From the News

Dated: March 13, 1919

CANADIAN NURSE TELLS OF DECORATION BY KING

Nursing Sister Lillian Pidgeon , R.R.C., Had Long War Experience in France.

Nursing Sister Lillian Pidgeon of Montreal who is visiting her aunt, Mrs. J. A. McLeod, 103 Roxborough street east, for a few weeks, is one of the few Canadian nursing sisters decorated by King George with the Royal Red Cross. She is very modest in telling of her decoration, saying that it was nothing, and she didn't do any more than the rest of the nursing sisters did.

She was decorated, with about 200 British and Canadian officers and nursing sisters, on February 13, 1916, at Buckingham Palace. There were only four Canadian nursing sisters to receive this distinction and Sister Pidgon was the only one to receive the Royal Red Cross of the first order. Besides this, she wears her 1915 ribbon. After the decorations, Queen Alexandra entertained them at Marlborough House to tea, when she says that they had a "right royal time."

Nursing Sister Pidgeon went overseas with the McGill unit, Montreal, No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, in 1915. She went directly to France and was first stationed at a tent hospital near Camieres. From there she was sent to the base hospital at Boulogne, where she remained on duty until May, 1918. After this she was sent to a casualty clearing station, advancing with the allied troops until the armistice was signed. At that time she was at a clearing station at Mouveaux, just beyond Lille.

After the armistice was signed, Nursing Sister Pidgeon left France in a month's time. She arrived in England December 1, and remained there until she took passage on the Cassandra which docked in Halifax last Friday. In two weeks she will return to Montreal to take up her civil duties there.