Gladys Elizabeth Clare Boon

Nurse Gladys Boon, Salonika, 1917, by Francis William Sabey*. Image courtesy Jane Absolom.

Gladys Elizabeth Clare Boon was born in Goulburn in 1891, the daughter of David and Elizabeth Boon. Her father, David, later joined the police force and the family relocated to Orange.

Nurse Boon trained at Orange District Hospital under Matron Dooly, resigning her position as head nurse in December 1916 to move to Sydney and work at Randwick Hospital.

She enlisted in April 1917 and embarked from Melbourne in June that year. Gladys served in Egypt and Salonika before undertaking a 3-month long course in Domestic Economy at Battersea Polytechnic in London in April 1919. She returned to Australia in August that year.

In July 1925 Gladys and Arthur Firkin were married at the Methodist Church in Orange. Gladys died in Manly in 1948.

Gladys’ name appears on the Methodist Church Orange Honour Roll.

Leader, 29 August 1919, p. 7.
Nurse Boon

*  Francis William Sabey (1892-1987) was a Yorkshireman who served in the Motor Transport section in Salonika during WWI. In September 1917 he was a patient of the 50th General Hospital, where he met Nurse Boon. An amateur artist, Sabey passed his time recovering from malaria painting landscapes and creating drawings, including this one of Nurse Gladys Boon.