A few months ago I received an email from Fold3.com
announcing some new sets of documents on their database. The word “Nurse” caught my eye, so I read
further. This collection “World War II
Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files, 1942 – 1948” is the membership cards of the
women who joined.
What was the Cadet Nursing Corps? It seems that during World War II there was a
severe shortage of trained nurses. Many
nurses were called overseas, and many became “Rosie the Riveters” in the
defense industry. Civilian hospitals
were experiencing emergency situations without enough nursing staff.
Federal funding to address the shortage passed unanimously
in Washington, D.C. (imagine that!) in 1942.
The US. Cadet Nurse Corps was founded through the US Public Health
Service (not the military) to train nurses and to fund training programs at
nursing schools. By 1945 Cadet Nurses
provided 80% of the care in civilian hospitals.
The Corps paid for tuition, fees, stipends and uniforms. Women ages 17 to 35 joined and received a free
education in exchange for a pledge to serve in military or civilian hospitals
after graduation.
In 1945 my Aunt Shirley was only 17 years old. She had just graduated from high school and
had registered to attend secretarial school in Boston that fall. As my cousin Susan, her daughter, tells the
story- Shirley was sitting on the beach
that summer when she changed her mind about her education. She went home and announced to her family
that she was going to be a nurse.
According to the family Shirley’s father said “How can you be a
nurse? You can barely stand the sight of
a runny egg!”
That fall Shirley registered in the US Cadet Nursing Corps
at the Beverly Hospital School of Nursing.
You can see her registration card, from Fold3, below – front and back.
I was perusing these cards on Fold3 because my mother also
graduated from the Beverly Hospital School of Nursing in the 1950s. She would have been too young to join the US
Cadet Nurse Corps, but I was going to read my Mom some of the names on the list
to see if she recognized the women. That’s when I saw Shirley’s name! I immediately contacted my cousin Susan (who
is also a registered nurse) and her mother, Shirley, to show them the images
from Fold3.
Later I sat down with Shirley and Susan to look at the
images and to listen to Shirley’s stories about her days in nursing
school. I had heard about the school
from my Mom, but I wanted to hear about it from Shirley’s view as a cadet
nurse.
 |
| Here is Auntie Shirley, in a Beverly Hospital School of Nursing alumni book. |
Shirley didn’t remember filling in the membership forms seen
online, but she still had her Cadet Nurse membership card. The serial numbers and the
handwriting are exactly the same! She
had her membership pin, and photos of the time period, too. Shirley has been a member of the Alumni
association since graduation, and participated in the activities until
recently. She is the only member of her
class of 13 graduates still in the area.
As a Cadet Nurse Shirley received a stipend of $15 a month,
but she was expected to attend classes all morning starting at 7am, work a
training shift on the hospital floor all afternoon, and then a shift from 7 to
10pm. She doesn’t remember when she had
time to study! She also was paid to work
the hospital floor on weekends, and since there was a dearth of nurses she was
paid at the supervisor level right after graduation. This was something she was very proud to tell
me.
Shirley’s three year training program ended with graduation
in 1948, and the war had ended. She was
told that she did not have to serve her two year compulsory service
overseas. This was something she was
very happy about since many of her fellow trainees from previous years at the
Beverly School of Nursing had gone to nurse overseas or to occupied territories
at the end of the war. 1948 was the last
year of the US Cadet Nurse Corps.
Was there a nurse in your family who was part of the US
Cadet Nurse Corps 1942 – 1948?
Resources:
To search at
Fold3 for WWII Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files
To search at
Ancestry.com
US World War
II Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files 1942 – 1948
Cadet
Nurse Stories: The Call and Response of
Women During World War II by Thelma M. Robinson and Paulie M.
Perry, published by the Sigma Theta Tau
International Honor Society of Nursing, 2001
“The Lasting
Impact of World War II on Nursing” by Bonnie Bullough, AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 1976, Volume 76, no. 1, pages 118 – 124.
“Nurses in
American History: The Cadet Nurse Corps in World War II” by Beatrice J. Kalisch
and Phillip A. Kalisch, AJN The American
Journal of Nursing, 1976, Volume 76, no. 2, pages 240 – 343.
The US Cadet
Nurse Corps website
The Cadet
Nurse Project website
For the truly curious:
A follow up blog post about my Auntie Shirley being formally recognized as a Cadet Nurse:
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I loved this post because not only are you lucky enough to have a family member who served, but I learned something new. I had never heard of the Cadet Nurses. My mom was a WAVE.
ReplyDeleteYes! It took me a while to figure out why my mother was in uniform. I knew she had gone to nursing school at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, NY, but I didn't know about the benefits. Some of the statements in her letters home made more sense after I learned about the Nursing Corps.
ReplyDeleteHey! Someone in my Facebook group shared this website with
ReplyDeleteus so I came to give it a look. I'm definitely loving the information.
I'm book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers!
Exceptional blog and superb style and design.
Yes, my mother. Grace Hospital School of Nursing, Detroit 1947!
ReplyDelete