Leslie Joy Whitehead

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Leslie Joy Whitehead
Whitehead in her Serbian Relief Fund uniform
BornFebruary 26, 1895
Quebec, Canada
DiedJune 5, 1964 (aged 69)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
AllegianceKingdom of Serbia
Service/branchRoyal Serbian Army
Years of service1915–1916
Spouse(s)Vukota Vojinovitch/Voyinovitch/Vojinović
George Andrew Vaughan
Children3
RelationsCharles Ross Whitehead (Father)

Leslie Joy Whitehead (

invasion of Belgrade
on October 8, 1915.

Early life

Whitehead was born to

Toronto Daily Star also reported that "Miss Whitehead" was "extremely fond of outdoor life, wore semi-male garb on her tramps through the woods, and could handle a canoe or shoot better than most men".[3]

War Work

Early work and volunteering

When Canada entered the Great War on August 4, 1914 Whitehead was only 19 years old but already resolute in her pursuit of getting to the Front, where she hoped "to get fixed as a motor transport or ambulance driver".

Scottish Women's Hospitals
, she decided to offer her services to Britain and the Commonwealth's Allies; a decision that would ultimately lead her to Serbia. It was following this Balkan country's acceptance of her help that Whitehead became a volunteer engineer with the Serbian Relief Fund in July 1915.

With the Serbian Army

Whitehead enlisted as a man in the

Central Power forces. By November 3, 1915, Whitehead was working under occupation in the central Serbian city of Kruševac. According to Dr Catherine Corbett of the Scottish Women's Hospitals Second Serbian unit, this female engineer had been sent to Kruševac with the Serbian army within which she had "enlisted as a man".[9] According to contemporary newspaper sources, Whitehead was "acting as a lieutenant in the Veterinary Corps of the Serbian Army, having given up hospital work" so "she might get closer to the firing line" when Serbia's occupation began.[10] Under occupation, Whitehead's deftness with guns and outdoor skills were to prove more vital than ever before and came in particularly useful for the Scottish Women's Hospitals. Finding themselves frequently targeted by thieves in the form of desperate locals, prisoners of war and enemies alike, the Scottish Women's Hospitals recruited Whitehead as a "guard" in the hopes that she would help to deter the near-daily pillaging of resources and supplies. Her handiness did not go unnoticed by the enemy and by November 24, 1915, Whitehead found herself under the employment of "a German doctor", for whom she tended to "some large and complicated disinfectors".[11]

Prisoner of war

It is unclear what exactly happened to Whitehead between November 1915 and the end of 1916, but by January 7, 1916, both the Toronto Daily Star and The Globe reported that "Miss Joy Whitehead, a Quebec Athletic Girl" had been "locked up" by the Bulgarians.[12] At the time of being made a prisoner of war, The Globe cites Whitehead "was captured by the Bulgarians while serving with a British veterinary corps in Serbia" – a division she had joined "owing to her knowledge of horses".[13]

Personal life and death

At some point during her time as a prisoner of war (c. 1916), Whitehead met and married a lieutenant of the Royal Serbian Army named Vukota Vojinović (a.k.a. Vojinovitch/Voyinovitch) from the city of Užice.[14] The pair returned to Canada where Whitehead gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Mila, in October 1917. The couple went on to have a second daughter in 1922 named Winifred Dana, followed by a son named Miladin (later Dean) in 1923.[citation needed] By this time the young family had travelled together to Naples, Italy, as well as to Patras, Greece. By the 1930s, Whitehead's marriage to Vukota had deteriorated and the pair were divorced. During this time period, she gave birth to a second son, David John Vaughan. By 1937 Whitehead had re-married a man named George Andrew Vaughan. The pair lived together in British Columbia, Canada and remained married until George's death on October 9, 1944. It is not known if the couple had children together.[8]

Whitehead died a widow in Princeton, British Columbia on June 5, 1964, aged 69, after developing a carcinoma of the stomach.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Canada Census, 1901," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KH5N-TXJ : 18 March 2018), Joy Whitehead in household of Winifred Whitehead, Montréal (city/cité), Quebec, Canada; citing p. 20, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
  2. Manitoba Free Press
    , Winnipeg, Saturday, January 8, 1916, p. 21.
  3. The Toronto Daily Star
    , Friday, January 7, 1916, p. 2.
  4. ^ "Lady Volunteers From Canada", Yorkshire Evening Post, June 3, 1915.
  5. ^ a b "Lady Volunteers From Canada", Yorkshire Evening Post, June 3, 1915.
  6. ^ "Feature Articles – Women and WWI – Women at the Front: Been There, Done That". www.firstworldwar.com. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  7. ^ "Woman and War (From "Woman and Labor") by Olive Schreiner. Upton Sinclair, ed. 1915. The Cry for Justice". www.bartleby.com. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  8. ^ a b "Srpske Majke – Canada's Forgotten Heroine: Josephine (Jo) Whitehead (1895–1964) « Britić". www.ebritic.com. Archived from the original on November 7, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  9. ^ Corbett, C. L. (1916). Diary in Serbia. Taylor, Garrett, Evan & Co. Ltd. p. 9.
  10. ^ "Canadian Nurse Bulgar Prisoner", The Toronto Daily Star, Friday January 7, 1916, p. 2.
  11. ^ C. L. Corbett, Diary in Serbia (Manchester: Taylor, Garrett, Evan & Co. Ltd., 1916), p. 10.
  12. ^ "Canadian Nurse Bulgar Prisoner", The Toronto Daily Star, Friday, January 7, 1916, p. 2.
  13. ^ "Three Ricers Girl Taken By Bulgarians", The Globe, Friday, January 8, 1916, p. 5.
  14. ^ "Госпођица В – мушкарац у српској армији". Politika Online.
  15. ^ "Death certificate". search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca. Retrieved June 18, 2021.

Sources

 This article incorporates text by Natasha Stoyce and Alan Cumming available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

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