Nurses part of war history
Sydney’s Katharine McLellan had a close look at the First World War
On Nov. 11 we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. The Cape Breton Regional Library has a unique view of the war from the viewpoint of a Cape Bretoner in the Katharine McLennan Collection.
McLennan was an early patron of the Cape Breton Regional Library and her legacy is ongoing. She was from Sydney and her family owned the Petersfield estate.
McLennan purchased the property that the McConnell Library stands on today, as well she left her collection of photographs, drawings and other mementos from her time as a nurse in France from 1916-19, to the library.
During the war years, McLennan was a nurse in France in three different hospitals. While there, she met and became close friends with two nurses from Boston — Helen Homans and Edith Parkman. All three worked with the Société de Secours aux Blessés Militaires, which was the first Red Cross Society in France.
McLennan’s letters and writings give a full accounting of the reality these women faced during this time and writings by Parkman paint a clearer picture of what McLennan and her friends dealt with while working in hospitals during the war.
As the war went on, and presumably, as they showed their willingness to work hard for long hours, they would at times be assigned to the surgical ambulances, or “rolling hospitals” that would be sent close to the front lines in order to provide quick medical help to those wounded in battle.
The push to end the war in 1918 meant there were more and more casualties. They nursed soldiers who suffered from gas attacks, gangrene and gunshot wounds. Many soldiers had to have severe amputations and often died despite the intervention.
One hundred years ago this month, McLennan, Homans and Parkman were assigned to an evacuation hospital at Vassey.
Parkman described the scene
they witnessed as they travelled to the hospital in her writings after the war: “Shell-ridden Soissons, the little French villages demolished beyond recognition,
the countryside now a tangle of trenches and rusty barbed wire, the aeroplanes circling overhead, and finally Hôpital 18.”
The hospital was situated just five miles from the Chemin des Dames front. They could see and hear the shells exploding in the trenches that would soon deliver the wounded for their care.
On Oct. 23, 1918, the French attacked the German-held Fort de la Malmaison. They took the fort at the cost of more than 2,200 lives lost and over 8,100 wounded. Many of these wounded flooded Hôpital 18 and McLennan and her friends worked 40-hour shifts to help. At night, they had no significant lighting in order to maintain the cover of darkness, being so close to the front.
McLennan, Homans and Parkman saw up close the carnage of the First World War. They worked hard to help the many wounded, providing comfort, cleaning wards, assisting doctors and braving the challenges of working near the front.
A week before the armistice, Homans died of influenza at the hospital where she had helped so many soldiers. Parkman and McLennan remained in Europe until May 2019 working in a hospital in Germany. Parkman soon returned to Boston, eventually marrying Homans brother.
McLennan returned to Cape Breton where she served her community in many ways over the next 50 years.
When these women were first in France, they took every opportunity to tour the countryside around the hospital, photographing the areas. Many of the early photos taken by McLennan or Homans show pastoral scenes and photos of the soldiers they knew in the hospital.
McLennan also used her artistic talents to sketch and paint what she saw around her. The longer she was in France, the more stark and realistic her drawings and photographs became, showing hospital scenes and wounded soldiers that would have been shocking for their time.
To commemorate Remembrance Day and to honour the work that McLennan and other women provided to the war effort, there will be a screening of the 2015 movie, “Testament of Youth,” at the McConnell Library on Friday at 6:30 p.m.
This movie, starring Alicia Vikander and Kit Harrington, is based on the book by Vera Brittain that depicts her time as a First World War nurse. Prior to the movie, there will be an exhibit of Katharine McLennan’s artwork from the war years. This is a free event and rated PG-13.
To see more images from McLennan’s war years, visit the website Katharine McLennan: Through Her Eyes at www.kmclennan.com/. For more information on Katherine and her family, visit the website McLennans of Petersfield at cbrl.ca/ mclennans/index.html.