Doris was the daughter of Arthur John Samuel Ridgway and Ada Ridgway nee Mitton of Wolseley, South Australia.

Parents:

Arthur - Born – 13.1.1862 Salters Springs – Died 23.3.1935 Wolseley

Parents: John Ridgway and Jane Crettenden - Married in 1850

Married on 10.3.1887 to

Ada – Born 12.9.1864 Hindmarsh – Died 30.7.1941 Cooke Plains

Parents: John Edward Mitton and Ellen Shearing - Married in 1853

Siblings:

Irene Ada – Born 14.3.1888 Hindmarsh – Died 8.9.1933 Adelaide

John Edward – Born 11.4.1889 Hindmarsh – Died 12.12.1951 Bordertown

(Married in 1923 to Eleanor Sheard)

Merle Mitton– Born 16.6.1890 Salters Springs – Died 11.7.1966 Payneham

(Married in 1911 to John Trezona)

Hugh Kelly – Born 3.6.1893 Riverton – Died 30.12.1951 Wolseley

(Married in 1920 Olive Violet Gilbert)

Eric Bertram – Born 24.2.1896 Riverton – Died 1.7.1917 Egypt – World War 1 casualty

Victor Mitton – Born 24.5.1897 Salters Springs – Died 29.5.1989 South Australia

(Married in 1924 to Olga Mary Smyth)

Arthur - Born 11.3.1899 - Died 23.3.1899 South Australia - 12 days old

Wilfred Roberts – Born 6.3.1900 Fulham – Died 4.7.1964 Plympton

(Married in 1932 to Edith Sheard)

Gertrude Ellen – Born 16.5.1908 Hindmarsh – Died 4.9.1995 South Australia

A Staff Nurse with the Australian Army Nursing Service.

Country of Service Australian.

Doris died of influenza at the quarantine station, Woodman's Point, Western Australia. She was buried with full military honours. Along with eleven other nurses she volunteered to go into quarantine to care for returning soldiers with pneumonic influenza. She made the supreme sacrifice.

The remains of Staff Nurse Doris Ridgway were buried at Perth War Cemetery and Annex.

The West Australian - Saturday, 18 January 1919

"A NURSE'S BURIAL AT WOODMAN'S POINT

(By R.E.L.)

They lifted the little pitch-pine coffin covered with the Union Jack out of the wagon reverently and carried it through the white sand to its last resting place. The sun shone very sweetly on the blossoming bush, and a bird pausing on its way to the sea beyond, stayed and mourned softly. Somehow, though the nursing sister friends were weeping, that was the only hopeless note that sounded at the burial of the little sister who had died while doing her simple duty. She who had passed to the Great Beyond must have had a gentle, joyous, lovely soul, happy in her work whilst faithfully carrying it on; patient, nay smiling, they said, when sick, and contented now to rest in peace forever, for in all that still air round her grave there was no discordant vibration, no wandering, restless looks, no sighing with remorseful memory.

The firing' party who had led the way with reversed bayonets from the old quarantine hospital along the winding stone-flagged way to the little God's acre of happy souls, looked down, and, as at a queen's requiem, turned down also, their guns, and, resting their hands quietly on them, stood so while the exquisite words of the service rang out: 'Oh death, where is thy sting; oh grave, where is thy victory?' The nursing sisters in gray dresses, white capped and red caped, wept, but there was no hopeless sadness at the funeral of the little sister who had died doing her duty; rather would one wish that might be one's own fate - to die nobly, peacefully, gloriously, and be buried in the sunshine by the sea, with those who had worked and suffered with one - standing so quietly near - for 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord . . . for they rest from their labours . . . For as much as it has pleased Almighty God to take unto Himself the soul of our dear sister in sure and certain hope' of the resurrection to eternal life.'

The four stalwart lads who had lifted and lowered the beloved sister's body in its shell, on which the white cap and scarlet cape now rested, to its last home, stood humbly by, their hands folded, their young faces stern with regret, and the sister-friends bowed their heads sorrowfully weeping. There were others there also, others who had fought the world-wide dread disease through its virulence in this little corner of Australia to which it had crept, with less tragic result. to themselves, and though they sighed the stillness was intense.

Then one by one the three volleys rent the air, the three volleys which tell a soldier that one of his comrades has been laid to rest, and then like a sharp shower of rain on an arid electric day the rifles clattered to the salute, and the men in khaki presented arms to the still body which lay unheeding with feet set towards

the dawn, while the bugle rang out with its triumphant note, slowly sounding the Last Post.

So do the bodies of some thirty valiant men and maids lie there at peace. Men and maids who have done what they could, whose souls soar. and whose lives live on in the memory of those who love them. And the example of work cheerfully done, of suffering nobly borne, at life freely given, will add laurels to Australia's flag forever. Wasted life! Is it waste if the dread disease is kept out of one country in the world? Those who have wrestled with it hand in hand, those who have gone down to the depths with it, those who have battled against fearful odds - they know; and the little while sand mounds surrounded by blossoming shrubs, canopied by the blue sky of heaven, in the tiny equare along the coast where the birds pause on their way to the sea beyond, give testimony that our land is ready to do or die, ready to fight and lose if necessary, for the good of the common cause, ready - as other facts have shown - to give its bravest and best for the glory of the nation. Advance Australia, your children are with you forever!

And all this - because one little nurse was buried to-day beside the still forms of three other sisters who died while nursing Spanish influenza in Western Australia. 'Blessed are they who die in the name or the Lord.' "

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Regiment/Service: Australian Army Nursing Service

Memorials: Adelaide High School Honour Board, Adelaide National War Memorial, Australian Military Nurses Memorial, Cooke Plains Honour Roll, Cooke Plains WW1 Soldiers Memorial Hall, Kapunda Dutton Park Memorial Bullwinkel Memorial, Maryborough Nurses HB.

Memorials: Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour

Cenotaph here

York Minster

Cenotaph here