients at military hospitals throughout the war.”

Rena returned to England on August 17, 1917. In November, she was posted to No. 16 Canadian General Hospital in Orpington, Kent. In February 1918 Rena undertook transport duty again aboard the Araguaya. A month later, she was back No.16 General Hospital. In March 1918, she was posted to the Llandovery Castle, which carried Canadian wounded to Halifax.

According to Adele Townshend, “Rena McLean had been an attractive, fun-loving woman, kind and caring. As her last letter, written on board the Llandovery Castle on 16 June, illustrates, she had kept her morale high in spite of the years spent in some of the worst areas of the war. ‘Here we are once more approaching Halifax, but still as far from home as ever. . . . This trip more than half our patients are amputation cases and would make you heartsick only they are so cheerful and happy themselves. . . . This may be my last trip over and, if it is, that means that I don’t get home until dear knows when, for as soon as I get to England I am going to put in for France and once there it will be hard enough to get away.’”

Rena McLean is remembered in plaques to her memory in St James United Church in Souris, in Mount Allison’s Memorial Library, and in the X-ray laboratory at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown.

Remembering Minnie Follette

"Unflinchingly and calmly, as steady and collected as if on parade, without a complaint or a single sign of emotion, our fourteen devoted nursing sisters faced the terrible ordeal of certain death--only a matter of minutes--as our lifeboat neared that mad whirlpool of waters where all human power was helpless."
(Extract from Sergeant A. Knight's story of the destruction of the Llandovery Castle.)

Today I’m writing about Minnie Asenalte Follette—an experienced, heroic nurse who was one of the 14 Canadian women who died at sea while on hospital duty aboard HMS Llandovery Castle.As I have mentioned in previous posts, the nurses on this ship were all women who had seen long service overseas. Several had enlisted with the 1st Canadian Contingent and begun their service in September 1914.

Minnie Asenalte Follette was born November 11, 1884 in Nova Scotia. She was the daughter of Oscar and Lydia Follette (nee Hatfield.) Oscar was a master mariner. Her parents were Methodists.

Minnie followed in her mother’s footsteps, training at the Victoria General Hospital School of Nursing, the first nursing school in Nova Scotia. Applicants had to be 20 years or older, provide a recommendation from a clergyman, and after the probationary period were paid the princely sum of $9 per month for their first year and $11 for their second. According to the synopsis of their program, “The instruction will include the general care of the sick, the managing of helpless patients in bed, changing bed and body linen, giving baths, keeping patients warm or cool, preventing and dressing bed sores, bandaging, applying of fomentations, poultices and minor dressings, the preparing and serving of food, the feeding of helpless patients and those who refuse food, the administering of enemata and use of the catheter, the observation of symptoms of delirium, stupor, shock, etc.” (from the VGHSN Annual Report 1907-1908, Mount Saint Vincent Archives). It was a limited curriculum for a woman who would one day treat the terrible wounds of the First World War. Follette graduated from the school in 1909. She was 5’5” and weighed 125 pounds, with blue eyes and brown hair.

By 1911, Follette was working at No. 2 Army Medical Corps Military Hospital in Halifax. In 1912, she embarked on a special course of study in military nursing. After Follette’s death, her friend and fellow nurse Blanche Grant wrote to Follette’s parents and described how the two women served at the Typhoid Emergency Hospital at Christmas 1914 during the epidemic that was gripping Halifax at the time. Grant reported that Follette sent her many letters during the latter’s service in France.

Follette enlisted on September 24, 1914 and sailed with the First Canadian Contingent on October 3, 1914. After her arrival in Britain, she was assigned to No. 2 Canadian General Hospital on Salisbury Plain. In early 1915, she was transferred to 1st Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in France. She would serve there until March 1916. By that time, Minnie’s health had broken down from stress and the heavy load of nursing. In early April, she was admitted to No. 14 General Hospital in Wimereaux and eventually found herself in London, recovering from what the Military Medical Board called “nervous exhaustion.” She was ordered to take two months of sick leave. The board reported: “This nursing sister is suffering from the strain of constant duty with the 1st CEF for part of the time in a Casualty Clearing Station. She requires a considerable time of leave for complete recovery.” Follette would take two months to relax, recover, and play the tourist in Britain.

