Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

History World War I

Asleep in the Deep

Nursing Sister Anna Stamers and the First World War

by (author) Dianne Kelly

Publisher
Goose Lane Editions
Initial publish date
Nov 2021
Category
World War I, Women, Medical
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781773101767
    Publish Date
    Nov 2021
    List Price
    $19.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

On 27 June 1918, the Llandovery Castle, a Canadian hospital ship returning to England, was sunk by a German U-boat in contravention of international law. Two hundred and thirty-four crew members died, including fourteen nursing sisters. It was the most significant Canadian naval disaster of the First World War.

Anna Stamers, a thirty-year-old nursing sister from Saint John, was on the ship. Now, her story will finally be told. In this well-researched volume, Dianne Kelly explores Stamers’s childhood and nursing education in Saint John; her decision to enlist and her transition to military nursing; her service during the war in field hospitals in both England and France; and her final posting aboard HMHS Llandovery Castle. This vivid reconstruction of Stamers’s life is both an illuminating biography of a young woman’s experience of war and an important examination of the role nursing sisters played during the Great War.

Asleep in the Deep is volume 28 of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

About the author

Dianne Kelly holds degrees in business and history from the University of New Brunswick. She lives near Fredericton.

Dianne Kelly's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“Some books have the power to reach across a century with startling relevance.”

<i>Winnipeg Free Press</i>

Related lists