Women in War Part 1: Margaret Schreiter

The Grace Schmidt Room at the Central Branch of the Kitchener Public Library is filled with photos, stories and audio of Waterloo Region’s past.

The library is in the process of digitizing cassette interviews of some heritage members of the community. That includes 50 interviews with the men and women who served, contributed and witnessed the first and second world war.

570’s Joe Pavia has produced a 5 part series on the stories of the local women who served. In this segment he tells the story of Margaret Schreiter of Kitchener.

Margaret Schreiter served in the first world war for the American troops.

The Kitchener raised and Buffalo trained nurse would land at an army base camp in the south of France in 1918.

“We had troops were coming in and a lot of them were burn cases. They had sent over this sulphur gas. and wherever they sat, whatever position…you never saw such burns,” said Schreiter.

Schreiter says the pain continued the day the Armistice was signed. Schreiter called it a pathetic day.

“All the grandmothers and grandfathers the young wives, the young children, they paraded the streets. But how many of their men were coming back nobody knew. It was a day for tears.”

Despite the armistice the nurses still needed to take care of the mental state of the soldiers who suffered physical injuries.

“One young man who was a pianist, this was his livliehood and his right hand had been so badly destroyed. ‘What will I do?’ Well of course this is where you have to use your faith. And feel that this will work out. You were willing to make the sacrifice, this is part of it. You will adjust to it.”

In the next segment of Women in War, Dr. Deborah Glaister Hannay of Wellesley.