NURSE’S BIG LEGACY

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11950, 22 May 1933, Page 3

NURSE’S BIG LEGACY

SERVICE' AND DEVOTION

BEQUEST OF £15,C0) Behind the aixnouucement of a handsome legacy .of £l-5,C00 which has come t° a Scots nurse in .recognition of many years of service and devotion to a wealthy South American merchant lies the untold story of a drama in a war-time hospital.

For the past 10 years Sister Margaret Niclioll Caird ba s watched unceasingly over the health of her employer; Mr. George Cox, formerly of Rose. limes, Cox and Company, of Valparaiso, who amassed a large fortune. Every morning a Rolls Ttoyco would draw up outside bis fiat 111 Queen’s Gate Place and the tall old man of 90 would enter the car with his nurse.

In January of this year Air. Cox died leaving a fortune (V £156,997 and now it has been announced that Sister Caird is to have tier reward—incidentally it will also be a reward for her bravery in a war-time incident. When she was 32 she joined the RodCross in 19U and was sent to the war hospital at Tlaylifig Island recently said a friend. “There she experienced tho most terrifying incident of her life. An officer who had been badly wounded suddenly had a mental collapse under the strain of his sufferings.

‘No one discovered Low the mar gained possession cf a revolver, but Sister Caird suddenly came upon -him as be "-as about to shoot himself. She tried at first to soothe him, but when the moment eaino she closed with him in a struggle for possession of the weapon. Ihe noite of the struggle brought others to her aid. and the officer was overpowered.

“How many lives she saved beside her own no one will know, but she wa s awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal and in 1919 left- tlio service to enter King George Hospital iu Stamford Street.”

Sister Caird lia 3 left her present address and only two or three friends know whore alio is staying. Eveiy post brings bags of. letters U° m people all over the country offering her propositions for making hundreds per cent, on their own pet investments. The total amount asked for by the beggars is nioive than hci leg acy 1 She comes from Dundee, where ■sh 0 was trained, and perhaps a little two-seater car will soon be seen bumming up. the Great North .Road carrying not .Sister Caird the nurse, but Miss M. N. Caird on holiday for the rest of'her life.