Rena McLean
Rena Maude McLean | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | June 14, 1879 |
| Died | June 27, 1918 |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | nursing sister |
| Known for | volunteer nurse |
Rena Maude McLean (June 14, 1879 – June 27, 1918) was a Canadian nurse who volunteered during World War I. She helped set up the first hospital in France staffed exclusively by Canadians, and also served in the UK and Greece.[1] She died when the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland.
Early life and education
[edit]McLean was born in Souris on Prince Edward Island, Canada in 1879.[2][3] Her parents were John McLean, a businessman and Conservative politician, and Matilda Jane McLean (née Jury).[1][4] She studied at the Mount Allison Ladies' College in Sackville, New Brunswick, and the Halifax Ladies' College, graduating in 1896.[1] McLean completed her training as a nurse in 1908 at Newport Hospital in Newport, Rhode Island, in the United States.[1]
Nursing career
[edit]At the outbreak of the war, McLean had been working as head nurse of the operating room at a hospital in Gardner, Massachusetts.[1] She enlisted and was assigned to the Canadian Army Medical Corps on September 28, 1914, leaving soon after for Britain.[1] By November 1914, she was in France. She was one of a group of Canadian nurses who converted a hotel into a hospital in Le Touquet. In 1915, 1,100 Canadian soldiers were treated there after they had been gassed.[1]
She served in France, the UK and Greece.[1] She died when the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed off the south coast of Ireland.[5][6] Even after the Llandovery Castle had sunk, the U boat continued to kill survivors in the water either by ramming their lifeboats or machine-gunning them.
Legacy
[edit]A soldiers' hospital in Charlottetown was named for her in the year after her death, but it closed quite soon. There is a plaque in her memory at Charlottetown's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in their radiography department. Two other plaques recorded her life: one is at St James United Church in her home town and the other was in Mount Allison's Memorial Library, which was demolished in 2011.[1][7]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Biography – McLEAN, RENA MAUDE – Volume XIV (1911-1920) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography". www.biographi.ca. Retrieved 2022-06-14.
- ^ "Nursing Sister Rena Maclean – June 27, 1918". Canadian Virtual War Memorial. Retrieved 2022-06-15.
- ^ "Rena Maud MacLean in Baptisms, Prince Edward Island, Canada". 1879. Retrieved 15 June 2022 – via Ancestry.com.
- ^ "Nursing Sister Rena Maud McLean. War Casualty Details 4021641". CWGC. Retrieved 2022-06-14.
- ^ "Life story: Rena Maud Mclean. Lives of the First World War". livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-06-14.
- ^ "Rena McLean discovered in Canada, World War I CEF Personnel Files, 1914-1918". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
- ^ "Mount Allison Memorial Library". archive.nationaltrustcanada.ca. Retrieved 2022-06-14.