Olive Weston: The Heroic Life of a World War II Nurse
by Peter Fenton | Biographies & Memoirs | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0732275865 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0732275865 Global Overview for this book
Registered by taniazed on 9/29/2007
1 journaler for this copy...
As a feisty teenager, Olive Weston lied about her age and joined the US Army the moment the war was declared in the Pacific.
Olive, who had been training to be a nurse, was sent to work in the large 12th Station Hospital in Townsville. As the war increased in intensity conditions became frantic. The stretchers came one after the other and it wasn't unusual to work 36 hours straight. The smell of burning flesh, lice and maggots were all in a day's work for the young Aussie woman.
Olive sat with dying soldiers, pretending to be mother, sister or girlfriend. She was determined they would not die alone.
Three years later, she was called into Melbourne's victoria Barracks. After signing some papers and shaking some hands Olive walked out a civilian. She was eighteen years old.
After the war Olive continued nursing until she sailed away to marry her husband in 1952. When her only child, Steven, was born intellectually disabled Olive was appalled to discover the prejudice and intolerance that confronted the handicapped. With the same steely determination and compassion that she displayed as a nurse this 'Bloody Australian Rebel, as her husband called her, has worked tirelessly to make her son's life, and the lives of other handicapped people, as best as it could be.
Olive says she only did what she had to do... but that is what a hero always says.
Olive, who had been training to be a nurse, was sent to work in the large 12th Station Hospital in Townsville. As the war increased in intensity conditions became frantic. The stretchers came one after the other and it wasn't unusual to work 36 hours straight. The smell of burning flesh, lice and maggots were all in a day's work for the young Aussie woman.
Olive sat with dying soldiers, pretending to be mother, sister or girlfriend. She was determined they would not die alone.
Three years later, she was called into Melbourne's victoria Barracks. After signing some papers and shaking some hands Olive walked out a civilian. She was eighteen years old.
After the war Olive continued nursing until she sailed away to marry her husband in 1952. When her only child, Steven, was born intellectually disabled Olive was appalled to discover the prejudice and intolerance that confronted the handicapped. With the same steely determination and compassion that she displayed as a nurse this 'Bloody Australian Rebel, as her husband called her, has worked tirelessly to make her son's life, and the lives of other handicapped people, as best as it could be.
Olive says she only did what she had to do... but that is what a hero always says.
