SISTER Florence Emily Isabel McDONALD

Service: Australian Army Nursing Service
Place of Birth: Crookwell
Highlights: Florence (Daughter of George McDonald & Clara Fowler) was 33 years old on joining Australian Army Nursing Serviceon 31 Jul 1915, having completed her nurse training at Goulburn & District Hospital in 1911.

Florence sailed to Cairo and went to Lemnos Island with 3 Australian General Hospital, 14 Sep 1915. There were minimal tents and equipment available to the nurses, and over 200 patients, most of whom were nursed on the ground in the open air. The nurses tore strips off their petticoats to make bandages and had little food for themselves or their patients. The nurses and medical staff also slept on the ground with little in the way of bedding. This situation continued for 12 days and nights, until the hospital's assigned stores ship arrived. The situation that these nurses found themselves in is well documented in the book "The Other Anzacs" and in the ABCTV mini series "Anzac Girls".

Florence also served on HMHS Essequibo transporting casualties from Gallipoli and then in hospital units in Alexandria and Ismailia, Egypt.

She went to England with 1 Australian General Hospital on 22 Feb 1917, then to France on 5 May 1917 serving with 25 General (Australian) & 26 General Hospitals (British) and 55 Casualty Clearing Station (British), in the field, in the vicinity of Rouen, until 20 Feb 1919.

Florence returned to Sydney as Nursing Staff on SS City of Poona arriving on 16 May 1919 and discharged on 9 Jul 1919. Florence married George McDonald in Crookwell 1924. She died in Orange in 1964