Endnotes
Chapter 4
1 Nurse Florence Nightingale and her staff worked in a hospital in Scutari, Turkey, caring for wounded and sick British soldiers during the Crimean War.
2 The town of Dinant in Belgium was destroyed by the Germans on August 23, 1914, and nearly seven hundred civilians killed.
3 The 1st Canadian Division fought in the 2nd Battle of Ypres, April 22-26, during which it suffered more than six thousand casualties.
4 The 26th (New Brunswick) Battalion, which was raised throughout the province, sailed from Saint John on June 13, 1915.
5 Throughout June 1915, the French army launched several secondary attacks along its front in support of its main offensive in May and June on Vimy Ridge, near Arras.
6 The Germans launched a major offensive against the French at Verdun on February 21, 1916. The campaign lasted until December.
7 The 26th Battalion helped to capture the village of Courcelette, on the Somme, on September 15, 1916. During the attack it lost about 325 men.
I first encountered Nurse Agnes Warner’s remarkable story as part of a project initiated by Lianne McTavish, for which I was investigating the contributions of women to the New Brunswick Museum in the late nineteenth century. At that time, Dr. Stephen Clayden, Head of Botany and Mycology at the N.B.M. introduced me to Warner’s exceptional collection of botanical specimens, pointed to her intriguing book of First World War letters, and generously shared what he had uncovered about Warner and her family. I am so grateful to him for that introduction to Miss Warner and for encouraging me to dig deeper into her life.
Thanks to Marc Milner for expanding the scope of the project and connecting me with the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project, thereby launching this glimpse into the great work of our province’s nursing sisters. I am very grateful to Marc and to Brent Wilson for answering questions and facilitating the project through many phases. Special thanks to Brent, who patiently edited the manuscript, obtained the images, coordinated all input, and handled dozens of other tasks prior to publication. I’m grateful to Mike Bechthold for creating the maps that follow Nurse Warner’s path through France and Belgium. Doug Knight and Susan Ross of the Canadian War Museum assisted in obtaining photos. And I owe many thanks to the staff at Goose Lane Editions for their editorial and design expertise.
For his impeccable judgment and serene endurance, I thank Greg Quinn, without whose advice and encouragement this project would have languished. And finally, I remember with appreciation every heartening word from family and friends who took an interest in this undertaking.