In May 1917, Follette was assigned to No. 9 Canadian Stationary Hospital in Bramshott. She served there for two months before being assigned to hospital ship duty with HMS Letitia. On August 1, at Chebucto Bay, Halifax, the ship sank. All aboard, including Follette, were saved from the wreck. After the incident, Follette was given 17 days furlough. Upon her return to Britain, she was assigned to No. 16 Canadian General Hospital, at Orpington, Kent. The earlier wreck does not seem to have fazed this daughter of a master mariner. At the end of March 1918, she volunteered to transfer to the hospital ship Llandovery Castle. According to an undated news clipping, “Miss Follette made a number of trips on the Llandovery Castle and was very popular with the men who returned on that ship, they speaking in glowing terms in the faithful way in which she attended to her duties.”

On June 27, 1918, the HMS Llandovery Castle, clearly marked as a hospital ship, was sunk by a German U-Boat which later rammed all lifeboats. Here is the record of what happened to the 14 nurses aboard:

Sergt. A. Knight, the non-commissioned officer of the C.A.M.C., who took charge of life-boat No. 5, into which the fourteen nurses were placed.

"Our boat," said Sergt. Knight, "was quickly loaded and lowered to the surface of the water. Then the crew of eight men and myself faced the difficulty of getting free from the ropes holding us to the ship's side. I broke two axes trying to cut ourselves away, but was unsuccessful.

"With the forward motion and choppy sea the boat all the time was pounding against the ship's side. To save the boat we tried to keep ourselves away by using the oars, and soon every one of the latter were broken.
"Finally the ropes became loose at the top and we commenced to drift away. We were carried towards the stern of the ship, when suddenly the poop-deck seemed to break away and sink. The suction drew us quickly into the vacuum, the boat tipped over sideways, and every occupant went under.

"I estimate we were together in the boat about eight minutes. In that whole time I did not hear a complaint or murmur from one of the sisters. There was not a cry for help or any outward evidence of fear. In the entire time I overheard only one remark when the matron, Nursing Sister M.M. Fraser, turned to me as we drifted helplessly towards the stern of the ship and asked:--

"Sergeant, do you think there is any hope for us?"

"I replied, 'No,' seeing myself our helplessness without oars and the sinking condition of the stern of the ship.
" A few seconds later we were drawn into the whirlpool of the submerged afterdeck, and the last I saw of the nursing sisters was as they were thrown over the side of the boat. All were wearing life-belts, and of the fourteen two were in their nightdress, the others in uniform.

"It was," concluded Sergt. Knight, "doubtful if any of them came to the surface again, although I myself sank and came up three times, finally clinging to a piece of wreckage and being eventually picked up by the captain's boat."

Nurse Minnie Follette was one of those nurses. Her name is inscribed on the Halifax Memorial. (With thanks to Bruce MacDonald for his help.To see Bruce's blog: http://guysboroughgreatwarveterans.blogspot.ca/)

In Honour of NS Jean Templeman

According to an article by Bruce Ward of the Ottawa Citizen, the night before the hospital ship Llandovery Castle left for England, Nursing Sister Jean Templeman wrote to her father in Ottawa. "I am in transport duty and probably will be all summer, perhaps till Christmas." Templeman had been home on leave the previous summer. Now her father was making travel plans to see her the next time the ship called at a Canadian port. As we know from other posts describing the terrible sinking of the Llandovery Castle, NS Templeman would never see her father again.

Jean Templeman was born on June 16, 1885 in Ottawa, Ontario. She was a tiny woman, just five feet tall and 105 pounds. She had grey eyes and brown hair. She enlisted in Montreal on May 21, 1915. She was almost 30 years old. At the time of her enlistment, her home address was 43 Arlington Avenue, Ottawa.

From a short stint in England at No. 1 Canadian General, Templeman proceeded to France, serving from February to July at #21 Casualty Clearing Station (I believe this is a British hospital to which she was seconded) and then on to the Ontario Military Hospital at Orpington, Kent. There she served from May 1917 until her June 1918 posting to the Llandovery Castle. She was finally reported "missing, believed drowned" on June 27, 1918. If you have more to add to this short profile of Nurse Templeman, please write and let me know.

A Tale of Two Ships and Two Nursing Sisters

This is a tale of two Great War hospital ships and two nurses who served on both at different times. Each woman faced the threat of death at sea. One would survive, the other would not.

