Frances Cluett was born in Belleoram, Newfoundland, in 1883. At the age of thirty-three, she left her Fortune Bay home to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), an organization committed to assisting military personnel during World War I. She trained in London, England, for work in a military hospital and in 1917 was stationed at the 10th General Hospital in Rouen, France. During her four years of service overseas, Nurse Cluett wrote many letters to home. Contained here are the war letters she sent to her mother in Newfoundland, telegrams describing the atrocities of war, the valiant deeds of comrades in arms, and the despair of young men dying on foreign shores.