More than two thousand Canadian women served as army nurses overseas during the First World War. The opportunity to read a diary written by one of these women—a document which was, strictly speaking, not supposed to be kept in the first place—is a unique privilege. A Canadian Nurse in the Great War grants a peek, through the diary of Ruth Loggie, into a little-known moment of our history. It also offers a glimpse into forbidden territory—women at war. Loggie’s diary provides a daily commentary on life as she experienced it and as the events of the Great War unfolded. How did she cope? What were her thoughts as she lived through what she knew were world-altering events? Raw, fresh, unedited, and immediate, A Canadian Nurse in the Great War is a special document, and a welcome companion to Hebb’s earlier books, Letters Home: Maritimers and the Great War; 1914–1918, and In Their Own Words: Three Maritimers Experience the Great War.