Hospital ships plied the Atlantic during the Great War. They transported the wounded home to Canada and transported medical staff back to Britain to rejoin their units. In June 1918, Marguerite Condon was one such nurse, enroute to Canada on HMHS Araguaya. The ship was full of patients—yet Marguerite must have felt it was a break to take care of wounded men in a state of the art hospital enroute to Canada rather than under canvas on the Western front. She had already spent much of her time there as a nurse. As her grandson Gordon MacLean writes: "She had fairly recently graduated as a Nurse in Boston when the war commenced & signed on with the initial contingent of the Harvard Medical Unit which got her to the battlefields of France by mid-1915. After a year of service, she obtained a commission in the Canadian Army Medical Corps and alternated between service in the field & serving on Hospital ships convey wounded soldiers home." Although now on board the Araguaya, Condon had previously served on the Llandovery Castle.

On June 27, the same day that the Araguaya left the dock for Canada, the Llandovery Castle was nearly back to Britain, empty save for its medical staff and ship’s crew. There were 258 people on board. These included 94 members of the CAMC, including 14 nurses. One of those nurses was 35-year-old Alexina Dussault. The Montreal native was one of 120 graduates of the Royal Victoria Hospital nursing program who were now serving overseas. She had enlisted in September 1914, and like Marguerite Condon, had also served on other hospital ships, including the Araguaya and the Letitia (both in 1917). Alexina had also served in France at No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital and at the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington, Kent.

All electric lights on board the Castle were burning and a huge electric cross was lit over the bridge. There were strings of green and white lights hanging along the side of the ship, all to alert any enemy submarines that she was a hospital ship and not to be subject to attack. Unfortunately, as I have described in other blogs, this did not deter Lieutenant Helmut Patzig, the commander of German U-boat 86 from firing on the ship. All 14 nurses on the Castle were killed when their lifeboat was sucked under the ship. Lifeboats that did manage to get away from the sinking ship were rammed and fired on by the German sub. Only 24 people survived. Patzig later defended his actions by suggesting that the Castle was carrying troops, an untrue allegation that could have been checked if the u-boat crew had boarded and inspected the ship (as it was allowed to do).

An interesting twist to the story is that Marguerite Condon told her son (Gordon's dad) that the "Araquaya, on its return voyage was involved with the recovery of the
murdered Nursing Sisters' remains & she personally witnessed them being brought on board." I have not been able to positively confirm this. The destroyer Lysander picked up survivors. However, I have read an account from a member of the crew of a different ship (not the Araguaya) that passed through the area soon after the sinking. He reported seeing bodies floating among the wreckage of the Castle. This would suggest that Marguerite's story could well be true.

Remebering Mae Belle Sampson

A slim newspaper column in the July 5, 1918 issue of the Toronto Evening Telegram proclaimed that “Nursing Sister Mae Sampson…was one of the nurses on the Llandovery Castle who has been lost. Her mother and cousin who live at 7 Baker Avenue received a letter from her from Halifax, stating that she was sailing overseas on this particular ship.” The article was accompanied by a photograph of a pretty young woman with short bobbed fair hair and a shy smile.

Born in 1890 in Simcoe County, Ontario, Sampson was a graduate of the Hamilton City Hospital School of Nursing. She enlisted in the CAMC shortly after the outbreak of war and was one of first draft of Canadian nurses to travel overseas in October 1915. Sampson was initially stationed at #2 Canadian Stationary Hospital in Le Touquet, France. She served in France for two years and was awarded the Mons Star and mentioned in despatches. Later, she served at the Canadian Convalescent Hospital in Uxbridge, England, a Canadian hospital in Salonika (serving there for nearly a year) and #16 Canadian General Hospital in Orpington, Kent. The only thing that slowed down this indefatigable nurse was her hospitalization for diphtheria in October 1917. This illness would indirectly lead to her death. After recovery, as was usual, she met with a military medical board. In February 1918, the board declared her “fit” for active service and gave her an “easy” assignment—“transport duty.” That duty took place on the ill-fated Llandovery Castle. As I've written in other blog posts, the Llandovery Castle was sunk by a German u-boat, and all the nurses (including Mae Belle Sampson) perished.

