She held the soldier’s hand.
Only months earlier, he had been full of life as he longed to serve his country.
Now he was on his deathbed in a front-line hospital in France.
He had a gruesome wound but over the next few weeks his condition improved.
The nurse had been by his side the whole time and they grew close, not in a romantic way, but as two people who care for each other like family.
Now, there was nothing she could do for him except sit by his side.
The soldier had taken a turn for the worse and the nurse watched as his breathing became ragged.
The movement of his chest slowed.
And then…. As the last breath left his body.
He was gone.
The nurse was overcome with grief, but she took solace in knowing that unlike so many others he had not died alone.
She had been there for him.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx!
During National Indigenous History Month, I am sharing the stories of men and women who left their mark!
Today we are heading into battle to follow an Indigenous nurse that helped hundreds of soldiers during the First World War.
This is the story of…Edith Monture!
[TRANSITION]
April 10, 1890, was a cold spring morning on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve near Ohsweken, Ontario.
To this day it’s the largest First Nations reserve in Canada by population and has been around for over 200 years.
Many incredible Canadians like actor Jay Silverheels and runner Tom Longboat were born there… including a little girl named Edith Anderson.
Like them she entered a country that did not believe someone like her could become a nurse, a military veteran, or even a voter.
The world around her had been shaped by colonialism and the Indian Act, which restricted Indigenous lives, sent children to residential schools across the country, and narrowed the opportunities for First Nations women.
This is the world Edith was born into.
She was the youngest of eight children, who grew up in a community where healing traditions and mutual care were woven into daily life.
Edith was bright and determined, she excelled in school.
Once she graduated from the day school on the reserve, she went to the Brantford Collegiate Institute at a time when many Indigenous girls were denied advanced education altogether.
The BCI traces its roots to 1852 when it was known as the Brantford Grammar School, the modern 120 Brant Avenue facility opened in 1910 and along with Edith Anderson, it has many well known alumni including… Dr. James Hillier who was a brilliant physicist and the co-inventor of the electron microscope and celebrated Indigenous-Canadian author, poet, and performer… Pauline Johnson.
Johnson was featured in an episode of Canadian History Ehx back in 2024, so please go back and give it a listen if you haven’t.
While at Brantford Collegiate Institute Edith dreamed of becoming a nurse.
When she graduated from the school with honours, she looked ahead to a future helping others.
Nursing was one of the few career paths available to women at the time.
The first formal nursing training program in Canada had been founded in 1874at the General and Marine Hospital in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Nine years later, the Women’s Medical College was established in Toronto.
Edith was Indigenous, and unfortunately, no Canadian nursing school would accept her.
Partly due to blatant systemic racism, and partly because of the Indian Act.
As I mentioned a bit earlier, the Indian Act heavily restricted the lives of Indigenous Peoples, especially women as it enforced the patriarchal European view including gender discrimination.
The inequality was rampant in the legislation and if an Indigenous woman married a non-Indigenous man, she lost her status.
Women also couldn’t possess land and were prevented from being educated beyond high school.
This was in sharp contrast to the cultural history of the Mohawk prior to European arrival.
In the Mohawk Nation, Clan Mothers were respected elders, and the political backbone for the nation.
Their power was so respected, that if a chief did not serve his people properly, or did something that hurt the community, a Clan Mother could strip him of his title for life.
Children were born to their mother’s clan, and the husband often moved to his wife’s household when they married.
As Europeans began to arrive in North America and settled in Mohawk territory, this was one of the first things they would change.
And they did it with the help of the Indian Act.
If it was going to prevent Edith from becoming a registered nurse, she wasn’t about to be limited by a bunch of old white men who wouldn’t give her a place in Canada.
So, she crossed the border into the United States and enrolled at the New Rochelle Nursing School in New York State.
In 1914, she graduated at the top of her class.
In doing so she became the first Indigenous woman from Canada to qualify as a registered nurse.
The same year a young man halfway around the world was about to thrust humanity into chaos…. And Edith would get chance at greatness.
[BEAT]
On the morning of June 28, 1914, the city of Sarajevo woke under a tense summer heat.
In the cafés and boarding houses students argued about poetry, revolution, nationalism, and freedom.
Many were teenagers or barely into their twenties as they smoked constantly while believing they belonged to a generation trapped under foreign rule.
To them, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not just a government, and they sought the liberation of Bosnian Herzegovina.
Among these young men was Gavrilo Princip.
The 18-year-old was thin, intense, quiet, undersized from poverty and illness.
He had grown up in a remote Bosnian village but was now in Sarajevo awaiting the arrival of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie Chotek.
To them, the Archduke’s visit felt deliberate and almost insulting.
