SAMSING, Hilda Therese Redderwold
| Service Number: | Sister |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 1 October 1914, Cairo, Egypt |
| Last Rank: | Sister |
| Last Unit: | 8th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Christinia, Norway, 1870 |
| Home Town: | Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Nurse |
| Died: | Victoria, Australia, 23 March 1957, cause of death not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: |
Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Melbourne |
| Memorials: |
World War 1 Service
| 1 Oct 1914: | Enlisted Australian Army Nursing Service (WW1), Sister, Sister, Cairo, Egypt | |
|---|---|---|
| 19 Oct 1914: | Involvement 8th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '9' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Benalla embarkation_ship_number: A24 public_note: '' | |
| 19 Oct 1914: | Embarked 8th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Benalla, Melbourne |
Buffalo Chalet
WWI RECORD: SAMSING Hilda Therese Redderwold : Age: 43: Service Number - Sister : Place of Birth - Christiania Norway : Place of Enlistment - Cairo Egypt : Next of Kin - (Brother) SAMSING George. 1st Australian General Hospital. Served in Egypt, England and France.
Buffalo Chalet Victorian Alps.
An even more radical and innovative woman on Buffalo was Alice Manfield’s contemporary, Hilda Samsing. Samsing was a First World War nurse who took over the lease of the run down Buffalo Chalet in 1919. She repaired and renovated the building and marketed it in innovative ways. To boost business in the quiet winter season she imported skis and hired an instructor. It’s fair to say that she provided the boost that made skiing take off as a popular sport in Victoria. She was so successful at turning the Buffalo Chalet from a loss maker into a highly profitable business that the railways lobbied the government not to renew her lease, so she was thrown out and the railways took over as the new landlord in 1925.
Not to be deterred Samsing formed a syndicate to build a rival to the Buffalo Chalet on nearby Mt Feathertop. They built a basic guesthouse, the Feathertop Bungalow as a pilot for a far grander Feathertop Chalet which was to be twice the size of the Buffalo Chalet. However the railways were threatened by the new competitor and they managed to get the lease of the land the Bungalow was built on terminated. They then bought the Bungalow for only 8% of what it had cost to build 3 years earlier and ran it as their own hotel until it burnt down in 1939.
Hilda Samsing was a brilliant hotelier at a time when there were few women in such positions and she did far more to establish skiing as a sport in Victoria than anyone else, but she is almost forgotten now.
Submitted 26 July 2022 by DOMINIC FOUNTAIN
Biography contributed by Faithe Jones
Daughter of Frederikke Petersson Samsing (later Krohn) and Gregers Samsing. After immigrating to South Australia, then moving to Lance Field, Victoria, Hilda became Matron of the expensive Lonsdale House Clinic where patients included the coroner Samuel Curtis Candler, who left her his pictures and anything else left over from his . Hilda enlisted in the Australian nursing service volunteer reserve in 1902, and the Army Nursing Service on 1 October 1914. She served in Egypt, France and England. She returned to Australia on 27 December 1918 as a medical discharge and her appointment terminated on 30 March 1919. She leased a ski chalet at Mount Buffalo where she was influential in creating a social and sporting hub, then one at Mount Feathertop, and then a bed and breakfast at Mordialloc. Her engagements and abodes were reporting in the social pages of the local newspapers.
Hilda was indeed one of the first ANZACs, embarking with the 8th Infantry Battalion, working at Cairo in Egypt, Heliopolis, the 1st Australian Hospital, the Gascon hospital ship off Lemnos Island, the Western Front, Boulogne in France, then became ill but went on to Harefield in Middlesex then Southall Hospital.
LETTER FROM A NURSE.
The following has been taken from a Melbourne paper: Sister H. R. Samsing, who left Australia with the first unit of nursing sisters, writes from Cairo, on 4th April: "I am not doing hospital duty now but on Thursday last took on my new work. I am in charge of the base depot of Red Cross work. I have a big warehouse, and all Red Cross consignments from Australia and Tasmania, and I fancy, New Zealand also, are to come to me. I receive all applications from our hospitals, and troops and we send the goods on from here. I have a sister to help me, and one clerk and four packers. We also help with the medical stores. I know people at home wonder to what use all the things sent were being put. I shall he very glad if you will assure them that there will be no waste. Until now we have not needed to draw on our stock, but from now on our men will be on active business. This morning I have an order from the 2nd Light Horse Field Ambulance, and they are getting 26 cases of things, so you can see we are in business on a large scale. Our present address is the basement of the Heliopolis Palace, Cairo, which is as cool a spot as you can get in Egypt, unless an apart ment is vacant in the big..... but the ventilation is rather off there, any way. An urgent appeal is made for writing pads and black and indelible pencils.
TO WELCOME SISTER SAMSING.
By QUEEN BEE.
After four years abroad Sister Hilda Samsing found herself on January 23 once again surrounded by her old friends, gathered together at a sumptuous party given in her honour at the Oriental Hotel by Mr. and Mrs. D. Eugene Hayes. Seated at round tables in the dining-saloon, adorned with shaded yellow flowers, were over a hundred guests, including many doctors. Sister Samsing was prominently as associated with the medical profession before going on military duty. She was, indeed, one of the six permanent nurses connected with local army service before the war. Miss Hariotte Hemming arranged the programme, which included some of her best recitations. Other performers were M. Napoleon Bolfard, Mr. John Amadio, Miss Beatrice Higginson, and Mr. W.G. Burrell. Mrs. Hayes was beautifully dressed in pale fawn fawn taffeta gracefully draped, the bodice in contrast being of delicate hydranges pink georgette. Her hat of black see straw and fawn georgette had across one side a handsome quill shading from fawn to black and white. Miss Samsing wore the striking summer uniform of white linen with an Anzac rosette on each arm.
The Australasian Saturday 25 January 1919 page 32
Click images to start slideshow.