TRANSCRIBED FROM THE LAMAR DEMOCRAT OCTOBER 3, 1918 P. 1
We just work eight hours a day. Have been promoted to the head nurse in my ward. You see thirty-one nurses left Thursday night and that changed things considerably. It’s pretty nice to give orders and not have to take them from someone else. Am going to try and make a good head nurse; there’s so much responsibility to it, so much office work and books to keep checked up. Have twenty-nine patients; four pneumonia, about ten tuberculosis cases, malaria and hookworm cases, besides rheumatism. I sure hated to see those nurses leave – but they went straight to Hoboken and will be there just long enough to get fitted out. You know we’re going to get regulation uniforms, then all soldiers even commissioned officers have to salute us. All the officers salute us now; sometimes I get real tired trying to look pleasant all the time-we have to smile every time we’re saluted. Have been in camp three weeks last night, it’s just like living a new life, and am getting so much new experience. Guess we’ll have half a spring chicken again for dinner. We always have a big dinner on Sunday, but we never get any chicken and dumplings like we had at home. The cooking is fairly good but I’m starved to death all the time. Write me often.
LEE.
NOTES: Nurse Miss Lee Blakely wrote this partial letter to her mother Mrs. M. A. Blakely of Morrilton, Arkansas. She was writing from the base hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. Miss Blakely was born on February 17, 1892 in Lamar, Arkansas and died on May 14. 1969. Her military headstone identifies her as a Nurse serving in WWI. She married WWI veteran Edgar Graham Penick on October 11, 1919.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD
We just work eight hours a day. Have been promoted to the head nurse in my ward. You see thirty-one nurses left Thursday night and that changed things considerably. It’s pretty nice to give orders and not have to take them from someone else. Am going to try and make a good head nurse; there’s so much responsibility to it, so much office work and books to keep checked up. Have twenty-nine patients; four pneumonia, about ten tuberculosis cases, malaria and hookworm cases, besides rheumatism. I sure hated to see those nurses leave – but they went straight to Hoboken and will be there just long enough to get fitted out. You know we’re going to get regulation uniforms, then all soldiers even commissioned officers have to salute us. All the officers salute us now; sometimes I get real tired trying to look pleasant all the time-we have to smile every time we’re saluted. Have been in camp three weeks last night, it’s just like living a new life, and am getting so much new experience. Guess we’ll have half a spring chicken again for dinner. We always have a big dinner on Sunday, but we never get any chicken and dumplings like we had at home. The cooking is fairly good but I’m starved to death all the time. Write me often.
LEE.
NOTES: Nurse Miss Lee Blakely wrote this partial letter to her mother Mrs. M. A. Blakely of Morrilton, Arkansas. She was writing from the base hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. Miss Blakely was born on February 17, 1892 in Lamar, Arkansas and died on May 14. 1969. Her military headstone identifies her as a Nurse serving in WWI. She married WWI veteran Edgar Graham Penick on October 11, 1919.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD