Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

CHRISTMAS IN EGYPT WITH THE RED CROSS.
SISTER KENNEDY WRITES.

Sister J. Millicent Kennedy, of the No. 1 Australian General Hospital, Heliopolis, Egypt, writes to her father, IMr J. P. Kennedy, J.P., of Maryborough, under date 24th January :Christmas is just over, and I only wish that folk at home could have seen their boys. The wards were beautifully decorated and everyone received a parcel or parcels. The Red Cross Society is simply marvellous. Besides adding to the comfort of the boys to such a great degree, it divides our work in two. We get such a splendid supply of linen and clothing, all without that awful" red-tape." Every week some one comes around and takes a list of everything our boys require-toothbrushes and paste, tobacco, cigarettes and matches, hair brushes and combs, and sweets-chocolate being particularly acceptable to our typhoids. They also supply barbers,which is a God-send, writing paper and pencils and everything one can think of --patent foods and all that the Defence department cannot provide. This splendid work has done as much to strengthen our sick boys and to comfort them, and has added much to the joy of our work and lightened it. The lovely supplies of old linen are invaluable. Even very small pieces are acceptable, and we use such quantities. On Christmas Day I went over to the Atelier (one of our auxiliaries) to see Will Dowling, and things were just as gay there. At both places there was a concert in the afternoon, and, indeed, it extended into the night: at No. 1 anyway. The sisters all got their parcels from Lady Bridges' appeal, not forgetting our lovely little red crosses. They charmed the sisters, who forthwith pinned them on their capes, although I'm afraid it's " not in orders." However, they are still proudly wearing them. The girls from the other State were more surprised than ours. Their States only sent parcels to their own sisters, and we felt kind of "out of it" when the next lot came around. It was not what was in the parcel, although you will see presently that it would have pleased any one, but the excitement of a parcel here is great, and when it is from some unknown well wisher, it makes you want to get in your room alone for a while. We have the same feeling for everyone at home here as we had for every boy at the front when we were home ourselves, a kind of intimate feeling, caused no doubt by the various messages and expressions sent both collectively and individually to us. Never send anything to the front without some letter in it. If you only saw the disappointment of our boys when they chanced on a tin or parcel (no hospital boys received billies), without a note, and then asked to read the next one, you would know what a message of that kind meant a from Australia. One boy here got a parcel that had been packed by his own mother. Some of the letters were beautiful and some written to make the boys laugh, and they succeeded. They are a merry lot anyway. There is a cousin of Sheehan's here. I pulled a cracker with him on Christmas afternoon. I cannot finish Christmas talk without mentioning our A.M.C. boys, they're splendid. Of course there are exceptions, but they are few and far between. Up late at night often, carrying in stretchers, off duty or on, night or day no orderly goes out if a train is expected in, and in nine cases out of ten this is at night, and there they are--after being on all day--carrying in stretchers until the work is done, often two or three train loads. Never a grumble, the men are carried gently, but patient and bearer are ever ready for a joke. We have been getting in a number of frost bitten feet lately, this in addition to other troubles, and yet they are performing because they can't go back and face the Turks on their own ground again. On Christmas eve a number of our orderlies carrolled outside the building, and that after a heavy day. They sang beautifully and moved on short distances al around the palace. It was just lovely and touched us up a bit. A few Victorians were holding a little feast all by ourselves, after hours too--shh! and this started under our window. How we wished the people at home could hear. How it would have cheered them. We are havng wintry weather, rain every few days, and fairly cold too.

Maryborough & Donolly Advertiser Wednesday 01 March 1916 page 5

Josephine Millicent Kennedy is usually said to have been born on 3rd February, 1889. However, the registration number of her birth appears inconsistent with a date so early in the year and she may have been born on 10th September. She was born at the Yorkshire Hotel. The family tradition of calling members by their second name stuck so fast on Josephine Millicent that her signature was “J. Millicent Kennedy”. She did her three year nursing training at the Hamilton District Hospital and also worked for a year at the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital in Melbourne. At the time of enlisting she had completed seven years as a nurse.
Mill enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service on the 7th October, 1915, as a staff nurse. She embarked from Melbourne on the 12th November, 1915, aboard HMAT A67 Orsova and served in Egypt, England, France and Italy. She was also in hospital herself on several occasions suffering from the mumps and a badly infected finger. She was promoted to Sister on the 1st October, 1918. Mill returned to Australia on the AHT Euripides leaving England on the 3rd March, 1919, and arriving in Australia on the 25th April, 1919. She was discharged on 4th July, 1919. Mill received the 1914-1915 Star, the Victory Medal and the British War Medal. In 1923 she had the newly awarded medals sent to her at Numurkah.

During the war her father received a letter advising that Millicent had been awarded the Royal Red Cross, Second Class. This was followed some months later by a letter apologising for the mistake, as the actual recipient was nurse J.V.M. (Jessie Violet Marion) Kennedy from Muttaburra, Queensland. The mistake was caused by an amendment made by the Base Records section.

In 1927 Mill married Charles McIntosh, said to have been a farmer from Ballarat way. They initially lived in a house next door to “Manhattan” in Burke Street, Maryborough. At the time of her father's death in 1929 Charles McIntosh gave his address as 13 Johnson Street, Ballarat. They had one child, Helen, born in 1931. Subsequently they lived in Jolimont and in about 1951 they moved to 36 Suffolk Street, Surrey Hills. It was there that Charles McIntosh died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Shortly afterwards Millicent moved to 13 Station Avenue, McKinnon, a move that had already been planned before Charles' death. Millicent died in McKinnon aged 87 in October, 1976.

Courtesy of Philip Kennedy