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In memory of those who have Crossed the Bar
WOLFENDEN, Eula Winifred (née LEDINGHAM) - Lieut.-Cmdr. Eula Wolfenden was born Eula Winifred Ledingham. She was educated in Vancouver and took her nursing training at Vancouver General Hospital, where she graduated in 1927.
Her post-graduate work was done at California Lutheran Hospital in Los Angeles. She returned to Vancouver and became a supervisor at the hospital there. In 1929, she married Marvin Wilson in Vancouver.
Early in 1943, she joined the navy as a sub-lieutenant nursing officer, and was posted to Halifax and later made matron of HMCS Cornwallis. She was posted to Esquimalt and became matron of HMCS Naden Hospital.
Wolfenden was awarded the Royal Red Cross in 1946. "For outstanding service as a Nursing Sister in the Royal Canadian Naval Hospital at Halifax, and as Matron of the Royal Canadian Naval Hospital at Cornwallis," her citation read. "Her devotion to duty, cheerful personality, keen and sympathetic interest in her patients have made her a valuable and exemplary Naval Officer."
The award was made by the king in his birthday honours and was published in the Canada Gazette on June 15, 1946.
Wolfenden was appointed matron-in-chief of the Royal Canadian Nursing Service in March 1947 and promoted to lieutenant-commander. Her job was to run the nursing branch of the Royal Canadian Navy, and also to serve as nursing officer in charge of the navy hospital, HMCS Stadacona, in Halifax.
In the fall of 1947, she divorced Wilson. She resigned her commission on March 31, 1948, when she married Lieut. Cmdr. John Wolfenden, commanding officer HMCS Cedarwood, an experimental vessel assigned to the Pacific Naval Laboratory in Esquimalt.
Cedarwood made history in the summer of 1949 with a voyage north -- as the Daily Colonist reported that September, the Cedarwood had made it as close to the North Pole as any other vessel had ever done.
Eula Wolfenden died, after a lengthy illness, in Royal Jubilee Hospital on Nov. 22, 1954. She was just 47 years old.
Full naval honours were accorded her. After a funeral service at Sands in downtown Victoria, her body was taken to Viewmont Avenue and the Pat Bay Highway. There, it was transferred to a gun carriage drawn by members of HMCS Naden gunnery school. The party went to the Royal Oak Burial Park chapel for final rites.
There were 36 men in the gun carriage party. The HMCS Naden band was also there.
Article from the CROWSNEST magazine - Jan 1955
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