24/04/2024
Having first met in Melbourne, this was a romance that would stretch beyond our shores and the disapproving attitude of our bride's family.
Staff Nurse Clarice Daley's wartime service would see her serve on the Greek island of Lemnos near Gallipoli. Life here was described as "desperately hard." Food was scarce, hospitals ran mudside and in tents when lucky, and sickness was rife.
It was during her time on Lemnos that Clarice became reacquainted with a former beau from Melbourne, one Ernest Lawrence.
Now Sergeant in the 1st Light Horse Brigade Headquarters he was admitted to the nearby 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital on Lemnos on 12th July 1915.
The atrocities of war, however, paled in comparison to the power of love. Rekindling their romance, Clarice Jessie and Ernest were married on 21st October 1915 at the Church Camp, West Mudros.
Attended by their comrades, their joy is apparent in the few photographs that add to the record of this day.
Marriages among enlisted nurses and soldiers were rare. The scarcity of this event was supported by the hand-drawn marriage certificate purposely crafted to resemble an official document. The record of Nurse Daley and Sergeant Lawrence marriage at the hospital on Lemnos is now preserved at the Australian War Memorial.
Their love story forever remains another stitch in the records of our military fabric.
