www.ns.legion.ca 15 Other times, bombs and shells would rain down on the nurses as they went about their duties behind the front lines. In his book, “Nova Scotia’s Part in the Great War”, Captain M. Stuart Hunt describes the scene during one bombing attack on the St. Francis Hospital Unit in France. “The nursing sisters and hospital staff displayed great courage all through these trying times, remaining at their posts in the operating room and hospital wards. No pen can describe the nerve-testing and nerve-wracking experience of hearing the swish through the air of those terrible and deadly bombs, then the terrific explosions and rocking and trembling of the earth which meant destruction and death to many. The way those splendid young women carried themselves was magnificent. Without a quiver or the slightest hesitation, they kept right along with their work and soothed and encouraged and ministered to their patients. They were the same living contradiction here as elsewhere to all logical relations, and the harmony of things. They would jump up on the operating table and scream at the suggestion of a mouse or trench rat; but would go out into the storm and darkness and fire to give a drink of water to a wounded soldier”. The contribution made by the Angels of Mercy to Canada’s war effort was not forgotten, once hostilities ceased. A monument to them, and to the nursing profession itself, was erected in Ottawa in 1926. It can be found in the Hall of Honour in the Center Block of Parliament. The Angels of Mercy will be remembered for one other historic distinction as well. Their courageous wartime service helped convince the Canadian government that the time was long overdue to grant women the right to vote!
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