First World War
VAD Army Nurse
My Great Grandmother Mary was the daughter of John Kelty (Kielty) and Irish born Mary Lee. Pre wartime, Mary lived at home in Oldham and worked in a local cotton mill.
The photograph above shows Mary with her brother John Henry (on the left) and a Royal Navy Petty Officer on the right who I believe to be Alfred Gregory Kelty (Fred).
Red Cross
Mary was twenty years old in 1914 when she volunteered toward the war effort. She trained with the Red Cross and served as a VAD nurse in the field hospitals on the Somme throughout WWI.
Family Memories
A memorable story told to me about Mary’s time during the war is one told by my late father, Mary’s grandson.
She told him, that the Matron used to send her and the other nurses out in the very early mornings to collect spider’s cobwebs off bushes, that could be seen then because of the morning dew, and they were then applied to facial wounds, as it was known to help prevent excessive scarring after surgery.
Mary’s red cross badge was kept safe as a keepsake by her daughter Cicely.
In July 1918, Mary married John Francis Dwyer. John was a career soldier with the British Army who went on to be a Staff Captain/Major of the Royal Engineers. A number of places around the world were called home during John’s career with the Army, including Malta, Ireland and finally Fulwood, Preston where the family settled.
Wartime family portrait courtesy of The First War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit);© The Great War Archive, University of Oxford/Primary Contributor/Paul Davis