AWM41 1006 - [Nurses Narratives] Sister Isabel C Marum

6/13

[6/19] [[HN?]]

Butler Colln.

AWM 4 1

[[?]]

AUSTRALIAN ARCHIVES

ACCESS STATUS
OPEN
AWM 4 1

SISTER I.C. MARUM.
A.W.M.
LIBRARY
Classn No 373.2

[1006]

The Official War Historian of the Commonwealth
Government (Dr. C. E. W. Bean), after his study of the
collection of private war records preserved in the Australian
War Memorial Library, wrote:-

"The private diaries in this collection furnish some of its most
valuable historical records, but, like all private memoirs which were
all compiled with any historical purpose, they should not be
regarded as first-hand evidence except where it is certain that they
are so.  The diarist is almost always sincere in his desire to record
accurately but he is subject to no obligation or inducement to
indicate whether he is recording his own observations or incidents
told him by friends or heard at third or fourth hand at the mess-table.
Thus, in some of the diaries in this collection, scenes described with
vivid detail, and without any warning that they are told at second
or third hand have been found to be completely inaccurate in
important details.  A certain number also have been written up
or revised long after the events, though doubtless usually from notes
made at the time.  In most cases the student must rely on his
experience and on internal evidence to guide him in judging what is
and what is not likely to be historically accurate."

1

28. /108
I.C. Marum
Salonica

I left Australia for India with 20 other

Sisters in December 1916 & arrived in Bombay

in the middle of January 1917.  We were put

on duty in the different war hospitals in 

& around Bombay for some weeks & then

most of us were transferred to different

stations.  In February I was sent to the Hislop

War Hospital Secunderabad - a station about

200 miles inland.  Most of the patients

here were from Mesopotamia & were

suffering from Malaria, Dysentery & heat stroke.

In July, I volunteered to go to Salonica we

left India on the 24^th July & arrived & arrived

in the middle of August after spending

two weeks in Egypt.  We then joined the 300

Australian Sisters under Matron McHardy White

who had gone over some weeks earlier.

There were four hospitals staffed with Australian 

nurses.  Two of which were under canvas.

Two days after we arrived

the town was destroyed by fire, making it

very difficult to get provisions of any kind.

Food was poor & very scarce, the water was

hard & conditions bad. We were nursing

Imperial Troops suffering principally from

Malaria & dysentery.  We had comparatively few

II

Surgical Cases until after the stunt in 1918.

In Feb. 19.

we embarked for England - a great number of 

the Troops having left Salonica by that time -

& landed on the 15^th Feb 19. after three weeks leave

I was sent to no. 1. A.G.H.  Sutton Veny.

Isabel C. Marum

A.A.N.S.

no. 1. A.G.H.

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