Anne (Douglass) Upfield (1882 - 1964)

Born 1882 in Lake Marmal, Victoria (Australia)

Ancestors

Wife of Arthur William Upfield — married 3 Nov 1915 in Alexandria, Egypt

Descendants

Died 29 Jun 1964 at about age 82 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia

Biography

Anne Douglass was born in 1882 in north-west Victoria (Australia) at Lake Marmal, between Boort (on the rail line from Bendigo to Robinvale), Wycheproof and Charlton, 110 kilometres north-west of Bendigo and the same distance west of Echuca She was the second daughter and third of twelve children of James Douglass and Christina Gray. ^[1]

Anne was a nurse

Anne undertook nursing training and was registered as a nurse early in the new century.

Anne (Douglass) Upfield is a Military Veteran.
Served in the Australian Imperial Force 1915-1915
3rd Australian General Hospital

On 12th June 1915, with Australian soldiers fighting in bitter trench warfare at Gallipoli, Anne enlisted with the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and was allocated as a Staff Nurse to the 3rd Australian General Hospital, then based at Alexandria, Egypt. ^[2]

Anne married Australian Light Horseman (and her patient), Arthur Upfield, in the Australian Consulate General's office at Alexandria, Egypt on 3rd November 1915. Unable to remain in the AANS once married (a somewhat archaic regulation of the time), Anne was discharged on 31st December and travelled to England where she remained with Arthur's family in Hampshire. After he was released from the AIF after three more years in the Middle East, he was reunited with his bride. It was here in Hampshire that Anne gave birth to their only child, a son Arthur James, born in February 1920.

It seems that Arthur left his wife and infant son upon return to Australia as he spent the next twenty years travelling extensively around the continent. ^[3]

Anne passed away, aged 81 years, on 29th June 1964 in Geelong, Victoria, having never divorced or re-married, and is buried in the Geelong Eastern Cemetery. ^[4] Her death was four months after that of her estranged husband, on the New South Wales Southern Highlands. She was survived by her son.