My new story Ready to Serve is drawn from the letters Maryland nurses wrote home while they served in France during The Great War. I have filled in gaps the censor sliced out of their letters by reading old newspapers.
June 14, 1917 - the Johns Hopkins Base Hospital 18, the first medical unit sent to France sailed from New York on the USS Finland in a convoy of 18 ships, many carrying the first American troops going "over there'.
The papers of the day across the country reported the departure, almost always naming the eminent and almost eminent Hopkins doctors who were part of the medical unit.
Also shipping out that day were 64 nurses from Baltimore, all graduates of Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing. The only nurse mentioned was Chief Nurse Bessie Baker... except for hometown squibbs when they named the "daughter" or local citizen. Often someone at the local paper saluted the "lady" mentioned by adding the following excerpt from an article in the Baltimore Sun.
From the Baltimore Sun June 1917
The full ending of the original article.
Research opens your eyes doesn't it?
2 comments:
It is wonderful that these amazing women had their contribution acknowledged. Who knows what motivated them to risk their own health and safety to help others? I know, from other accounts I've read, that their work was not given the recognition it deserved, so thanks for bringing it to our attention!
That's what has drawn me to tell their story - and its not written about - I have drawn it the story of these particular women from their letters and the history of
where they were. So far as "why they went" - It think It was the fever of patriotism of the time - and they really did want to be of service to the men who volunteered -
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