A nurse in wartime Egypt

By the time nursing Sister Alice Clara Searell left Egypt after the Gallipoli campaign she had nursed more than 4000 men.
And not just of their injuries. Disease, like typhoid and venereal disease was also rife.
Alice had been born on January 18, 1883, in Christchurch to Richard Trist and Mary Searell.
She received a private school education at which she did excellently.
In 1908, she passed the preliminary state examination for anatomy and physiology and the next year was one of six nurses trained at Timaru hospital who passed the state examination.
Alice became a district nurse from Southland Hospital.
She offered her services as nurse to the expeditionary force in 1914 and enlisted in the New Zealand Army Nursing Service Corp on April 8, 1915 at the age of 32.
She left from Wellington aboard the Rotorua headed for Egypt. She was promoted to sister and on arrival in Alexandria went to the 31st General Hospital in Port Said.
It was hard work, meaning changing dressings all day on terrible gunshot and shrapnel wounds.
In 1916 she boarded hospital ship Braemar Castle to transfer to the Brittanic. She also worked on the ship Devanha before arriving in England in October 1916 before going on to the No.1 New Zealand General Hospital at Brockenhurst (Hampshire) in the south of England.
Alice nursed men from all parts of the war until the hospital closed in March 1919. In her time there she also nursed her own brother, Driver Lewis Trist Searell, who was transferred there in November 1917 after having been gassed.
Alice returned to New Zealand in March 1919 and was awarded the Associate of the Royal Red Cross (ARRC) decoration along with the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
She became assistant matron at the King George V Military hospital in Rotorua then acting matron and eventually matron.
Alice went on to become military matron at the Auckland Public Hospital in 1935 before retiring in 1939.
She continued with an active life, a member of the Returned Sisters Club, holding bridge parties and gardening.
Alice died on July 28, 1975 and was cremated to Purewa after a lifetime of service to others.​