Vidovdan carried enormous symbolic meaning in Serbian memory because it was the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, associated with sacrifice and national identity.
Gavrilo, along with five other men, were there on a mission.
They were going to kill the Archduke and free their people.
But beneath the certainty, there was fear.
None of them truly knew what killing a man would feel like yet they still positioned themselves along the route of the Archduke’s motorcade.
Their plan was simple.
Each man would throw grenades as the motorcade went by.
Gavrilo took his assigned place and waited.
Then doubt began creeping in.
The first conspirator panicked when he saw the Archduke’s car approach and froze.
The next one also did nothing.
The cars kept moving as the entire plan seemed to be dissolving in silence.
Then came the third. He hurled his bomb.
For an instant, chaos erupted as the explosion thundered down the street.
Smoke, screams, shattered glass. People ran in panic.
For the remaining conspirators, like Gavrilo everything now seemed ruined.
The Archduke had survived. Police would soon sweep the city.
Later that day, Gavrilo stood outside a delicatessen as the Archduke’s car approached on its way to the hospital where he was to visit those injured in the grenade attack.
As it passed in front of him, the vehicle stalled and the gears locked.
His target was now sitting right in front of him.
Astonished at the circumstances, Gavrilo pulled out a gun and took aim at point blank range.
The Archduke and Duchess died within minutes.
This one act led to massive, unpredictable consequences over time.
Not only did it reshape world order and the entire the 20th century and beyond, but it also changed Edith Monture’s life.
[PAUSE MIDROLL ONE]
As the dust began to settle on the assassination of the Archduke, other dominoes began to fall.
In retaliation, the Austria-Hungary Empire declared war on Serbia.
But Russia had a treaty with Serbia, and they declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In response, Germany entered the chat and on Aug. 4, 1914, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
Canada was a dominion in the British Empire, which meant we were at war as well.
When Gavrilo Princip took that fatal shot, he lit the spark of what became The First World War.
At the beginning Edith was still in the United States working as a nurse at a private school in New Rochelle, New York.
But then in 1917Germany began unrestricted U-Boat warfare against merchant ships.
It wasn’t the first time they had done it, remember that in 1915, a German U-boat sank the British passenger liner RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland.
Nearly 1,200 people died, including 128 Americans.
But now Germany believed they could starve Britain into surrender before the United States could mobilize effectively.
So, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic and took aim at American ships.
Then British intelligence intercepted a secret message sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to Mexico proposing that if the United States entered the war, Mexico should be a German ally.
By April 2, 1917, the United States entered the war and Edith signed up to fight.
(BEAT MUSIC TRANSITION)
By now the war had been raging for three years and the front lines had been proven to be a meat grinder of death.
There was also no way of knowing when the war was going to end.
Like so many others who signed up to fight, Edith didn’t know if she would see her loved ones again so prior to leaving for France, she returned home to the Six Nations Reserve to see family and friends.
Europe was drowning in the First World War.
Trenches had carved scars across France.
And Edith would be heading to help in hospitals that overflowed with shattered young men.
They had seen artillery pulverize villages into ash and barely survived the chlorine and mustard gas drifting over battlefields.
Nurses, like Edith, were far from immune from the carnage of the war.
Over 3,000 Canadian nurses, nicknamed Bluebirds, often served at Casualty Clearing Stations close to the front lines.
As the war dragged on, hospitals also became a target of German artillery.
Even getting to Europe was dangerous, as you will remember, there were U-Boats.
And they weren’t only targeting merchant ships.
In my 2025-episode Canadian nurses were on the Llandovery Castle when it was attacked by a German sub and 14 died. Edith was putting her life in the hands of fate when she volunteered for the U.S. Army Nurse Corps.
Canada still offered few paths for Indigenous women in military service, but she believed she could help others and was not going to back down from that duty.
Before she departed, members of her community presented her with ceremonial Mohawk burial clothing.
They had seen what the war was doing to Europe and feared she would never come home again.
With that grim gift in hand Edith returned to New York City to await deployment.
It came on Jan. 23, 1918, when Edith received orders to report immediately to Ellis Island.
The following day, as she approached the island, Edith saw nurses in Red Cross uniforms waiting to get on the boat. She wrote in her diary,
“They looked so important, that I didn’t dare speak to any of them.”
Despite her own skill and experience, she was intimidated by them so once she reported for service, Edith waited, quietly on her own.
Over the next few days, however, she began to open up.
She went shopping in New York City and bought clothes, a trunk, and other items for the upcoming journey.
Once back on Ellis Island, she got into heated debates over which country produced the best nurses, Canada or the United States.
She also attended dances, wrote letters, and watched movies.
