Ready to Serve is the true story of 64 professional graduates of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing who joined the US Army and served with Hopkins Base Hospital 18; they were stationed in France from 1917 to 1919.

 

Ready to Serve relies on personal letters in the nurses’ alumni journals, files, and informal histories written for Hopkins – all at Chesney Archives, Hopkins University, in Baltimore – and a cache of letters from one of the nurses at the Library of Congress.

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The letters describe patient situations and injuries as well as the challenges in taking care of shattering battlefield wounds. The letters also provide insiders’ views of the difficulties of everyday life for these women from the intense winters of 1917 and 1918 to their exhaustion during times of heavy battles. During it all their primary concern was “taking care of our boys.”

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Ellouise Schoettler is a nationally known spoken word artist whose original stories feature little-known women. Her one-woman shows have premiered at the Capital Fringe in Washington, DC.; at the National World War One Museum and Memorial, Kansas City, MO; and at the Annual Alumni Meeting, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD.

 

For more information about Ellouise, visit ellouiseschoettler.com.   Follow Ellouise on Twitter.com/ellouisestory.

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For more information about "Ready to Serve", visit http://bit.ly/war-nurses or Facebook.com/FleshOnOldBone.