Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

CAPTAIN HARRY G. SUNDSTROM, who was married to Sister Ethene Swanson at Gaza. Wright, who was a Digger in the last war. He was a great friend of ours, and we were very sorry to lose him. He is now a prisoner. "I was in Crete four days relieving at the English hospital again. "Shortly  after arriving there my fiance arrived and found me. "When I was to catch the little Greek ship that took the nurses away from Crete we said  good-bye again.
"He was there three weeks, and when the rest of our casualty station got out of Crete my fiance insisted that we must be married, and I must come  home. "Before we went to Greece I had seen the little Presbyterian church of St. Andrews in Jerusalem, and said if it was possible that was where I  should like to be married after the war.

Sister Ethene Doris Swanson - "Swanee" as she was affectionately known in her hospital circles is back in Casino. She returned home as Mrs. Sundstrom, wife of Captain Harry G. Sundstrom. Their marriage was celebrated with military honors at Gaza, in Palestine, on June 23 last. 
"We had thought to have just a quiet wedding," she told The Australian Women's Weekly representative. "But the hospital staff and the soldiers  would not have it that way."
Sister Swanson gained her training at Glen Innes District Hospital, and was engaged in private nursing in Sydney when she enlisted for war service abroad. She left Australia in January of last year with the first batch of Australian nurses to go abroad on military service. She met her husband overseas.
"Almost immediately upon landing in the Middle East," said Mrs. Sundstrom, "we nurses were detailed to the 1st Australian General Hospital at  Gaza, with 54 nurses on the staff. "We were under canvas for twelve months, but now they have a building with thirty wards and a staff of nearly  100 nurses. "True Aussies"