When she was born in North Chegoggin, in the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia, in 1872, no one would have predicted Sarah Corning would one day be presented as a hero to the King of Greece, reported The Vanguard newspaper of Canada.

In 1922, Corning was instrumental in the evacuation of Armenian and Greek orphans from the besieged city of Smyrna in what is now Turkey.

Corning trained as a nurse in the United States and joined the American Red Cross during the First World War.

Shortly after the First World War, as part of Near East Relief – an American organization helping displaced people of the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Middle East – Corning went overseas.

In 1922, she was in the city of Smyrna, which the Turks were trying to take back from Greece. Corning was part of a team that opened a clinic to help Smyrna’s sick and wounded, but it was shut down by Turkish soldiers. A second clinic also was shut down.

As fighting and lawlessness escalated, Corning became a central figure in the evacuation of the port city of Smyrna, helping guide orphans in a home run by an American nurse, eventually guiding thousands of children to the harbor, where US sailors rowed them out to the safety of naval vessels.

After the rescue, she helped established an orphanage in Greece for the stateless orphans.

She was summoned to Athens in June 1923, where King George II of Greece awarded her and others involved in the rescue mission, the Silver Cross Medal of the Order of the Savior.

Corning worked at the orphanage until 1924, when she returned to Turkey to work in a residential training school until 1930 when the Near East relief effort was disbanded.

Upon retirement, she returned to Chegoggin, where she lived until her death in 1969 at age 97.

Only recently has Corning’s work been recognized at home in Yarmouth County, in Nova Scotia. In September, a seniors’ care home named part of its facility for the nurse from rural Nova Scotia.

In addition, there is a Sara Corning Centre for Genocide Education in Toronto that supports research and education on the topics of human rights and genocide.

The epitaph on her headstone in the Chegoggin Baptist Church Cemetery reads: “She lived to serve others.”