Agnes Warner and the Nursing Sisters of the Great War

by Shawna M. Quinn

  In taking this stance, Canadian authorities wanted to avoid the powder keg situation that had evolved in Britain with the pre-war formation of Voluntary Aid Detachments (V.A.D.s) — local groups of volunteer women recruited by the Red Cross and trained in brief courses by the St. John Ambulance to be called upon in an emergency. The more than 23,000 women who had joined Britain’s V.A.D.s were a godsend in the crisis, but they also represented a threat to the status of trained nurses and a potential step back for the profession as a whole. If any woman could nurse, then training and certification would quickly become dispensable barriers to entry to the profession. Amateurs commanding lower rates of pay and privilege then might march into hospitals and set postwar nursing back to the nineteenth century.

  And well-meaning “society ladies” who wanted to do their bit were actually getting in the way. On November 30, 1914, the Saint John Daily Telegraph reported the indignation of the profession when a hundred C.A.M.C. nurses crossed the Channel to take up their work at No. 1 Canadian General Hospital in Boulogne only to find that “lady amateurs [had] dispossessed them by buying their rooms over their head” for a higher rent. In Britain, where trained nurses were still struggling for protection through state registration, aristocratic women without any nursing experience were being allowed to assume positions of responsibility as directors or “lady superintendents” in war hospitals, a situation nurses chafed under and considered imminently dangerous to patients. The British Journal of Nursing regularly denounced “the inefficient amateur who, with practically no qualifications, is welcomed . . . smothered with lightly-earned brooches and medals, and given altogether false notions of her own value in national emergency.” Editorialists among British nurses scorned the V.A.D.s as “undisciplined kittens,” and dismissed their enthusiasm as “sentimental excitement” based on false ideas of what it meant to nurse. They considered the V.A.D.s’ quest for experience at the elbows of trained nurses a dangerous imposition. Occasionally, they lashed out with sarcasm at the higher-profile imposters: “[T]he half-penny papers have shown us some wonderful specimens of ‘nurses in War dress’. . . . The Duchess of Westminster is quite in Puritan pose . . . with the addition of very high-heeled shoes and a liberal display of silk stocking. What the wonderful ruby and diamond cross suspended on her bosom denotes, we do not know, but the pet wolf-hound has gone along — and will, presumably, prevent its being snatched by the battle-field ghoul, when her Grace is under fire picking up the wounded.” Other nurse editorialists were more admiring of the V.A.D.s’ work and appreciative of their assistance, though still firmly critical of a system that continually betrayed trained nurses. Indeed, in Britain, the V.A.D. question was bound up with the wider struggle to elevate the nursing profession above that of domestic servant. British nurses, looking ahead, wanted to prevent thousands of volunteers swamping postwar hospitals claiming they had received their “training” in military wards and thus reducing the trained nurses’ certificate to worthlessness.

  Public opinion, though, failed to grasp the nuances of the debate, with many calling it “ungallant” to complain in time of crisis and the papers barely distinguishing between trained and untrained nurses. As far as onlookers on both sides of the Atlantic were concerned, anyone who signed up to help the wounded was to be commended — the privileged girl perhaps even more so for her greater sacrifice. Headlines such as “Society Girl Forsakes Social Frivols for Stern Duty of Nurse,” published in a New Brunswick paper, rewarded and inspired similar acts of selflessness. Nonetheless, there was an undercurrent of suspicion that V.A.D.s might take advantage of their newfound freedoms abroad: a few postcards in circulation showed flirtations — or worse — between V.A.D.s and soldiers.

  In Canada, a few thousand men and women were recruited as “V.A.D.s” early in the war to protect Canadians in various ways in the event of an invasion. The men were gradually absorbed by the army, but the women — mostly well-educated, unmarried, in their twenties and thirties, and middle class, who could afford both the training programs and the time for unpaid work — evolved into a volunteer nursing organization.

  The Canadian military authorities took a practical view of V.A.D.s. The number of trained nurses who were applying to join the C.A.M.C. was sufficiently large that Canada did not have to turn to V.A.D.s to help fill the ranks. So, while V.A.D.s would not be permitted to work alongside the hospital and military-trained nurses of the C.A.M.C. — they lacked qualifications and the army could not vouch for their discipline — there might be a place for them as non-nursing assistants in military convalescent hospitals back in Canada, or as “home sisters” keeping house for trained nurses overseas in their billets or rest homes. Canadian V.A.D.s who wanted to nurse the wounded would still be welcomed by British authorities, but only if they could get themselves across the Atlantic — and about five hundred did so.

  From the beginning, then, a clear line in Canada indicated where serious, disciplined nursing ended and nursing “assistance” began. The line also struck through any aspirations women might hold of nursing full time without proper training. Consequently, Canada did not see the uglier side of the V.A.D. debate that was ongoing in Britain, although some of the young V.A.D.s who sailed for England from New Brunswick with local accolades ringing in their ears must have bumped abruptly into it on arrival. Fortunately, some hospitals managed to maintain a cooperative and friendly atmosphere between the nursing sisters and the V.A.D.s. And for the soldier-patients, who called them all “Sister,” the differences in certification meant little or nothing.

  As the war dragged on into its second year, there were nurses in blue, nurses in grey, nurses in white veils, nurses in black veils, volunteers with red crosses on their sleeves, and many variations in between. They bustled through the wards of giant general hospitals in England, lurched on hospital trains barrelling toward the French interior, slogged through inches of mobile ambulance mud, kept watch under dripping canvas marquees, shooed swarming flies from open wounds in the Mediterranean heat, or matured their sea legs on hospital ships plying the Atlantic. Though it might have been their second choice, some stayed home to nurse at convalescent soldiers’ hospitals, where the need was also great. According to the Daily Telegraph, “up to October 5, 1916, the number of soldiers sent back to Canada because of medical unfitness was 6,208. Of these, 961 were suffering from wounds, shell-shock, or the effect of gas; 122 were insane; 245 were afflicted with tuberculosis; while the remainder, 4,880 were suffering from other diseases and disabilities.” Those who needed artificial limbs or physical therapy to regain function had a long road ahead, and nurses were there to see them through their treatments.

  While it is impossible to overstate how arduous were the challenges of nurses’ on-duty hours, there were also hours of leisure and sheer exhilaration. Upon arrival in England, New Brunswick C.A.M.C. Sister Joyce Wishart and fellow nurses went on a grand tour of Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and the Guildhall. They visited an art gallery and took in a symphony concert at the Royal Albert Hall. In every direction lay a feast for the senses, mingled with corporeal reminders of a nation at war: “We don’t hear much about the war, but you see soldiers everywhere, drilling in all the public squares and parks, while every taxi and wall is covered with patriotic appeals and mottoes, and the cry everywhere is for more men. . . . We have great fun here riding around on the high motor ’busses. They don’t stop a second, but we go up and down the steps like squirrels.” Soon the Canadian nurses settled into the hospital routine, whether in England or in France, but even then they were encouraged to make the most of their regular half-days, holidays, or leaves by enjoying the country they had come so far to see. Sister Clare Gass from Nova Scotia and her Miramichi friend Ruth Loggie purchased bicycles and raced around exploring the countryside of Boulogne and Étaples and seabathing on the French coast. To the vexation of British nursing authorities, Canadian nurses were even permitted to dance, provided it was with fellow officers at military events. With
such a variety of edifying entertainments available to them, it was hoped Canadian nurses would not be tempted to break the rules and seek less legitimate forms of amusement, such as fraternization or intemperance, that might defame their service.

  On the home front, family and citizens gobbled up nurses’ letters and stories and tracked the comings and goings of local nurses. Saint John residents followed with special interest the vicissitudes of No. 1 Canadian General Hospital at Étaples, which was under the charge of Lieutenant-Colonel (Dr.) Murray MacLaren, who hailed from Saint John as did several of the nursing team. No. 2 Stationary Hospital at Le Touquet delighted newspaper readers in Canada by naming its wards after the provinces that had sponsored them.

  The continued smooth operation of these hospitals was due at least in part to unflagging moral and material support from home. Women oversaw much of the fundraising through their local and provincial branches of the Red Cross, which organized the collection and sending not only of money, but also of supplies such as bandages, pillow slips, comfort bags (containing pencils, soap, candy, tobacco, and other useful items for soldiers), and bales of socks. Indeed, the emphasis on socks was quite remarkable, with periodic “sock drives” or “sock appeals” spurring knitters to new heights of production. Other philanthropic organizations participated, too, among them the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (I.O.D.E.), which collected socks as admission to its social events. Evidently, the sock drives succeeded, because thousands of warm pairs reached soldiers in time for winter, many with equally warm notes from New Brunswick ladies tucked into the toes. (Woe to the man who failed to remove the note before wearing!)

  The Red Cross’s policy was to supply the war zones as equitably as possible, rather than to deliver specific packages to particular hospitals on demand. Other philanthropic organizations, however, were free to post supply boxes directly to nurses who requested them, particularly those who worked for more loosely supported organizations such as the F.F.N.C. Individual chapters of the I.O.D.E., for instance, took charge of furnishing hospital supplies for individual nurses, as the De Monts chapter of the Saint John I.O.D.E. did for Sister Agnes Warner.

  Surgical team, including a nurse, perform surgery within an hour of the patient’s being wounded. CWM 19920085-102

  No. 7 Canadian General Hospital. Queen’s University Picture Collection V28 Mil-Hosp-10

  Unloading a stretcher carrying a wounded soldier from a truck to a reception tent at a Canadian casualty clearing station. CWM 19920044-811

  Canada Food Board poster targeting housewives. McGill University WP1.F12.F2

  C.A.M.C. nurse’s dress uniform. CWM 19590034-002

  C.A.M.C. nurse’s working uniform. LAC 1970-163

  British recruitment poster for V.A.D.s. CWM 19920143-009

  Convalescent ward at the New Brunswick Military Hospital in Fredericton. NBM 1990.11.4

  Nursing sisters from the McGill Unit on leave overseas. NBM NANB-Military-7

  Red Cross poster appealing for financial support. CWM 19900076-809

  Chapter Three

  Nursing Sister Agnes Warner

  To say that Agnes Louise Warner was a New Brunswicker is only part of the truth. Born in 1872 to American parents living in Saint John, she maintained US citizenship and for several years trained and worked in New York City. But Saint John residents claimed the accomplishments of “the distinguished Saint John lady” as a source of great pride, and there is no doubt that “home” to Agnes was the city of her birth.

  In her earliest years, the daughter of General Darius Bingham and Nancy Robinson Warner lived with older siblings Laura and John and younger siblings Richard, James, and Mary on the Rothesay Road overlooking Kennebecasis Bay. By about 1877, however, the family had moved, likely to the house they would continue to occupy well into the twentieth century, on the block bounded by Peel Street and Hazen Avenue. That year, five-year-old Agnes and her family mourned the death of Richard, just two, during a visit to Chicago. It was not the family’s first tragic loss — a boy, Henry, had passed away at eight months in spring 1869 — but it was likely the first time little Agnes was forced to grapple with the frailty of human life and the permanence of loss.

  In such a time, it probably helped Agnes to have remarkably resilient parents. Father Darius’s illustrious military career during the Civil War had brought him steadily up through the ranks of the Union Army to brevet general, but cost him his arm in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. On his way to his new appointment as US consul in Saint John, the Ohio native married Nancy Robinson in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and brought her to the New Brunswick harbour city, where he would endear himself against odds to a community initially apprehensive of Union military men. After serving as consul for twenty-two years, he went into the lumbering business with his brother and continued in active public life. The Warners remained based in Saint John, with continued ties and treks to Ohio, Illinois, and the Southern states throughout their lives.

  Through her father, Agnes would have discovered a number of values that inspired her. Perhaps foremost among them was a sense of active citizenship and what it meant to take responsibility for one’s fellow human beings in a crisis. In 1877, as a horrified citizenry surveyed the more than eighty smouldering hectares of the city core that had been swallowed by the Great Saint John Fire, General Warner “became the man of the hour.” According to the Saint John Globe, he “telegraphed all over the US news of the calamity . . . and there was instantaneous and hearty response from many quarters.” Warner set up an office at the local rink where the homeless were sheltering, and from this base assumed the duties of general superintendent overseeing the long-term relief committee and continuing to correspond with his contacts in the United States — notably Chicago — to establish a relief and recovery system.

  This might be why the Warners were in Chicago when, just a few months after the fire, young son Richard died. Truly, it was a calamitous time for the family.

  As she grew old enough to reflect on it, it must have struck Agnes how efficiently her father, by virtue of his military experience, had commanded the situation through the networks of contacts and organized supply he was able to set up. She saw his energy and people’s confidence in his abilities despite the supposed debilitation of his missing arm. Years later, during a world war, Agnes would demonstrate the same qualities of coolness under pressure, resourcefulness in cultivating a network of supply, and, above all, a heartfelt responsibility for those tossed in the throes of crisis.

  But first she would excel at home. Graduating with distinction from Victoria High School for Girls in 1890, she honed a natural interest in botany by participating in the province’s Natural History Society (N.H.S.), no doubt encouraged by a leading botanist, George Upham Hay, who was principal at Victoria High, and by her own father, who sat on the society’s executive. She studied local plants with interest, collected rare specimens, then skilfully dried, pressed, and labelled them for the N.H.S. — her specimens form part of the New Brunswick Museum’s botanical collections to this day.

  A few of her specimens came from Montreal, collected while she pursued an undergraduate degree at McGill University. In June 1893, the Educational Review reported that the third-year McGill student had achieved “second rank honors in natural sciences, first rank in general standing, honorable mention for collection of plants, and prize in mental philosophy.” That summer Agnes stood up with her elder sister Laura (“Kit”) as she married Saint John barrister Charles Coster in what the paper called the “society event of the season.” Then it was back to McGill for a final banner year, which she finished off as a valedictorian of the Class of 1894.

  Was it at this time that a future in nursing was brewing in Miss Warner’s mind? With two grown daughters left at the Warner home, one could certainly be spared to travel, learn, and launch an independent career in a recently rehabilitated profession. By 1894, the number of reputable nursing schools had proliferated, leaving Agnes with many alternativ
es, including one at her doorstep: the Saint John General Hospital School for Nurses. But something made her pass on both this option and a second, obvious one: the new training program at the Montreal General Hospital.

  Renowned nurse Anna Maxwell had established the Montreal school and briefly served as its superintendent in 1890 before moving on to found and direct the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in New York City, and it was this latter institution that Warner chose to attend. Such a cross-border move was typical of her generation of New Brunswick women, many of whom left to find work or education in the New England states, and Agnes’s US citizenship would have made the move that much easier. Indeed, from the absence of all but the Warner sons from the 1901 Saint John census, it is possible that much of her family joined her in the United States, which would not have been at all unusual for them, either. Agnes might have had close friends or relatives in New York, but it was likely the reputation of the nursing school itself that attracted her, as it did others, such as Margaret Macdonald, future Matron-in-Chief of the C.A.M.C.

  Whatever the particular appeal of New York and the Presbyterian Hospital School, Warner trained there, then remained as a private duty nurse for a wealthy couple on Long Island. It was common at the time for people of means to see their doctors at home and to hire private nurses to tend to their routine health care needs. A substantial fortune enabled Roswell and Louise Udall Eldridge to live an extravagant and somewhat cloistered lifestyle just outside the metropolis of New York. Warner became part of their extensive household, probably more like a member of the family than a servant, but still subject to the whims of the capricious Eldridges. (So intent on controlling their world were these two that, in 1911, they contrived to protect their estate from encroaching development and taxation by incorporating it as the Village of Saddle Rock, comprising servants and household members as taxpayers and voters, with themselves — first Mr., then Mrs. — as mayors.) The Eldridges had no children and they took frequent extended trips to Europe. This is how Agnes Warner came to be in France in August 1914, on the eve of the Great War.