Online collection for Frances Cluett of Newfoundland, VAD in hospitals in England, France and Constantinople

[MaureenE]

Online collection of letters, postcards etc https://dai.mun.ca/digital/cluett/ Digital collection of Memorial University of Newfoundland.

From the description

"In the fall of 1916, at the age of 33 years, Frances Cluett left her home in Belleoram to go to St. John's to become a member of the Volunteer Aid Detachment (VAD) with the St. John Ambulance Corps and to subsequently join the British Expeditionary Force in France. Over the next few weeks, Cluett spent her time preparing herself to go overseas, activities she described in her letters home: having pictures taken at Holloway Studios to accompany her application for a passport; receiving and recuperating from inoculations; and sorting out her kit bag of uniforms and other clothing to take with her.

In her November 15 letter to her mother, Cluett reports she had arrived in New York. She had crossed Newfoundland by train and continued her trip to New York, via Boston, on train. Her next letter is dated November 29; she is staying at Queen Mary's Hostel for Nurses in London, England, having sailed from New York to Liverpool. She spends the next few months training as a VAD in various hospitals in England. Her letters home describe in great detail her experiences including ward routine, patients she met from Newfoundland, the personalities of nursing sisters and other staff at the hospitals, as well as her activities during her time off.

By May 7, 1917, Cluett is writing home from France. She had joined the British Expeditionary Force and was stationed at the 10th General Hospital in Rouen. While in France she was assigned to a camp nursing German prisoners of war. There was a severely wounded German major who was one of her patients. Just before he died he gave her his Iron Cross and helmet.

She spent almost a year in France before being relocated to Constantinople in 1918. After the war she spent some time travelling in Europe before returning to Belleoram. Cluett's last letter to her mother is dated November 21, 1920 from London just before she sets sail for Newfoundland".

This collection  was produced as a book in 2006 Your Daughter Fanny: The War Letters of Frances Cluett, VAD, edited by Bill Rompkey and Bert Riggs which is available as a Text to Borrow in the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/yourdaughterfann0000clue

Maureen

 

[BarbaraG]

Some family details and her photograph here on Find a Grave...

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/156497563/frances-cluett?

[seaJane]

On 18/01/2024 at 11:35, MaureenE said:

This collection  was produced as a book in 2006 Your Daughter Fanny: The War Letters of Frances Cluett, VAD, edited by Bill Rompkey and Bert Riggs which is available as a Text to Borrow in the Internet

The book was already on my bibliography but I have added the archive . org link in the latest update; thank you - and for your help with the Mesopotamia Commission Appendices .

sJ