I created this poster for my mother-in-law's 2019 funeral, possibly the last of the 18 nurses?

Links

I don't have hot links yet, but you can go to "findagrave.com" and copy or type the memorial number in the memorial space and hit submit, skipping all the other boxes, and it will bring you to the nurse's gravesite:

Helen J. "Miss" (Egolff) Gray (Chief Nurse, 1st Lt., Arlington National Cemetery

www.findagrave.com/memorial/218074547/helen-gray

Irene Rose (Gabryolek) Wesner (1st Lt.)

www.findagrave.com/memorial/90753638/irene-r-wesner

(Her obituary says she served  April 30, 1941-June 30, 1946)

Alma Charlotte (Koehler) Schuetz (Captain)

www.findagrave.com/memorial/72827949/alma-c-schuetz

(Her obituary says she served eight years in the Pacific Theater as a Captain in the Army Nurse Corps.)

Juanita "Nita" Hortense (Hamilton) Webster

www.findagrave.com/memorial/58299601/juanita-hortense-webster

Maude Lillian (Patterson) Thompson

www.findagrave.com/memorial/110880108/maude-p-thompson

Mary Dorothea (Dorothy) (Kravitz) Kehoe (Captain, Long Island National Cemetery)

www.findagrave.com/memorial/82593271/mary-dorothy-kenoe

Mary enlisted about July 1940, served 3 years in the Southwest Pacific, and was honorably discharged at Valley Forge General Hospital June 1945.


Ruth Ada (Baucher) Blades (2nd Lt.)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/237429619/Ruth-Ada-blades

Sarah H. Patterson

 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/152446753/s-h-Patterson

Jean Webster (Lt.)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/166286717/jean-Webster-Seawell

Mary Louise (Lou) (Jacobs) Ream

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/158358244/m-louise-ream

Magaret Louise "Blackie" (Blackwood) Butler (1st Lt.)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90365713/margaret-louise-butler

Alma Elizabeth "Dollie" (Madison) Van De Steeg

https://www.findsgrave.com/memorial/51065559/alma-e-van_de_steeg

Jane "Janie" Stevens (Godwin) Foster (1st Lt.)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/30737683

Edith Vowell (Major)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117817292/Edith-vowell

Edith enlisted May 1, 1941 and was discharged December 1, 1963.

Florence Elizabeth (Green) Brooks 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/32111234/Florence-green

Lieutenant Green served  from December 7, 1941 to June 28, 1944.

Marie F. "Woodie" Woodward (Major)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/35886432/marie-f-Woodward

Major Woodward served in WW2, Korean War, and Vietnam.

Edith W. (Whittaker) Sistek

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239042170/Edith-w-sistek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look Magazine (July 27, 1943) photo of nurses arriving in New Guinea. (Caption is wrong, saying North Africa instead of New Guinea.)

Introduction

Only after moving in and taking care of my mother-in-law from 2012 until her death at home in 2019, did I realize her role and that of her sister nurses in WWII.  I was her son-in-law for 50 years but only when I went through her scrapbook and other memorabilia did I realize how much this Band of Sisters did in response to Pearl Harbor.

I hope this gives a renewed attention to these forgotten heros.

I am using a new website template that I'm trying to learn to use, so it's a work in progress.  I now have a list of 17 of the 18 nurses with links to their gravesites. 

The only one I have not yet identified gravesites for and will work on now is: 

Willie Helen Lawson (born in Athens, Tennesse)

The nicknames are those that my late mother-in-law, Ruth, wrote as she listed the nurses in her scrapbook, below the photo of the nurses in New Guinea.

Nurses arriving in New Guinea after treating soldiers in hospitals in Australia, starting with setting up a hospital in a former boys agriculture school in Gatton, Queensland, Australia.