ephemera #1

Elsie Isabel Crouch aged 16 months. Portrait by photographers Freeman & Co. of 360 George Street, Sydney, Australia, and believed to have been taken in October 1879.


Elsie was born on 5 July 1878 in Bathurst, New South Wales, the daughter of Henry Augustus Crouch (a name I suspect Roald Dahl would have cherished) and his wife Isabella (née Tennant). Henry was District Surveyor.

A trained nurse, she joined the Australian Army Nursing Service during the First World War and sailed to Egypt in August/September 1915. Six months later she travelled from Alexandria to Marseilles, France. Somewhere along the way, she met and fell in love with orthopaedic surgeon Major Denis Joseph Glissan (1889-1958) and they married in Kensington, London, on 23 November 1916. After the war, they returned to Australia.

Elsie Isabel Glissan died on 21 November 1964 and was cremated at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium.

Sources: