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Rena McLean

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rena Maude McLean
BornJune 14, 1879
DiedJune 27, 1918
NationalityCanadian
Occupationnursing sister
Known forvolunteer 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

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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

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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

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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

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  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ "Nursing Sister Rena Maclean – June 27, 1918". Canadian Virtual War Memorial. Retrieved 2022-06-15.
  3. ^ "Rena Maud MacLean in Baptisms, Prince Edward Island, Canada". 1879. Retrieved 15 June 2022 – via Ancestry.com.
  4. ^ "Nursing Sister Rena Maud McLean. War Casualty Details 4021641". CWGC. Retrieved 2022-06-14.
  5. ^ "Life story: Rena Maud Mclean. Lives of the First World War". livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-06-14.
  6. ^ "Rena McLean discovered in Canada, World War I CEF Personnel Files, 1914-1918". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  7. ^ "Mount Allison Memorial Library". archive.nationaltrustcanada.ca. Retrieved 2022-06-14.