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Content Update: WWII Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files

WWII Cadet Nursing Corps
One new collection on Fold3 is the WWII Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files, which contains membership cards of women who joined the corps.

The Cadet Nursing Corps was created in 1943 under the U.S. Public Health Service to help fill a growing need for nurses that had been compounded by World War II. Between 1943 and 1948 (the years the program ran), about 179,000 students between the ages of 17 and 35 joined the corps, with roughly 124,000 of them graduating.

The program was federally funded, and the majority of nursing schools in the nation participated. The normal 36-month nursing program was condensed to a maximum of 30 months, with hands-on hospital or health-agency experience constituting the last 6 months. Cadets committed to serve upon graduation in either civilian or military healthcare positions for the duration of the war; in return, they received free tuition and fees, free uniforms, and a monthly stipend.

Be a Cadet Nurse
The Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files on Fold3 are organized by state, nursing school, and cadet name. There are a few different card formats. Some cards include the date of admission to the school, date of admission to the corps, and date of graduation (or date of other reason for termination from the school). Other cards contain details like the woman’s marital status, father’s/husband’s name and profession, years of college completed, place of residence, and how they heard about the corps. Still others also record the woman’s age in addition to the previously mentioned information.

Do you have a mother, grandmother, or other relative who was a member of the Cadet Nursing Corps? If so, look for them in the WWII Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files!

13 Comments

  1. Steven says:

    Never Put this on my website

  2. Lorraine Kench says:

    After 73 years of waiting for recognition it is finally about to be welcomed by the remaining Cadet Nurses who are alive to tell their story.
    Respectfully- Mary Lorraine Baldwin Kench Class of September 1945 at Lynn Hospital School of Nursing, Lynn, Massachusetts.

  3. Robert Smith says:

    I found my aunt in the files and forwarded e-mail so she can go in and get her mother’s records. This is a great operation.

  4. My sister was a Cadet Nurse in WWII She lives in Leesburg FL. She will be 89yearsold on March22, 2015.Please contact her. Thank Yu.

  5. Fredericka Stanulecich says:

    My friend Thelma Jane Short Serino was in the final class of Cadet Nurses at Hartwick College and is living in Rome NY. She is a wonderful friend and an outstanding woman having raised a famly of ten . Her stories of her days at Hartwick are inspiring .

  6. Tomasina Hart Sims says:

    My mother, Sara R. Turner Hart was in the Cadet Nursing program at Tuskegee University, graduating in the class of 1946. She is not listed in the files. I have her diploma, yearbook, picture and an invoice stipend for a train ticket that she was issued. She was from Anniston, Alabama, and passed away 12/27/15 in Cleveland, Ohio at the age of 89. Some one please contact me at 216-870-8481.

  7. […] is featuring the WWII Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files. This article describes the Cadet Nursing Corps and the information you’ll find in the card […]

  8. Dorothy J Gale says:

    don’t know if I am enrolled in Fold or not and if I am, can I get the information on fold3 as well as my family history?? I was a Cadet Nurse, started in 1944 at Deaconess Hospital in Evansville, Indiana

  9. Dorothy J Gale says:

    see above

  10. Lorraine Kench says:

    All US Cadet Corps Nurses are eligible to be enrolled in the Women in Military Service Monument in Washington,DC. The section reserved for us is quite impressive. Worth exploring.

  11. Permelia Saum Bower says:

    I was a Cadet Nurses-Grant Hospital School of Nursing-Columbus, Ohio-[19441949
    I am interested in reading anything about the Corp[age 88 yrs]. Permelia Bower
    6501 Cross Meadow Ct.,Fuquay Varina NC 27528–PBower [email protected]

  12. Ken Poole says:

    My mother Jane Hadfield from Providence RI is listed but $40 is a bit pricey for one document. Anyone want to fetch it for me?
    Cheers

  13. Kathy Handy says:

    I got both my mother’s and my aunt’s document copy when Ancestry.com offered them for free about a year ago (could have been around Memorial Day. Both are still alive at the age of 91. They married brothers, one a paratrooper during WWII.
    Both were RN’s until they retired in their 70’s.