The days ticked by, one by one.
It seemed to her that the war would be over before she ever left North America.
Staying home wouldn’t be a terrible thing.
Every day newspapers were filled with endless lists of the soldiers killed in battle.
But just as she had settled into a new normal Edith received her uniform and equipment.
It was clear on Feb 13, 1918, that Edith would be shipping out.
The next day, she was prohibited from leaving the island and was told to pack her trunk.
A departure was imminent.
The, finally after weeks of waiting, Edith boarded the SS Carmania and on Feb 16, 1918, she departed New York.
She wrote of the experience,
“Everybody happy…We were all agreeably surprised by our accommodations. We walked out on deck with Captain Peck until dinner was served. Very good service.”
The nerves must’ve been mixed with excitement, this was Edith’s first time crossing the Atlantic Ocean and overall, it was a pleasant experience.
She did not get seasick and often spent her time on deck looking at the ocean and enjoying the fresh air.
Her life at sea came to an end on March 4, when the ship reached Liverpool.
Steam hung low over the water. Cranes groaned overhead. Soldiers shouted farewells from railings while bands sometimes played patriotic marches that sounded strangely hollow against the cold river air.
Among the troops stood the nurses because by the afternoon Edith was back on solid ground.
But there wouldn’t be much time to rest. They were far from their final destination and so they began their journey south towards France.
Before long, the peaceful tranquility of the English countryside would be replaced by the true brutalities of war.
The voyage across the Channel would be their first test.
The distance was short, but ships often sailed under blackout conditions because German U-boats hunted British transport vessels relentlessly.
At night, no lights were allowed on deck, and Edith would’ve had her curtains drawn.
Everyone on board spoke quietly knowing full well the danger beneath the water.
The Channel itself could be brutal as ships pitched through rough weather.
Yet even through exhaustion, Edith and many other nurses stayed awake listening to the pulse of the engines, wondering whether the next sound might be a torpedo.
The war grew closer as the atmosphere changed immediately when they reached France.
Locomotives shrieked in rail yards, ambulance convoys rattled over cobblestones, endless streams of troops marched towards battle while they collided with the wounded on their way North.
Edith quickly discovered that the war had its own geography as they continued toward the front by military train and the farther inland they traveled, the more visible the war became.
It was a beautiful spring day when Edith finally stepped off the train, near the front lines on March 10, 1918.
Other nurses and soldiers welcomed her, and it was all very thrilling for the young Mohawk from Canada.
The first thing she did was take a bath.
quote
“Water never felt so good, for we were all grimy.”
Then she tried to rest because the next few weeks would be focused on training.
She attended drills, medical lectures, and French classes.
When it was time to put all that training to the test, Edith was ready and did not disappoint.
She immediately dove in.
Regardless of the danger she helped doctors and made wounded soldiers comfortable.
The front lines were intense as part of the Westchester County Unit B, which was attached to the Base Hospital No. 23 near Vittel, France.
Vittel was not a shattered trench town like those nearer the Western Front.
It had been a quiet spa resort famous for mineral water, elegant hotels, and therapeutic baths.
But it had been transformed into an enormous medical center as the scale of casualties overwhelmed military medicine.
Every day, there were more injured soldiers and the array of injuries shocked Edith.
They came from battles whose names had already become synonymous with slaughter and arrived exhausted from long evacuation routes.
Many had lain for hours or days before so by the time the soldiers had reached Vittel, uniforms were stiff with mud and blood.
Some men had not fully understood where they were being taken; they only knew they had survived long enough to leave the trenches behind.
Inside the wards, the atmosphere was heavy with exhaustion, and a mixture of antiseptic, ether, damp wool, cigarette smoke, infection, and unwashed bodies.
Edith and the nurses moved continuously among the beds.
Gas attacks had scorched lungs leaving soldiers coughing and struggling to breathe.
Others had lost limbs, suffered shrapnel wounds or were so mangled nothing could be done for them beyond holding a hand to ensure they weren’t alone when the end came for them.
Whenever she was able Edith went to the battlefields to find wounded soldiers in need of help.
She said years later,
“We would walk right over where there had been fighting. It was an awful sight, buildings in rubble, trees burnt, spent shells all over the place, whole towns blown up.”
The days were long 14-hour shifts, spent cleaning wounds torn open by shell fragments, and changing dressings on amputated limbs.
She also spoon-fed men too weak to lift their heads and wrote letters home for soldiers whose hands no longer existed.
During major offensives, the wards filled so rapidly that beds nearly touched each other. Stretchers crowded hallways waiting for space.
At night the hospital rarely slept as the moans of the wounded and dying interrupted any moment of rest.
