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Description

Nursing Sister Lucy Gertrude Squire, RRC, known as Gertrude, was born in Wolverhampton, England, to parents James Lane Squire and Emily Pace Squire in April 1884. The family immigrated to Canada in 1887 and settled in Norwood, Ontario. Prior to the war Squire studied nursing at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Québec.

She sailed to England in December 1914 and attested as a Nursing Sister with the Canadian Army Medical Corps, Canadian Expeditionary Force (C.E.F.), in January 1915 in Hampstead, England. After initially serving in England and France, in July 1916 she was assigned to the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd, Russia, where she remained until the outbreak of the Russian Revolution forced a return to England in April 1917. Later that same year she spent several weeks on leave back in Canada, before retuning to work in Europe.

Squire was awarded the Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class, in October 1917. In March 1919 she was promoted to the rank of Matron (equivalent to that of Captain) but reverted in rank back to Nursing Sister (equivalent to that of Lieutenant) on her return to Canada to work at the Dominion Orthopedic Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. In June 1919 she was awarded the Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, (RRC). Her wartime service with the C.E.F. officially ended on July 5, 1920, with her appointment to Canada’s reconstituted Permanent Force.

External links:
Nursing Sister Lucy Gertrude Squire’s service record (Serv/Reg# not assigned) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
Squire’s appointment to rank of Nursing Sister (supernumerary) on December 21, 1914, was published in The Canada Gazette on March 6, 1915, (Vol. 48,  No. 36 , p. 2744 [p. 16 of 95 in website’s document viewer]); her promotion to Matron was published in The London Gazette on March 9, 1919, (#31546, p. 11425).
Awarding of the Royal Red Cross (2nd Class) was published in The London Gazette on October 24, 1917, (#30350, p. 10983); awarding of the Royal Red Cross (1st Class) was published in The London Gazette on June 3, 1919, (#31370, p. 6839).  

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