Geneviève Hennet de Goutel

Geneviève Hennet de Goutel (1885 – 1917) was a French nurse who served during the First World War.

Geneviève Hennet de Goutel
Born(1885-04-11)11 April 1885
Paris, France
Died4 March 1917(1917-03-04) (aged 31)
OccupationNurse
OrganizationSociété de Secours aux blessés militaires (SSBM)
AwardsCroix de guerre
Médaille d'honneur des épidémies (Medal of Honor of the epidemics)
Croix de la Reine Marie (Romania)

Her maternal family was from Arles, France. She was born in Paris and was active in Saint-Germain-des-Près in Paris. Upon the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, she decided to join the French Red Cross and become a nurse at 29 years old.[1]

From September to October 1916 she directed an auxiliary hospital, before joining a medical mission to Bucharest, where she trained Romanian nurses and wrote a manual for future nurses.[1]

Upon the German army's advances upon Bucharest in December 1916, the mission relocated to Jassy (Iași) where the nurses operated a makeshift field hospital at an abandoned villa, Greierul.[2] She contracted typhus due to direct contact with contagious patients. After a month-long illness, she died in March 1917.[1] Marie of Romania reportedly visited her often during her illness.[1]

Shortly after her death, sections of her wartime correspondence was published in the Bulletin de la Croix-Rouge.[2]

In 2017, her war diary and letters were compiled by Roxana Eminescu and published.[2]

She received the Croix de guerre, Médaille d'honneur des épidémies (Medal of Honor of the epidemics) and the Croix de la Reine Marie (Romania) in recognition of her service.[1]

She was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery.[1]

Geneviève Hennet de Goutel, Écrits de guerre et d'amour , L'Harmattan, 2017.

References

edit
  1. ^ a b c d e f Brunet, Sébastien (January 2015). "Une infirmière dans la Grande Guerre" [A nurse in the Great War]. Ville d'Arles [City of Arles].
  2. ^ a b c Leroux-Hugon, Véronique (2017-10-16). "Geneviève Hennet de Goutel : Écrits de guerre et d'amour - APA" [Geneviève Hennet de Goutel: Writings of War and Love]. L’Association pour l'autobiographie et le patrimoine autobiographique [The association for autobiography and autobiographical heritage] (in French).
edit