Collection MS-2-315 - Gass Family Postcard Collection

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Gass Family Postcard Collection

General material designation

  • Graphic material
  • Textual record

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Other title information

Title statements of responsibility

Title notes

Level of description

Collection

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

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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

Associated materials

See the Clare Gass fonds (P185) at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University.

Related materials

Accruals

No further accruals expected.

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Accession area