Recognition of Nursing Sisters

Heroes Remember

Recognition of Nursing Sisters

Transcript

We are very proud of our military history because it started in 1885 and the grey nuns in Saskatchewan at the time of the Riel rebellion were the only ones going out in the field and looking after the wounded, and they were overwhelmed so they asked for volunteers and so some, I suppose at that time maybe ordinary nurses, I don’t know, some came up from Toronto, about seven came from Toronto and they joined the grey nuns in going out to get the wounded and looking after the wounded and the OC at that time was so impressed with these nurses looking after the wounded that he incorporated them into, what will I say, army life, and that was the first recognition of nursing sisters shall I say; going back Florence Nightingale really was the first military nurse like that but still this is a Canadian and because they had started with the grey nuns there were sister, nursing sister attached itself to us and also, at that time, the English nurses were quite, called sister too. So we just maintained that until this most recent war when of course the males started into the nursing service and they’re now known as nursing officers and so nursing sisters when you hear that name belongs to the old, to the old girls.

Description

Mrs. Flynn shares her historical perspective of the nursing sisters and how they were recognized in army life.

Pauline Flynn

Mrs. Pauline Flynn was born in Port Elgin, Ontario January 23, 1920. Her father was a Canadian Railway Station Master and her mother a school teacher. There are three brothers in her family, she being the only girl. She attended nursing school and in 1938 graduated from Toronto Western. Mrs. Flynn, always having a sense of adventure, decided to join the military. She served as a nursing sister and held the rank of officer. To this day, she holds great pride for the history of the nursing sisters and pride of the blue uniform. After discharge from the service, Mrs. Flynn married and continued to nurse while raising a family in Ottawa. Today, she spends a great deal of her free time volunteering and is very proud of her military connections with other local nursing sisters who served during the same period of time. She is a great spokesperson for the Nursing Sister Association and represents her comrades during many of the Remembrance Day Events in our capital city, Ottawa, Canada.

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