Louise Brock’s letters, cards and telegrams give a first-hand account of life on the front line for Canadian troops
“My own dearest one,
“Sweetheart, I am on the move again, and I am oh so lonely for you and all at home tonight. Every time we start, I have a perfect fit of blues but I want to get oh so near you tonight and be spoiled a little. I wonder will the time never come.”
Those words were taken from a letter Louise Brock sent from Cairo to her fiance, S.C. Archibald, in Saskatoon on Feb. 27, 1916. Brock was a Saskatoon nurse who had embarked on a mission of support to Canadian troops who were fighting in Europe.
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Her story is detailed on a website, greatwar.usask.ca, which was developed at the University of Saskatchewan to document stories of those fighting in the First World War from 1914-18.
Brock’s letters, cards and telegrams to family and friends back home are detailed on the website and give a birds’ eye view of her service on the front lines.
Brock, who was five feet, five inches tall with grey eyes and dark brown hair, was born in Nova Scotia in May, 1883, and educated in Sydney.
She headed west to the Canadian prairie, then volunteered for the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force on Feb. 24, 1915. Her correspondence to and from Brock dates through 1917.
Officially and for government purposes, she was known as “Nursing Sister Brock” and travelled with the Canadian Army Medical Corps to hot spots in France, the Dardanelles and Salonika.
She was decorated with a Royal Red Cross by England’s King George for her efforts.
Another excerpt found on the website includes correspondence to Brock from a friend, Annie McColl, dated Feb. 7, 1916.
“Well I am not going to write about all the sad things for I know that you must see enough of that. The world is sad and everyone has their own peculiar troubles although Mrs. John Kennedy lost her boy in the war … Well I think my news is getting exhausted but if we were together we would talk until morning.”
Throughout an extensive collection of letters and photos, Brock’s life on the front lines is revealed, as evidenced by a letter she sent to her fiancé, dated May 1, 1915.
“So don’t worry about us. We are also very well fed so are our patients and but for the want of a good drink of cold water have everything else we need. A stray bomb might come our way but no one is afraid… in fact dear where we hear airplanes go by, we scarcely ever bother looking up.”
In another letter dated May 13, 1915, Brock writes to her fiance:
“I have so much to tell you about things. Sometimes, I wonder what you would think and how you would feel about us if you knew just how we are placed here. But we are not the least bit afraid of anything.”
