Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 47 Major Margaret MacDonald Matron-In-Chief of Canadian Nursing Sisters Comparatively few Canadian soldiers have seen more active service on the field of battle than has Nursing Matron, Major Margaret MacDonald. She was born at Bailey’s Brook, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, and is a daughter of the late D.D. MacDonald, a descendant of the MacDonalds of Clanronald. That the spirit of the Scottish Highlands coursed generously through their veins, is evidenced by the fact that Mr. MacDonald himself was at one time Major and second-incommand of the 8th Regiment of Pictou County, and also by the fact that, besides Miss MacDonald, this patriotic family gave three officers to the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in the Great War: Colonel R. St. John MacDonald, Major D.D. MacDonald and Lieut. W.C. MacDonald. After school days at Bailey’s Brook, she went to Halifax to study, and from there she went to New York to train as a nurse. Her course was finished just about the time of the Spanish American War, and she offered her services to the United States government. They were accepted, and she saw service at Montauk Point. Later Miss MacDonald was made a member of the Spanish American War Nurses Association, and the American Red Cross Society. At the outbreak of the South African War, she volunteered to the Canadian government and was accepted, leaving with the first Canadian Contingent for the front. Margaret came home with several other nurses, only to find that unpleasantness had again broke out and she was needed a second time in South Africa. She was one of the first women in Kimberly after the arrival of the relief expedition and was present at the taking of Pretoria. Margaret then took a post-graduate course in New York, and following that, went to Panama. This piece of heroism will be better appreciated when it is understood that at the time the camps and hospitals were rank with pestilence. No one had dreamed of stamping out yellow fever, and those who dared live in Panama either defied it or were resigned to the possibility of dying as a result of it. It was – The Yellow Peril. Sister MacDonald escaped yellow fever but contracted malaria. She went home, recovered and returned to Panama. She eventually witnessed the end of one of the most dreaded diseases of the tropics. She had seen 2500 panic-stricken men leave Panama at the outbreak of the epidemic, and she saw the last case of yellow fever which has been known in Panama. Seeking to return home once more she was appointed Nursing Sister of the Canadian Permanent Army Medical Corps Nursing Service in November 1906, with the rank of Lieutenant. In 1911, the Militia Department of the Canadian government sent her to England to study the administration, organization and mobilization of the Queen Alexandra Imperial Nursing Service, an experience which stood her in good stead when war with Germany broke out, and she had to mobilize her small army of nurses for the first Canadian Contingent, which embarked for overseas service in 1914. As Matron-In-Chief of all Canada’s nursing sisters, some 3000, Margaret won more than national honour and esteem. She was decorated with the Royal Red Cross and the Florence Nightingale Medal. continued....
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