Description
Elm, an Oneida from Wisconsin, was born in 1891 and graduated from Carlisle Indian School in 1913. Having trained and worked as a nurse, Elm joined Base Hospital 34 in 1917. She sailed from New York to Liverpool in December 1917 on the Leviathan and arrived in England on Christmas Eve. As the unit’s official history recounts: “On the morning of December 24th, 1917, the Leviathan yawned open her ports to pour forth her cargo of humanity on Liverpool’s massive docks. A few whistles tooted salutation, while a dripping rain made sodden our ebbed spirits. No time was lost.” The unit soon made their way to Southampton via train and the nurses stayed in hotels overnight before sailing for Le Havre on Christmas Day. As Elm recounted, her time in France “was not very easy. Although I was in a base hospital, I saw a lot of the horrors of war. I nursed many a soldier with a leg cut off, or an arm.” Elm continued nursing until her death in 1949.
Bibliographic sources
Details text from https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/bts/2018/10/29/first-world-war-native-stories/. Image credit: No photographer credited – “Miss Cora Elm”, The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man (March 22, 1918): 23., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110907615