Sisters Irene and Gertrude McGillicuddy of Skiff Lake, New Brunswick, both trained as nurses and then accepted nursing jobs in Massachusetts. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the sisters enlisted in the American military. However, while they were each eager to serve, the war ended with neither nurse ever receiving the call to head overseas.

After the war, Irene served as a surgical nurse until her retirement at age sixty-nine. She died twenty-two days shy of her 105th birthday in 1996. Gertrude was head nurse of Detroit General Hospital then lived in Massachusetts. She died in 1973.

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.