Longwarry nurse finally recognised
The name of a nurse that was born and grew up in Longwarry and served at Lemnos, 60 kilometres from Gallipoli, Egypt and the Western Front at The Somme, has been belatedly added to the Longwarry War Memorial 100 years after the memorial was erected.
Mary Kennedy’s omission on the memorial for a century was nothing to do with the fact she was a nurse, another local nurse Mary Sherriff’s name was included among the initial listings of 119 people from the Longwarry, Labertouche and Modella areas that served in World War 1.
Rather it was a case of the family – her parents David and Christina and brothers and a sister - moving from Longwarry before the outbreak of war.
The addition of her name to the memorial and its unveiling during yesterday’s Remembrance Day service at Longwarry came after extensive research by the Longwarry RSL sub-branch to correct an “unfortunate oversight” and recognise her with many she lived amongst and attend school.
Mary was aged about 20 when she moved to Kyneton to train as a nurse and later returned to Gippsland to nurse at Warragul.
She was 31 years old when she enlisted in the Australian Nursing Service on 10 May 1915 and eight days later was on a ship heading for England and the war as part of the 3rd Australian General Army Hospital.
In a remarkable twist of fate also on the ship was a young doctor Alfred MacLure who’d Mary had met while they were both working at the Kyneton hospital.
Within a couple of weeks of arriving in England they married, a fact they kept secret from the Army because married women could not remain nursing and they both knew how badly nurses were needed by the army.
Only a few weeks later Mary was at Lemnos at a “tent hospital” treating the worst of the wounded Australian soldiers evacuated from Gallipoli.
Probably the most difficult period of her service was at The Somme where Australian troops suffered their worst losses and casualties of the war and again working and living in tents where in winter snow, rain, mud and freezing conditions were a major hindrance.
Mary was promoted to Sister during 1917 and resigned at the end of 1918 with the war ended, telling the Army she intended to marry the following year.
She and her husband remained in England after the war to enable Dr MacLure to undertake further studies before returning to Australia in the 1920s where Dr MacLure practiced as an orthopaedic surgeon.
He died in 1956 after which Mary moved to Queensland where she died aged 81 in 1965.
Member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing, said the Longwarry RSL received $850 to add the missing name to the Longwarry War Memorial.