| Surname: | MacDonald |
| Forename(s): | Elizabeth Fraser |
| Rank: | Nurse |
| Service number: | |
| Regiment: | Territorial Force Nursing Service |
| Date of death: | 10 October 1918 Aged 27 |
| Place of death: | 3rd Scottish General Hospital, Stobhill, Glasgow |
| Buried
Commemorated | Kingussie Parish Churchyard Newtonmore War Memorial, and Kingussie and Insh Memorial in Kingussie Parish Church |
Background
Elizabeth was born 5 November 1890 at Ovie, Laggan. Daughter of Donald and Catherine MacDonald (m.s.Fraser) who were married at Dores on 25 April 1878.
At the 1911 Census she was living at Craggan of Clune, Newtonmore. She is described as 20 years old, a crofter’s daughter, assisting on the croft and living with her parents, three brothers and a sister.
War Record
Elizabeth died 10 October 1918 at Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow of acute lobar pneumonia. Her sister registered her death giving the family address of Broomfield, Newtonmore. Her father, a farmer, had died 26 May 1918.
She was part of the Territorial Force Nursing Service and having died at Stobhill this suggests that she may have died on duty.
Before the War Stobhill was Glasgow’s Poor Law Infirmary and, it is understood, that from August 1914 the patients were moved out to make way for two Territorial General Hospitals – 3rd and 4th Scottish General. The only patients that remained at that time were 120 adult Poor Law patients who were too ill to be moved, and 500 children cared for in a separate wing – as even these decreased, Stobhill became a ‘soldiers hospital.’
It is reported that the Badenoch Record carried information and copies of letters sent to her mother by Captain H.J.B. Rice, American Red Cross and Colonel S.H. Wadhams of GHQ, American Expeditionary Forces, France. A memorial service led by Colonel Adamson was held for her at Stobhill Hospital on 13 October 1918 and was attended by “a large gathering of patients, nurses and officers.” Col. Adamson stated that “she had done her duty nobley to the end ….” and “it could be truly said she died for her God, her king and country” The article of 16 November 1918 also states that “the authorities at Stobhill Hospital, where she was serving, desired a military funeral but the officer at Inverness was unable to arrange for this.”
Further reading clarified the presence of the American Red Cross at Stobhill Hospital which was staffed both by American officers, including a chaplain, and women visitors. Photographs exist of them engaging with patients, lying in hospital beds, including those arriving suffering from influenza while one ward is described as catering only for negro soldiers. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=american%20red%20cross%20glasgow%20general%20hospital
Elizabeth is buried in Kingussie Parish Churchyard at the family grave. She is commemorated by the Commomwealth War Graves Commission on the Brookwood 1914-1918 Memorial. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/75464130/
Elizabeth is also remembered on the Military Nurses WW1 Memorial in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. elizabeth-frazer-macdonald/https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/8786
