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Memories of a Tuskegee Airmen Nurse and Her Military Sisters
A scrapbook can tell us much about a person’s life or one period of someone’s joys and sorrows, challenges and successes, problems and solutions. Memories of a Tuskegee Airmen Nurse and Her Military Sisters focuses on a four-year period from 1942 to 1946 during World War II when up to twenty-eight women from the Army Nurse Corps staffed the station hospital on the base where the future Tuskegee Airmen were undergoing basic and advanced pilot training. These women were African Americans, graduates of nursing schools throughout the country, registered nurses, and lieutenants in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. They were military officers, and the pilot cadets saluted them.
Pia Marie Winters Jordan’s mother was one of those angels of mercy. Her mother, the former first lieutenant Louise Lomax, did not talk much about her ten years of military nursing, but nonetheless, her Tuskegee Army Flying School scrapbook told a story. Although Jordan may have seen this scrapbook when she was much younger, only when her mother became ill and had to be cared for in a nursing home, did Jordan, Louise’s only child, take a closer look, as she began organizing belongings in the process of closing her mother’s apartment. Jordan saw that the Tuskegee Airmen were not the only ones making Black history during World War II; nurses also had to fight gender as well as racial discrimination. Through her research, she found out more about them. It was time for their story to be told.
Pia Marie Winters Jordan’s mother was one of those angels of mercy. Her mother, the former first lieutenant Louise Lomax, did not talk much about her ten years of military nursing, but nonetheless, her Tuskegee Army Flying School scrapbook told a story. Although Jordan may have seen this scrapbook when she was much younger, only when her mother became ill and had to be cared for in a nursing home, did Jordan, Louise’s only child, take a closer look, as she began organizing belongings in the process of closing her mother’s apartment. Jordan saw that the Tuskegee Airmen were not the only ones making Black history during World War II; nurses also had to fight gender as well as racial discrimination. Through her research, she found out more about them. It was time for their story to be told.
107 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 15, 2023
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June 30, 2024
The word “memories” rather than memoirs in the title is accurate. The book is centered around the experiences of Louise Lomax, who served in the U. S. Army Nurse Corps in the Second World War. However, it is not based on any conversations between Lomax and the author, her daughter. Lomax never spoke about her war experiences, and it was only when Lomax went to a nursing facility that the author discovered her mother’s Tuskegee Army Flying School scrapbook and was able to learn the events depicted in this book.
Despite their wearing the uniform of the United States Army and being well trained in their fields, the black nurses were discriminated against like the airmen were. Their base was in the heart of Alabama and to the discriminatory white people, only the color of their skin mattered.
Being written based on the clues in a scrapbook that contained pictures of the nursing staff, a great deal of the content is short descriptions of the lives of the black nurses during their time in the Army and how they lived after their discharge. None of the short biographies are detailed, yet they give the reader solid information about how they managed to function and do their jobs when they were surrounded by hostility.
Despite their struggles, this book is a description of how the black nurses managed to succeed and even break new ground in the Army nurse corps. They were small steps, but very significant as the American military was making small steps towards integration.
Despite their wearing the uniform of the United States Army and being well trained in their fields, the black nurses were discriminated against like the airmen were. Their base was in the heart of Alabama and to the discriminatory white people, only the color of their skin mattered.
Being written based on the clues in a scrapbook that contained pictures of the nursing staff, a great deal of the content is short descriptions of the lives of the black nurses during their time in the Army and how they lived after their discharge. None of the short biographies are detailed, yet they give the reader solid information about how they managed to function and do their jobs when they were surrounded by hostility.
Despite their struggles, this book is a description of how the black nurses managed to succeed and even break new ground in the Army nurse corps. They were small steps, but very significant as the American military was making small steps towards integration.
Displaying 1 of 1 review