Grace Edith Williamson (abt. 1865 - 1948)

Born about 1865 in Smyrna, Turkey

Ancestors

Died 1948 at about age 83 in İzmir, Turkey

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Biography

Grace Williamson was born about 1868 in Smyrna (Izmir), Turkey. She is the daughter of William Williamson and Elizabeth Barker and was one of 16 children.

In the census of England and Wales 1881, Grace was attending high school in England, living with her aunt Sara Williamson Massey (her father's sister) and uncle.

In 1899, when she was about 30, she went to England to be trained as a nurse at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. She travelled there with her niece Helen Lewis, aged 22, daughter of her eldest sister. Grace found the work hard and she contracted tuberculosis and returned to Smyrna where her mother nursed her back to health. She later went back to England and became a midwife, qualifying on 23 July 1908 and being entered on the roll of midwives. After qualifying, she returned to Smyrna and worked at the Old British Seaman's Hospital for a number of years. She opened a maternity hospital, the British Nursing Home at Alasancak near Smyrna in Turkey with her sister Alithea who was a nurse. The sisters cared for their mother in the final years of her life and Grace ran her hospital from August 1914 throughout the First World War and up to the great fire and destruction of Smyrna in 1922. She was evacuated to Cyprus on British cargo ship, but returned about a month later hoping to re-open the hospital and resume her life. However, most of the city had been destroyed and the remainder looted. Grace was placed in custody under rough circumstances for two days and received word that her hospital was taken over by Kemal's soldiers. She was eventually freed thanks to a secret message to and intervention by the American consul and having borrowed some money, went to Cairo. ^[1]

It appears from her diary that Grace returned to Izmir and cleaned up the hospital and moved back into her home. She mentions having had 10 good years since.

Grace never married she passed away in 1948 (no sources).

Sources

• Class: RG11; Piece: 2753; Folio: 112; Page: 31; GSU roll: 1341659,

1881 England Census.

• http://www.levantineheritage.com/note13.htm
• http://gramstedt.com/getperson.php?personID=I30393&tree=all
• https://noisybrain.wordpress.com/2017/06/01/grace-williamsons-smyrna-diaries-1916/
• https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/MGST/article/viewFile/11078/10675
• The Wellcome Trust; London, England; The Midwives Roll; Reference: b24389596_i1377959x, UK, The Midwives Roll, 1904-1959, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, Publisher Date 2016, Publisher Location, Lehi, UT, USA

1. ↑ http://www.levantineheritage.com/diaries.html