Volume 20 www.legionnl.com 9 Martha Isabel Loder was the first Newfoundland born nurse to have volunteered for service in the First World War. Mona, as she was called, was born in 1884 and raised in Snook’s Harbour, Random Island. She completed her nursing training in London Hospital, England, in 1914, and arrived in France in November of that year, putting her in a war zone 10 months before the Newfoundland Regiment landed at Sulva Bay in September of 1915. Her work with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve began in Boulogne, France, with casualties delivered in open carts for treatment. She would go on to work in Base Hospitals in Camiers and Etaples, which treated most casualties of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. No doubt she would have treated many Newfoundland Regiment soldiers at that time. Mona would go on to hold the position of Surgical Nurse and work the night shift, when most casualties would be delivered to the ward for treatment. Nurses faced most of the same challenges as soldiers did during that time, dealing with enemy attacks and bombing, “shellshocked” soldiers, soldiers with horrific injuries, mental illness, typhoid fever, and infections due to the lack of proper sanitation. Mona was engaged to be married to a soldier who was later killed in action, and after the war she returned to Newfoundland alone. She died in 1963. Although Martha (Mona) Loder was the first, many other Newfoundland Nurses and Voluntary Aid Department (VAD) Nurses Assistants would follow in her footsteps. Martha Isabel (Mona) Loder
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