news, local-news, Snippets From Our Past -Leonie Montgomery (Museum Coordinator)
As part of the ‘Remembrance Exhibit’ at the Museum, we are fortunate to have a suitcase from a Nurse who served in WWI. On the top of the suitcase is emblazoned in white paint:- ‘STAFF NURSE E. E. J. GALE – A. A. M. C. – A. I. F.’ and then in black ‘U. K.’ Accompanying this is a wonderfully illustrated watercolor certificate, referred to as ‘an illuminated address’, prepared by Ethel White. You may remember Ethel White, later Parsons produced the triptych honour roll also on display at the Museum. The certificate was presented to Nurse Elsie Gale on January1, 1920, as a gift of appreciation for her active service abroad, by the Nyngan Red Cross. Elsie Gale was the only woman from the midst of the Nyngan Red Cross to serve abroad in the ‘Great War, 1914 – 1918’. From the inscriptions on the suitcase, Nurse Gale was a member of The Australian Army Medical Core (A. A. M. C.) and The Australian Imperial Force (A. I. F.). She volunteered for service with the Army Nursing Service and served at the 14th Australian General Hospital, in Egypt. After the Armistice, Elsie was posted to England and Dartford, where she nursed amputees. In the book ‘Nyngan on the Bogan’ by the Nyngan Historical Society, an article about Sister Elsie Gale has a photograph of Elsie riding a camel in Cairo on her day off in 1917. The suitcase of Nurse Gale was found in a shed at the property where she lived, by her niece who had inherited the property. It is a marvel what treasures could be just lying around, though they are only treasures to those of us who like to delve into how life was in the past. Visit Us Today Monday- Friday from 9am to 4pm. Saturday and Sunday 9am to 4:30pm.
As part of the ‘Remembrance Exhibit’ at the Museum, we are fortunate to have a suitcase from a Nurse who served in WWI.
On the top of the suitcase is emblazoned in white paint:- ‘STAFF NURSE E. E. J. GALE – A. A. M. C. – A. I. F.’ and then in black ‘U. K.’ Accompanying this is a wonderfully illustrated watercolor certificate, referred to as ‘an illuminated address’, prepared by Ethel White.
You may remember Ethel White, later Parsons produced the triptych honour roll also on display at the Museum.
The certificate was presented to Nurse Elsie Gale on January1, 1920, as a gift of appreciation for her active service abroad, by the Nyngan Red Cross.
Elsie Gale was the only woman from the midst of the Nyngan Red Cross to serve abroad in the ‘Great War, 1914 – 1918’.
From the inscriptions on the suitcase, Nurse Gale was a member of The Australian Army Medical Core (A. A. M. C.) and The Australian Imperial Force (A. I. F.).
She volunteered for service with the Army Nursing Service and served at the 14th Australian General Hospital, in Egypt.
After the Armistice, Elsie was posted to England and Dartford, where she nursed amputees.
In the book ‘Nyngan on the Bogan’ by the Nyngan Historical Society, an article about Sister Elsie Gale has a photograph of Elsie riding a camel in Cairo on her day off in 1917.
The suitcase of Nurse Gale was found in a shed at the property where she lived, by her niece who had inherited the property.
It is a marvel what treasures could be just lying around, though they are only treasures to those of us who like to delve into how life was in the past.
Visit Us Today
Monday- Friday from 9am to 4pm. Saturday and Sunday 9am to 4:30pm.
