Nurse Amy Vera O’Grady (Roman Catholic Presbytery, Clifton Grove, Preston)
Nurse Amy O’Grady was one of around a dozen women from Darebin that served in the Medical Corps, and the first of just two that died, in her case of cholera in the Sisters Isolation Hospital, Calaba, Bombay
There were around a dozen local nurses that served; the other that died in 1922 from the effects of illness, Amy Simpson (later Mrs Robert George Cordingley).
Her application to join the Nursing Service reveals she had 13 years medical experience, her mandatory three years training at the Melbourne General Hospital with later qualifications from the Queen Charlotte Street Hospital in London.
Precious little is recorded of her military service – she served initially in Egypt with No. 10 AGH, and in July, 1917 was shipped to India where she died of cholera in the Sisters Isolation Hospital, Calaba, Bombay, but no record remains of the period of confinement. One other Australian nurse, the Irish-born and trained Sister Kathleen Power (below) died the following day from the same disease and was interred in the same cemetery; two others later after being returned to Australia.
Despite the Department of Defence subsequently ruling that India was not a defined theatre of war and those serving exclusively there were thus ineligible to receive the Victory Medal, the sub-continent was a difficult and dangerous posting because of the physical conditions, the cultural differences and the ever present threat of cholera.
It was to be this disease that claimed Sister O’Grady; she died in the Sisters Isolation Hospital, Colaba, Bombay on 12 August, 1916 after contracting the disease, but no record remains of the period of confinement. She was buried at the Sewree Cemetery, Bombay and later re-interred at the Kirkee 1914-18 War Cemetery at nearby Poona. Her death is recorded on the Preston War Memorial. Born Castlemaine, Roman Catholic, date of death 12 August, 1916, aged 39 years.
The Hospital in Bombay and other parts of India were relics of the British military of the 1800s and it was originally planned they be used to treat the wounded from Mesopotamia (Iraq), but instead the Australian nurses (148 in total) were sent after the Indian government requested assistance in dealing with an outbreak of cholera early in 1916 (although addressing a humane cause, in general the Indian postings were not popular with the Australian nurses as they preferred to be caring for their compatriots in the A.I.F).
Amy was the brother of Father James Henry O’Grady of the Roman Catholic Presbytery in Clifton Grove, Preston. The Rev. O’Grady was still in charge when the current Sacred Heart Church was constructed at a cost of £15,000 and opening on 18 July, 1926, the original wooden building removed to become St. Gabriel’s in Reservoir. He was noted as celebrating his sacerdotal Silver Anniversary in the following Septemberand was still noted at the Church at the end of the Second World War. He died in the St. John of God Hospital in Brighton in 1955 at 81 years of age.
O’GRADY.— On the 12th of August,1916, at Bombay, India, Sister Amelia V. O’Grady, Australia Army Nursing Staff, much loved sister of Catherine D. Harris, Mary A. Archer, Ellen I. Shaw, and Rev. J. H. O’Grady (Preston). Requiescat in pace.
O’GRADY. – On December 4, at St. John of God Hospital, Brighton. Very Reverend James Henry O’Grady, parish priest. Preston, in his 82nd year. Requiescat in pace. Solemn Office of the Dead will be chanted at the Sacred Heart Church, Preston, this day (December 5), at 8 p.m.
Sister Kathleen Power was born in Kilkenny, Ireland where her father Michael remained as next of kin. At 27 years of age, her Attestation of 24 August, 1915 shows her serving four-and-a-half years with Queen Alexandra’s Army Nursing Reserve in the U.K. before coming to Australia.
She served at a number of Australian military hospitals in Egypt before sailing on 22 July 1916 to India on the Devanha, a passenger liner used during the war as a troop and hospital ship. Soon after her arrival at Bombay, she was admitted to the Colaba War Hospital, where she died on 13 August 1916, the day before Sister O’Grady died in the same hospital. Both nurses were buried at Sewri Cemetery, Bombay,
