Introduction
In October’s issue, the article by Wendy Elkis Girnis (HHS ’77) about military nurses reminded me that two Hicksville women served in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) during World War I: Mary Keller, whose parents operated a hotel/tavern at the corner of Woodbury Road and Park Avenue, and Elise Bergold, whose family had a farm on Old Country Road, near the border with Westbury.
Background
1916 Recruiting Poster
World War I began in 1914, but the U.S. could not declare war until 1917 – it took nearly three years to draft, train, and equip an Army of the requisite size. Such an Army would need thousands of nurses, but when the nation finally declared war, it had only 401 of them. Ironically, the civilian American Red Cross (ARC) had 8,000 trained nurses, and many of these were already serving in France and the UK, primarily caring for wounded British soldiers. Both groups worked hard to recruit more.
The two groups reached an agreement: the Army would draft willing Red Cross nurses into the Nurse Corps for wartime service. Today, this practice may lead to confusion. For example, the question “How many Army nurses served during the war?” yields different answers depending on which nurses one counts. Only nurses inducted into the Army Nurse Corps? Or also Red Cross nurses in non-U.S. hospitals who treated American and other military Allied casualties as well?