Margaret Jane Fortescue

Among the 14 nursing sisters who crowded into the Llandovery Castle’s lifeboat on that awful June day in 1918, was a slender 39-year-old woman with a heart shaped face and deep brown eyes. Her name was Margaret Jane Fortescue. According to Fortescue family genealogist Don Edge, she was descended from a historic Canadian family. Her father was Joseph Fortescue, Chief Factor for the Hudson Bay Company at York Factory from 1872-1884. Margaret was born in York Factory in 1878, one of ten surviving children—her siblings were Matthew, Annie, Caroline, Frances, Gertrude, Charles, John, George, and Joseph. Her father died in 1899 when Margaret was just 21. Without a father to support her, she opted for the new profession of nursing, graduating from the Montreal General Hospital School of Nursing in 1905.

On April 22, 1915, Margaret enlisted with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. It was not surprising that she was assigned to No. 3 Canadian General Hospital in Camiers. No. 3 was a McGill University unit that had been mobilized on Montreal, March 5, 1915. Many of its members were drawn from those who had studied and worked in that city. The unit arrived in England on May 15 and sent to France on June 16, opening in Camiers on June 19. On January 5, 1916 it was moved to Boulogne and was there until May 19, 1919.

While Margaret was working at No. 3, she received tragic news. In 1916, one of her brothers died of tuberculosis. Perhaps that news, together with the strain of work at the busy hospital in France contributed to Margaret’s first work-related illness. In January 1917, she was suffering from bronchitis and given three weeks sick leave to England. Following this illness, she returned to No. 3 Canadian. On February 25, 1918, she was sick again with bronchitis due to “climatic conditions in France.” (She was “mentioned in despatches” in March 1918, suggesting that her commitment to her work at Camiers had been above and beyond the call of duty.) She was treated at No. 14 General Hospital in Wimereaux and then recovered at a British convalescent home at 71 Vincent Square in London and at the Canadian Red Cross Special Hospital at Buxton. Finally, on April 10, 1918, she was discharged and given a lighter assignment. She was attached to the Llandovery Castle, a hospital ship taking wounded soldiers home to Canada. On June 27, 1918, while returning to England, the ship was sunk by German submarine U-86 and all 14 of the Canadian nursing sisters on board were drowned. The sinking of this clearly marked hospital ship was a war crime. German Commander Helmut Patzig, however, managed to evade capture after the war. The only two German officers that were eventually convicted of the crime escaped on their way to prison.

Ironically, one of the other nursing sisters who died alongside Margaret Fortescue was a younger fellow graduate of the Montreal General Hospital Nursing School, Gladys Irene Sare. Both Sare and Fortescue were commemorated on a brass tablet with a border of maple leaves that was hung in the main corridor of the hospital in the 1920s. (I am not sure if it remains there today.) I will be writing about Sare in a future blog.

Remembering Carola Douglas and Anna Stamers

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! The research materials I ordered have now arrived and I am able to catch up on my entries for Canadian nurses who died during the First World War. As I wasn't able to provide a nurse biography last month, this month I am providing two. Both nurses died on the Llandovery Castle (see earlier blogs). The two nurses had many things in common beyond the manner of their deaths. As I've discovered with many of the nurses who died on the Castle, they had both provided exemplary service to the Canadian Army Medical Corps. In fact, it was this high level of service and the fact that both were exhausted from the work that they had done, that likely led to them being given the posting to the Llandovery Castle. Authorities would have recognized that their duties on board the hospital ship would have been much more limited than the work they had done previously and the trip to Canada would allow them a much-needed break and opportunity to visit family and friends.

Anna Irene Stamers
The military file on Anna Irene Stamers is a thick one. It describes a slender brown haired woman with blue eyes, standing 5' 6 1/2 inches tall. Anna was from St. John, New Brunswick. At the time of enlistment on June 3, 1915, she was living at 171 Waterloo Street with her widowed mother, Sarah Stamers. Her service record describes Anna as having been assigned to No. 1 General Hospital in Etaples, France. It wasn't an easy assignment. Located near railway lines and with a training camp attached to it, Etaples was often the target for German boming raids. Nurses also faced the risk of catching illnesses from the patients they served. Just four months after being taken on strength, she was a patient at another hospital at Etaples (No. 24 General), suffering from some sort of infection. (Her illness was described as "inflam. ext. aud.meatus. slt." I'd be happy to hear from any readers as to what this illness might have been.)She was later transferred to a convalescent home in Paris Plage. In July she returned to duty and there seems to have been no lasting effects from her illness.

