Dora Moulder, the daughter of Edward and Johanna Moulder of Orange, was born in Condoblin in 1884. Her grandfather was the Orange pioneer, Joseph Moulder.
Dora enlisted on 26 April 1915, the day after the start of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli. While she spent a great deal of her time nursing in London, she nevertheless saw her fair share of desperately sick and wounded soldiers brought in from the trenches in France. She mainly tended British soldiers but the greater part of the deaths she witnessed were from enteric fever and dysentery rather than war wounds.
Nurse Moulder was greatly interested in her work although she admitted to a feeling of ‘much sadness about it when most awful and pitiful cases are received for treatment’. She would have remained in Europe had it not been for the serious illness of her mother, which brought her back to Orange late in 1916. She married Hector Brewer in November 1921 and settled in Condobolin.
Dora’s name appears on the Holy Trinity Church Orange Honour Roll.
Leader, 29 November 1916, p. 4.
Our Nurses. Orange native’s return; interesting chat with Nurse Moulder
* Edwards, Elisabeth 2011, In sickness and in health: how medicine helped shape Orange’s history, Orange City Council, Orange, NSW
