RUBY GORDON PETERKIN. (Sept. 1, 1887 – June 4, 1961).
After serving as a Nursing Sister during the Great War Ruby Peterkin was invalided home to Toronto, sailing from Liverpool on September 20, 1918. Her return was heralded in The Toronto World (Oct. 8, 1918) in a story that notes her three years of military service in France, Malta, Salonika, Gallipoli and England.
Ruby in the garden of the house at 34 Oakmount ca. 1912
On Armistice Day in November,1918, she was told that she would be transferred to the Invalid Soldiers’ Commission for further treatment as a patient. Her ailment? The presiding doctor stated that she had gained weight, which was good, but “she has a slight active pulmonary tuberculosis with evidence of fibrosis at the right apex and chronic pleurisy.” He recommended that she be discharged to the I.S.C. for treatment at Calydor Sanatorium (in Gravenhurst). Her recovery took a year’s time.
In 1920 Ruby married Hugh Alexander McKay (July 19, 1884 – Feb. 14, 1935). He was a doctor, a psychiatric specialist. He served throughout the First War in the Army Medical Corps and then was Medical Doctor at the Ontario Hospital in Hamilton. When he died in 1935 he was serving as Medical Superintendent of the Mimico Hospital.
Ruby and Hugh (right)
To go back to Ruby’s letters from Europe during the war years, we can be certain that we are given a carefully curated glimpse of her time spent as a nursing sister. The letters that survive were all written to her sister Irene. There would have been many others to family and friends, including to her future husband Dr. Hugh McKay. Before being mailed all letters were first read and then approved by the censor which meant that she could not share with her readers even an hint of the human suffering and horrors that she undoubtedly witnessed. Among numerous references to family members there is no mention of her father, Charles Robert Peterkin, sr. Was there a rift as a result of his remarriage to Annie Mollon in 1913? We know there were some Peterkins who strongly disapproved of the marriage and Ruby as one of his youngest children may well have been among them.
The Peterkins at 34 Oakmount in 1912. Ruby sits between her sister Irene (in hat) and her father Charles R. Also seen is her brother Ernest and her aunt Annie Peterkin.
Now a brief summary of Ruby’s life to round out this blog post. Ruby graduated from the Toronto General Hospital Nursing School in 1911 and then occupied herself with private nursing until 1915. After her husband died in 1935 Ruby lived in Toronto at various addresses: the Park Plaza Hotel at the corner of Bloor & Avenue Rd., and then in a four-plex at Mt. Pleasant and Blythwood avenues where her great-nieces and nephews remember being amazed by her budgerigar Timmy who could clearly recite his name and address. She is remembered also for having her own movie camera, and entertaining family members with colour movies taken on special occasions and during her travels in Australia.
Ruby’s house at Bolton, Ontario. Irene standing in front.
In 1953 Ruby and Irene built houses side by side near Bolton, Ont. In Nov. 1954 Ruby was injured in a serious motor accident and after that was in and out of hospital, and then lived for nearly two years with Ernest and Irene in Georgetown, Ont. She was transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and from there to a nursing home at 80 Wychwood Park, Toronto, where she died in 1961..
Ruby Peterkin’s records in the Canadian Army Medical Corps collection in Library and Archives Canada give details of her service as a nursing sister. These include her Attestation Paper, Certificate of Service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (October 8, 1919), listings of her postings and transfers while on active service in Europe, her medical history as an invalid. and her record of assigned pay. For example her pay for service in 1915 was $60 a month and thereafter $50 a month. In 1920 she received a War Service Gratuity of $549.00.
Ruby is fondly remembered by her great-niece, Mary F. Williamson.
One of Ruby’s medals awarded for her service as a Nursing Sister in World War I.
Charles Peterkin's Journey 