In January 1917, Anna was given two weeks leave. In May 1917--perhaps ready for a less adventurous posting--she was tranferred back to England and ultimately posted to the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington, Kent. In March 1918, she was transferred to the llandovery Castle. After an uneventful journey to Canada, caring for wounded men returning home, she enjoyed a short leave. In July, she boarded the ship for the return journey. Sadly, she didn't make it back to England. The ship was torpedoed by the German submarine U-86, on June 27. None of the nurses on board survived. Her records are stamped "Missing Believed Drowned." The War Service Gratuity form in her file lists her mother as her dependant and says "not eligible no S.A. paid." I would be interested if any readers know if this meant that her mother did not receive a gratuity and if not, why not?


Carola Josephine Douglas
Carola Josephine Douglas was born in Toronto, Ontario on April 7, 1887. At the time of her enlistment on March 2, 1915, she does not provide a home address, but does say that the address of her next of kin was Straw River, Manitoba. She was listed as having a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair and was five feet four inches tall. Like Anna Stamers, she was assigned to Etaples, where she worked at No. 2 Canadian General Hospital. In October 1915 she was assigned to the No. 2 British Stationary Hospital at Abbeville for short term temporary duty there. She was returned to Etaple and given three days leave. In November 1916, she was transferred to duty with No. 5 Canadian General Hospital in Salonika. In March 1917, she suffered from badly infected fingers--a potentially life-threatening injury at this time. She recovered and returned to duty. However, by October 1917, she was exhausted from overwork and stress. She was sent back to England, where she was admitted to the Canadian Red Cross Special Hospital in Basingstoke to rest and recuperate. After her health was restored, Carola (like Anna Stamers) was attached to No. 16 Canadian General Hospital in Orpington, Kent. In March 1918, she too was transferred to the Llandovery Castle, sharing the same fate as the other nursing sisters on that ship.

I am following up on some further research on Carola Douglas and hope to have more information about her for my next post. Please let me know if you have any information you would like to share about any of the nurses on this blog.

Nursing Sister Mary Agnes McKenzie

I apologize for being a day late with my blog--the holiday and family demands threw me off my blogging schedule. Today I am writing about NS Mary Agnes McKenzie. McKenzie died on June 27, 1918, in a particularly infamous chapter in the history of the First World War.

McKenzie was born on April 28, 1880 (sometimes listed as 1878) in Toronto, Ontario. Her parent's were Mary and Thomas McKenzie, Scottish immigrants to Canada. She had two brothers (Donald and Walter)and one sister (Christina). She took her nursing studies at the Rochester General Hospital and graduated in 1903. McKenzie was Presbyterian, and at the time of her enlistment on January 31, 1916, she was living at 290 McPherson Avenue in Toronto. She had experience as a military nurse, having served with the Canadian Army Medical Corps in 1911.

Mary's first posting overseas was to the Ontario Military Hospital at Orpington, Kent. However, she must have wanted to return home for a visit in 1918 or simply wanted a change. For whatever reason, she was serving on the British hospital ship the Llandovery Castle in June 1918. That month, the Castle was returning to England after bringing convalescent soldiers back to Canada. Mary was on that return voyage along with 164 officers and men and 80 Canadian army medical staff and 13 other Canadian nurses.

At 10:00 pm, the German submarine U-86 got the ship within its sights. The Castle was plainly marked as a Red Cross ship, with special lights beaming. Despite this, the captain of the U-86 chose to torpedo the unarmed ship. All of the nurses were killed; only 24 people survived the sinking (only one lifeboat got away; the rest were pursued and rammed by the sub). Survivors spent 36 hours at sea before they were rescued. One witness recounted that "I saw some of the sisters pitched out (of the lifeboat), and that was the last of the boat as far as I am aware unless what I caught a glimpse of later was the same boat bottom upward. I went down and on coming up was struck on the head and dazed by a heavy bit of wreckage." (Globe, July 5, 1918). The ship went down 116 miles from Fastnet Rock.

Mary is remembered at the Halifax Memorial, Nova Scotia. I'll have more on the Llandovery Castle in future blogs as I remember the other 13 nurses who died when it was sunk. If you know anything about any of the nurses who died on the Castle, please don't hesitate to share it with me and I'll post it on my blog.