Minnie Follette - A Supreme Sacrifice

I’m thinking this month of the young nurses who were on the HMHS Llandovery Castle, a Canadian hospital ship serving during World War 1.  It was torpedoes in 1918 by the German navy U-86 which then surfaced and machine-gunned the survivors in the water in hopes of destroying evidence of this act against international law.  Of the 234 doctors, nurses and crew, one was Minnie Follette of Port Greville, Cumberland County.  Minnie enlisted in the Army Corps in 1911 and served in Quebec until she was sent overseas in 1914.  She was hospitalized for exhaustion and bronchitis in 1917 and then returned being posted to the HMS Letita in 1917 and later to the Llandovery Castle.  She was 33 years old when she drowned.
Canadians considered the event one of the war's worst atrocities and the event was presented at the Leipzig trials.

What's in a box? Ern Thompson et al.

Some time ago, my mother gave me a box of old negatives presumably from a group of family photos. At that time it was difficult to have prints made from them. I was recently able to arrange prints, and low and behold, a number of family photos appeared that I had never before seen. One in particular intrigues me. It includes my grandfather, (second from right). I think it is possible that his father is sitting to the left of him. But I have to say that I love the woman with the glass of beer and cigarette strongly held to her mouth. My grandfather Ern Thompson, we called him Bubby, was a descendant of Richard Thompson, first settler of Oxford Nova Scotia. Ern was raised in a small homestead in a place called South Victoria, Cumberland County Nova Scotia. I remember him playing checkers with my brother and coloring with me. He was color blind and so would often color the cows purple, much to my despair. He once played the fiddle as a young man and would often hum a tune with his fingers tapping along. I only wish I knew who else was in the photograph. A mystery waiting to be solved.