More than 60 former and current staff, mainly nurses who had trained together or worked together, gathered for their biennial church service on Sunday at the Ashburton Hospital.
Carol, Heather and Romina lit the past, present and future candles.
Those gathered at the service and lunch that followed at the Ashburton RSA recalled the happy days of working together along with some of the high jinks they got up to.
The Nightingale prayer and creed were led by former nurses.
Service attendees learned of the ten New Zealand nurses who died when British transport ship, an unmarked hospital boat, the Marquette was sunk in the Aegean Sea on October 23, 1915 along with the most recent women to die in war, Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker who was killed in Afghanistan.
Three of the nurses on the torpedoed ship worked at the Christchurch hospital and it was in their memory and all those nurses who died through the influenza pandemic that the Christchurch Nurses’ Memorial Chapel was built.
It now includes recognition all New Zealand nurses who died in World War 1 and 2.
