The Navy Nurse Who Helped Transform Women’s Roles In Military Service

The Navy Nurse Who Helped Transform Women’s Roles In Military Service

I would like to continue finding out about some of the remarkable women who served during the world wars, and today I wanted to talk about Nellie Jane DeWitt. She had a career that stretched across decades of change in the United States Navy. She went on to become one of the women who helped to shape the future of military nursing.

Nellie Jane DeWitt was born on the 16th of July 1895 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and grew up on her family’s farm in Jackson. She went to Susquehanna High School, and then went on to train as a nurse at Stamford Hospital School of Nursing in Connecticut, graduating in 1917. Only a year later, as the First World War was coming to an end, she decided to join the Navy Nurse Corps on the 26th of October 1918.

She served in the Naval Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, but she went on to serve in many different places, including Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington DC, California, Hawaii, and even Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Life as a Navy nurse was demanding, disciplined and required you to constantly move. It must have been quite challenging having to adapt to so many new places while she was caring for servicemen.

By 1937 she had become a Chief Nurse, and after the Second World War she rose even further. In 1946 she became Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps at a time when the military was rapidly shrinking after wartime. During her leadership, an important change took place in 1947 when Navy nurses officially became recognised as full Navy officers. Nellie then became the first Director of the Navy Nurse Corps.

After retiring in 1950, she remained active in charity and community work before passing away on the 22nd of March 1978 at the age of 82. She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a lasting reminder of a lifetime spent in service.