NURSE MARY CHARLOTTE DICKSON
VOLUNTARY AID DETACHMENT
16TH FEBRUARY 1917 AGE 30
BURIED: ST SEVER CEMETERY, ROUEN, FRANCE
Mary Dickson's inscription says almost every thing I have been able to discover about her. She died in hospital in Rouen of an infectious disease, possibly measles.There's a description of <"https://archive.org/stream/vadinfrance00dentrich#page/202/mode/2up">a VAD's funeral in Olive Dent's 'A V.A.D. in France', published in 1917, which could well have been a description of Mary Dickson's. The extract concludes:
"No matter what consolation is proffered, death is always an irreparable loss. But surely it is better to have it come when doing work that counts, work of national and racial weight, than to live on until old and unwanted.
And what a magnificent end to one's life, to lie there among those splendidly brave boys in the little strip of land which the French Government has given over in perpetuity to our dead. Thousands of the children that are to be, will come to such cemeteries, and will be hushed to reverence by the spirits of those who are not, by the spirits of the fallen that will for ever inhabit the scene."
There is a brass plaque to Mary's memory in the church in Fahan - "Erected in her honour by the women of Fahan". Her name also appears on the village war memorial - along with that of her sister Anne Eileen Dickson. Mary's name is followed by the initials V.A.D. - Voluntary Aid Detachment - Anne's by the initials F.R.C., which stands for French Red Cross. It's interesting that Anne doesn't have her own plaque in the way that her sister does.