Fonds
Alice Carlyle (Nona) Molson, ARRC, was baptized in Montreal on May 13, 1874. The daughter of Captain Joseph Dinham Molson (1829-1894) and Catherine Elizabeth Day (1838-1881), she was the great-granddaughter of John Molson senior (1763-1836) and the granddaughter of John Molson junior (1787-1860), brewers and famous Montreal businessmen. The eighth of nine children, she grew up in Lennoxville.
On March 17, 1915, shortly after the onset of the First World War, she enrolled as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), a civil organization run by the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John. To support the war effort, this organization set up auxiliary hospitals to care for soldiers who were not seriously wounded. After her training, Nona Molson was assigned to the 198th Paddington (London) Division, with the rank of quartermaster.
From August 1915 to February 1917, she served at the auxiliary hospital in Céret, France, working as a nursing assistant, among other things. From April 1917 to May 1919, she was posted to Salonika (now Thessaloniki) in Greece, where she worked at the British Red Cross Sisters' Convalescent Home. She was there when a devastating fire tore through the city in August 1917 and when the war with Bulgaria ended on September 29, 1918.
The quality of her work was often noted during this period: she was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Royal Red Cross, Class 2 (ARRC), a military medal reserved for nursing personnel. By the time she finished her service in Greece, she had achieved the rank of commandant.
After five years of service overseas, she left Salonika and returned to the United Kingdom. On July 6, 1919, she attended the National Peace Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's Cathedral, and was then invited to a July 25 garden party at Buckingham Palace. She was asked to Marlborough House to meet Her Majesty Queen Alexandra on December 18, 1919. She continued her involvement in the VAD by acting as secretary for the Paddington Division.
British electoral registers indicate that Nona Molson spent most of the rest of her life in the United Kingdom. She died on June 4, 1933, in Sherbrooke.
Scope and Content
This fonds focusses on Nona Molson's activities as an auxiliary nurse and commandant of a convalescent home during the First World War in Europe. It consists of a scrapbook documenting her experiences during and just after the war, from 1915 to 1922, with information about her daily life, her relationships with patients and colleagues, and the honours she received.
Although the scrapbook includes some photographs of monarchs, the majority of the pictures depict nurses and soldiers, many of them taken in front of the auxiliary hospital in Céret, France. It contains letters, postcards and notes from French soldiers expressing their gratitude, sent to Nona Molson in Céret and Salonika. Most were mailed from France, but some came from London and Greece. The fonds is also composed of identity cards and passes issued by the British, French and Italian authorities, various certificates of medical training from the British Red Cross, programs from shows produced in Salonika by the British military forces, mementos of France and Greece, and maps of Italy and the northeastern Mediterranean region. Finally, the fonds includes newspaper clippings from The Balkan News.
Source of title proper: Based on the creator of the fonds.
Physical description: 38 pages.
Physical condition: Sheets of acid-free paper have been inserted in between the pages of the scrapbook. The scrapbook is stored in its original container.
Immediate source of acquisition: The fonds was donated to the McCord Museum by Martha E. McKenna in 2008. Nona Molson was the younger sister of John Dinham Molson (1867-1941), the donor's grandfather.
Language: The documents are in English, French, Italian, Greek and Serbian, but primarily in English.
Related groups of records: The McCord Museum's collection also includes several groups of records associated with the Molson family or the First World War: Molson Family Fonds (P046), Beatrice Stewart Molson Fonds (P045), and First World War Collection (C218).
Last update: April 9, 2020
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This project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Azrieli Foundation and Canadian Heritage.