By Jenna Colclough

Research Assistant, Acadia Archives

As we look forward to another holiday break, I would like to share a belated Christmas story.

During WWI, hundreds of Acadia students and alumni enlisted to serve in the Canadian military, with several women enlisting as nurses in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Because Dr. George Cutten (1896), Acadia's Dean of Students at the time (and later University President from 1910-22), also served as a Recruitment Officer, Acadia Archives contains a plethora of information documenting students, staff and alumni who served.

At Acadia, 66 students joined the CAMC, and were stationed throughout Europe at Casualty Clearing Stations, and Stationary Hospitals. However, most students at Acadia were stationed with hospitals run by other universities, primarily the 3rd Canadian General Hospital run by McGill, or the 7th Stationary Hospital run by Dalhousie.

One such Acadia alumna was Cora Peters Archibald. A graduate of Acadia Ladies’ Seminary Finishing School in 1900, Archibald would return to Acadia to establish the Department of Household Science. She then studied nursing in Montreal before serving as Dietician with the 3rd Canadian General Hospital. It is at the 3rd General Hospital that our Christmas story is set.

Live music, Christmas dinner

Each year, with the assistance of the Red Cross and the efforts of hospital staff, each hospital would endeavour to celebrate the holidays with live music, decorations, and Christmas dinner on the 25th. The Red Cross had, in the previous year, given each patient a packet of brown sugar and cinnamon on Christmas Day, and this year the goal was plum pudding for every patient and member of the medical staff.

A slip from Library and Archives Canada addressed to the Dietician for the 3rd Stationary Hospital – our own Cora Archibald – lists the supplies ordered, including figs, sweets, chocolate and even new stockings for patients.

These supplies were purchased through year-long fundraising, and with the generosity of Medical Corps staff. One such fundraiser involved the annual hospital Christmas card. Every year, for a small donation, Canadians could have their names recorded on a Christmas telegram sent to the hospital at which their friend or family member was currently serving. Hospital staff eagerly searching for names of family did so knowing that they had contributed in some small way to their Christmas festivities.

Documented in the War Diary, or administrative log from the 3rd, Christmas 1918 was lively. The Red Cross had met its goal of providing all with plum pudding, and the hospital staff participated in a Christmas social that evening.

Cora Archibald’s kitchen staff was able to serve a full table to a medical staff consisting of many displaced Nova Scotian university students and alumni. While the Great War beat on in the distance, for a couple hours at least the 3rd Canadian Stationary Hospital was quiet, savouring the last few morsels of plum pudding.

Jenna Colclough is a fourth-year Classics Honours student at Acadia who has been working alongside University Archivist Wendy Robicheau on Wendy's sabbatical project, ‘Acadia and the War’. Their goal is to uncover as much as possible about Acadia students, alumni and faculty who left campus to participate in the First World War.