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MRS LE BLOND’S WAR

          and Lizzie personally, were also instrumental in having a statue
          of the French wartime leader Marshal Foch erected in Grosvenor
          Gardens, near London’s Victoria Station, and she was present
          when this was unveiled by the Prince of Wales, in the presence
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                                                             th
          of the Marshal’s widow and two daughters, on 6  June 1930.
              Lizzie died on 17  July 1934, having worked ‘almost up to the
                               th
          last unobtrusively and modestly for the causes which she had at
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          heart’ , and the obituaries which followed recorded a life full of
          adventure and achievement, among them her efforts on behalf
          of Anglo-French  co-operation  and  understanding.  Only  a  year
          before  her  death  these  services  were  acknowledged  by  the
          French Government with the award of the Cross of the Legion of
                  23
          Honour  - the only one of her many distinctions to be recorded
          on her tombstone in London’s Brompton Cemetery.

              While  commemorations  of  the  Great  War  understandably
          focus on the men who fought and died, it is worth recording too
          the  significant  part  played  by  women,  both  in  the  uniformed
          services and as civilian volunteers. Lizzie’s story is a record of
          one Wicklow woman’s experience of war, and the extent to which
          it determined the future course of her life, but it is also a reminder
          of  the  diversity  and  value  of  that  broader  contribution,  and  of
          women’s  willingness  to  accept  the  challenges,  the  hardships,
          and the opportunities presented by war and its aftermath.








          21  Western Morning News, 6 June 1930; Nottingham Evening Post, 6 June 1930;
          Western Daily Press, 6 June 1930.
          22  The Times, 30 July 1934.
          23  On the award of the Legion d’Honneur, see The Times, 13 April 1933.
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