Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Gass Family Postcard Collection
General material designation
- Graphic material
- Textual record
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
Level of description
Collection
Repository
Reference code
MS-2-315
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
-
1903-1921 (Creation)
Physical description area
Physical description
101 postcards
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
The Gass Family lived in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. Robert Gass was born in 1861 in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, to James and Nancy Gass. He owned a general store and lumber mill. In 1884 he married Nerissa Miller, with whom he had ten children. Their eldest child and only daughter, Clare, was born in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, on 18 March 1887. Clare was later known for the diary she kept during the First World War. As an adolescent, she attended the Church School for Girls, a private Anglican school in Windsor, Nova Scotia (later the Edgehill School). Three years after her graduation in 1905, she left home for Montreal to train as a nurse at the Montreal General Hospital School of Nursing from 1909 to 1912, afterwards taking up private nursing practice for three years. After a brief training period in Quebe, she left for Europe in May of 1915 as a Lieutenant nursing sister with the Canadian Army Medical Corps, No. 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill). From 1915-1918, she was posted mainly in France, with some time spent stationed in Cliveden, England, and Rhyl, Wales, and served in multiple hospitals. She spent the year after the war on transport duty, tending to wounded soldiers returning home. She was demobilized in 1919 and returned to Montreal, where she left nursing to pursue social work. She worked in the Social Service Department of the Montreal General Hospital for 28 years before returning to her hometown. Robert Gass died in 1937. Clare Gass died at the age of 81 at the Camp Hill Veterans’ Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 5 August 1968.
Custodial history
Collection was accessioned by the Archives in 1978. Custodial history prior to that is unknown.
Scope and content
Collection contains postcards written and collected by the Gass family of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. The postcards are primarily of Nova Scotia and some, but not all, have handwritten notes. There are also postcards of Montreal, New York, Washington and Victoria. The majority are written to or from Clare Gass.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Arrangement
Items are listed according to their physical order in the box.
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
There are no access restrictions on these materials. All materials are open for research.
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Materials do not circulate and must be used in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room. Contact departmental staff for guidance on reproduction.
Finding aids
Finding aid
Associated materials
See the Clare Gass fonds (P185) at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University.
Accruals
No further accruals expected.