NURSE MAUDE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 12, 13 July 1935, Page 11

NURSE MAUDE

YEARS OF SERVICE

A POPULAR WOMAN

By the death, which occurred yesterday, of Nurse Emily Sibylla Maude, 0.8. E., at the age of 73 years, the sick and destitute of Christchurch lost a benefactor and friend. Nurse Maude was known to thousands to whom she gave personal service, but beside these there were few who knew her, as she was of a retiring disposition.

The daughter of the late Mr. T. W. Maude, of Christchurch, she received her early education, there. She went to England as a young woman, and was at the Middlesex Hospital from' 1889' to ■ 1892. Returning to Christchurch, she started her great work. Carrying a bulky- bag of -nursing requisites, she tramped the streets of Christchurch. She had no office, making her home with the Anglican Sisters of the Community of the Sacred Name. Her large work soon necessitated a move to an old shop in Durham Street South,-where she remained until 1919, when she removed to Madras Street. The calls on the service-.increased steadily through the years, and by 1934 • the staff consisted of nine nurses under the control of Nurse Maude, who always granted interviews to those who wanted to keep in touch with her personally. The people of Christchurch were always ready to-help'her. During the war she was voted to the top of the poll in the Belgian Queen Carnival by an enormous majority. She was given a motor-car by a few enthusiasts, and by direct subscriptions and street collections the public showed their appreciation of her work.

Nurse Maude was also responsible for the establishment of an open-air camp at New Brighton in 1904 for sufferers from tuberculosis, and later formed another near Wainoni. The success of the treatment was soon apparent, and was a big factor in inducing the Government to establish sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis.

Nurse Maude's aim throughout her life was clearly expressed in , the motto that hangs in the waiting-room of the building in which she worked: "Sometimes to) relieve, sometimes to heal, always to console."