Previously a dressmaker

News of the appointment of Miss Maida A C Chapple, SRN, as matron of the Rush Court Nursing Home of the Distressed Gentlefolks’ Aid Association, at Wallingford, Berks, will be received with much interest by her many friends in this district.

A further point of interest locally is that she succeeds in that appointment Miss E M Ruck, who was matron of Bideford Hospital from July 1948 until May 1953 when she went to Wallingford.

Miss Chapple, who lived in Bideford with her brother-in-law and sister, Mr and Mrs George Clark, of Combe Lea, Cottingham Crescent, was in business as a dress-maker here until, in her late thirties, she decided to take up nursing as a career. She had been a member of the Bideford Nursing Division of the St John Ambulance Brigade from its earliest days and had held the rank of Ambulance Sister.

The full Gazette article is dated 10 October 1958.