Lieutenant Lillian Pidgeon

Lieutenant (Army).

Royal Red Cross

Attestation approved by Colonel H. Birkett.

A photo of NS Lillian Pidgeon along with other Nursing Sisters (unidentified) who were awarded the Royal Red Cross by King George at Buckingham Palace appeared in the Toronto Star on March 13, 1919 (see attached image).

In this report it was explained that NS Pidgeon was visiting her aunt in Toronto for a few weeks. About the award she said "...that it was nothing, and she didn't do any more than the rest of the nursing sisters did."

She was decorated on February 13th, 1916 at Buckingham Palace, one of four Nursing Sisters to receive the Royal Red Cross of the First Order. She also received a 1915 ribbon.

NS Pidgeon went overseas with the McGill Unit, No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, in 1915. She went straight to France, starting her work at a tent hospital near Camieres. Later she went to a base hospital at Boulogne, where she worked until May 1918. After this she went on to a casualty clearing station which advanced with the Allied troops until Armistice.

She returned to Canada on the Cassandra in early March 1919. She planned on living in Montreal.