Thurso Cemetery is among the most northern on the UK mainland. The cemetery is located on the southern outskirts of the town. Thurso native Christina Jack died from influenza and inflammation of the lungs on October 22, aged thirty-five, at the Birmingham War Hospital in Rednal, where she served as a nursing sister. Her body was repatriated to Thurso and marked with a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone.
Christina Jack was born at Bank Street, Thurso, on December 19 1882. She was the sixth child and fourth daughter of Donald Jack, a merchant and rope maker, and Margaret (née Loutitt). When the Census was taken in 1891, the Jack family still resided in Bank Street. Christina, aged eight, was attending school. The family had grown since her birth with the arrival of another daughter named Jane. Christina still resided with her family at Bank Street in 1901. The household had slimmed down considerably as only the three youngest of Donald and Margaret’s children remained at home. No occupation is recorded for Christina on the 1901 Census. It is plausible that Donald’s income was sufficient to support the household without requiring others to seek employment. Sadly, Margaret passed away in 1907, at the age of sixty-six.
By 1911, significant changes had taken place in Christina’s life. She had left Caithness and moved to Glasgow, where she worked as a nurse, following in the footsteps of her older sister Annabella. Her residence was registered in Govan, hence she likely nursed in the former Southern General Hospital or the Glasgow Victoria Infirmary. I expect she undertook her nursing training in Glasgow as well.
Following the outbreak of war in 1914, Christina joined the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), more specifically, the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). She would eventually be deployed to the Midlands, where, like fellow nurses whose stories I have shared on this website, she made the ultimate sacrifice fighting a microscopic enemy.
On March 13 1919. Confirmation was granted in Wick that Christina’s estate would pass to her brother John, who was employed as a solicitor and banking agent in Dumfermline. Christina is commemorated on the National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle.
Donald survived his daughter by a decade. He died in Caithness in 1928, at the age of eighty-six.
Sources: Ancestry, Find a Grave, Scotland’s People
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