Edith wrote on June 6, 1918, that she had been on night duty and had seen 56 patients, as well as three German prisoners-of-war.
In another diary entry three weeks later, she was on duty in the operation room, assisting doctors as they performed emergency surgery on newly arrived soldiers.
She mentioned one patient, a 17-year-old boy who lied about his age to enlist. He lost both his arms when a shell exploded near him as he drove a horse-drawn wagon.
Amid all this darkness, she met a young American soldier and her time with him stayed with her forever.
The man was named Earl King, and he had been shot in the neck, but the efforts of Edith and doctors saved his life.
As he recovered, Edith and the 20-year-old soldier became. friends
She described their relationship as that of a brother and sister.
For several nights she believed he would recover. She had sat beside him and had nursed him through many hemorrhages so when one night Earl began to decline, she hoped he would pull through once more.
Edith attempted to find orderlies, but none were available.
All she could do was enlist the help of a young boy who delivered bread to the hospital to help her.
She managed to stop the bleeding, and it seemed the worst was behind them.
The next day, Earl had improved and was his old self.
Edith was relieved that young man she had become so fond of had beaten death once more.
But the grip reaper wasn’t far because the following night, Earl hemorrhaged again and this time his luck had run out.
He died four hours later.
Edith wrote,
“My heart was broken. Cried most of the day and could not sleep.”
Edith stood in the pouring rain at his funeral to pay her last respects.
As she dealt with her own grief, she wrote to Earl’s mother to tell her that when he died, he was not alone.
Edith had been by his side right to the end.
The war had hardened many people, but those who knew Edith said it deepened her compassion instead.
By the time the First World War ended on Nov. 11, 1918, over 66,000 Canadians had been killed and another 172,000 had been wounded.
It felt less like a victory and more like humanity had endured a catastrophe.
The war had changed everyone, and it left a deep impact on Edith.
While the guns had grown silent, she wasn’t heading home quite yet.
Base Hospital 23 was officially closed on Feb. 6, 1919, and the remaining patients were transferred to other hospitals.
Edith assisted with the month-long operation, and she finally left Europe on April 8, 1918, aboard the SS Kaiserin Augusta Victoria but she wouldn’t be going back to the U.S.
Instead, she would be traveling back to Canada to devote herself to helping others on her reserve.
She returned to a country that now gave her more rights than she had when she left because the federal government had extended the vote to most women in Canada over the age of 21.
However Asian and Indigenous women could not vote.
But Edith would be able to… because she was a veteran and she was entitled to vote.
That’s how Edith became the first Status Indigenous woman, and registered band member, to vote in a Canadian federal election.
Proud of her ability to vote, Edith never stopped working to ensure other Indigenous women could have that same right.
She campaigned for them and never missed an opportunity to exercise her right to vote as an example to others.
Despite her best efforts it took over FORTY years for Indigenous women to be able to cast their own ballots.
Throughout these years Edith had been on the Six Nation Reserve.
That’s where she served her community best and where she had built a home with her husband Claybran Monture and their five children, one of whom died as an infant.
During the Second World War, Edith wasn’t able to return to Europe, but she did what she could on the homefront.
She spent long hours making bandages that would help mend soldiers overseas.
Meanwhile Edith worked on her reserve as a nurse and midwife until she retired in 1955 at the age of 65.
I should note that she could’ve crossed paths with Oscar-nominated actor Graham Greene who was born on the Six Nations Reserve in 1952. Maybe she helped deliver him…who knows.
Even after Edith retired, she continued to advocate for Indigenous health care and became a founding member of the Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association in 1975.
This organization still exists to help Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian healthcare system.
Edith was also a proud veteran and every Remembrance Day; she donned her uniform and medals to join in the local ceremonies.
She did it not only for herself and her people, but for the men she cared for…. For those she helped heal and for those she saw die on the operating table in France.
When Edith Monture passed away, on April 3, 1996, she would be remembered by those she held most dear, that included 14 grandchildren and many more great-grandchildren.
Since her death, Edith has been honoured for her impact on Canadian history.
In Brantford, both a street and a park are now named after her, as is the Edith Monture Elementary School.
In 2025, the Government of Canada designated her a National Historic Person.
The biggest honour might be that her birthday is shared with Indigenous Nurses Day
Every April 10is when Canadians recognize the contributions of nurses like Edith, and their continuing influence on Indigenous health care.
Edith was born, when Sir John A. Macdonald was the prime minister of Canada.
She died the same year I received my driver’s licence.
If you’re good at math, that’s 106 years of a life well lived and dedicated to helping others.
Few of us will likely live that long, but we can all learn from Edith, and we can spend our lives making the world around us just a little bit better.
