Hilda Theresa Riddevold Samsing (1870 - 1957)

Biography

"Every inch of Anzac Cove is dyed with Australian blood
and the floor of the sea is strewn with our dead."
- Sister Hilda Samsing, August 1915

Hilda Theresa Riddevold Samsing was born on 24th May 1870 in the small fishing village of Åsgårdstrand, Borre, Vestfold, Norway. She was the only daughter of Gregers Samsing, who died at sea when Hilda was four years of age, and Frederikke Petersson. Her mother, left with huge debts, adopted out Hilda's older brother, Clemens. Neither of them ever saw Clemens again. Her mother married again, to Andrew Krohn, a widowered farmer with six young children.

Hilda, her younger brother Gerhard, mother and step-father, and six Krohn step-siblings and her family migrated to South Australia in 1881, where Hilda soon mastered both spoken and written English. Forced off the land through drought-induced bankruptcy, the family, with two additional children to the blend, moved to Lance Field, near Daylesford, Victoria.

Hilda resolved to climb above this hard life and make something of herself.

Starting out as a ward maid in Melbourne Hospital, she attracted the notice of the matron and was offered a place on residential nursing training. After passing the course, she was apppointed ward nurse at Melbourne Women's Hospital, progressing quickly to staff sister and then matron. She was offered and accepted the post of matron-in-charge of the expensive Lonsdale House Clinic, Melbourne.

Hilda enlisted in the fledgling Australia Army Nursing Service Volunteer Reserve in 1902. Transferring from the militia in October 1914 to the Australian Imperial Force upon the declaration of war,^[1] and taking a large drop in income and status as a Sister, Hilda embarked with the 8th Australian Infantry Battalion for the Middle East and soon found herself at Mena House Hospital, Cairo, Egypt and running the British Red Cross Store. She transferred to Heliopolis Hospital and then, following the 25th April ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, to the 1st Australian General Hospital. On 7th June she transferred to the Gascon, a hospital ship then anchored in Mudros Harbour, Lemnos Island. In March 1916, she was transferred to the Western Front, to a British Military Hospital at Boulogne, France. After collapsing with double pneumonia in January 1917, Hilda was sent to Southwell Gardens nursing home in England. Making a partial recovery she was posted to Harefield Hospital, Middlesex, and then to Southall Hospital.

Hilda was medically discharged and returned to Australia 18th October 1918. Aged 48 years but with constant arm and back pain, Hilda took a long holiday – to England – and visited war-time friends. Upon return to Australia, she took out a lease on the Mount Buffalo Ski Chalet in Victoria's 'high country'. Reminded of her Norwegian childhood, she renovated the property, imported toboggans and skis from Norway and introduced ice skating on an adjacent lake; putting Mount Buffalo ski lodge on the social and sporting map. When the oweners gave her lease to Victorian Railways, she took over the management of a smaller hostel at Mount Feathertop.

Hilda invested in a rambling house with a large garden near the sea at Mordialloc that she turned into a bed and breakfast, managed by a nursing sister friend from the Gascon.

Hilda passed away, aged 87 years, in 1957 at Mount Strickland, Victoria.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Australian War Memorial nominal roll: Sister Hilda Theresa Samsing; accessed 13 Jul 2019
2. ↑ Victoria Death Index #4042/1957; registered at St Kilda

• De Vries, Susanna. Australian Heroines of World War One. Pirgos Press, Chapel Hill QLD, 2013.