1LT M. Timothy Peters Oral History Tape 1, Side A

title:

1LT M. Timothy Peters Oral History Tape 1, Side A

creator:

Peters, Sister Mary Timothy | Peters, Cecilia Elizabeth (1914 January 4 - )

subject:

AF Nurse Corps

description:

Tape 1 of 2, side 1 of 2. Sister Mary Timothy Peters (born Cecilia Elizabeth Peters) was born on January 4, 1914 in Sharon, Kansas. After graduating high school, she went to Wichita Hospital Nursing School at 17. Her mother died in 1937, so after becoming a nurse she worked to help her father take care of her four younger siblings. When she first started working in hospitals, nurses were on 24-hour shifts, which came down to 12-hours at some point in the 1930s and 1940s. She was also apart of several projects that treated people who couldn’t pay for healthcare, including a group of Catholic nurses who would treat one person for no charge each month, and at a clinic opened in the basement of her training hospital that treated Mexican people who couldn’t afford care. Much of her work before World War II was focused on public health efforts, often going out of the hospital to treat people where they were rather than waiting for them to come in. This included giving shots, treating venereal diseases, and delivering babies in shanty towns. She did this work both at her training hospital in Wichita, Kansas and at a hospital in Del North, Colorado. She enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps in September 1942 because she heard calls for nurses over and over on the radio and she had three brothers who were serving---two in the Pacific and one in Europe---so she and her father thought she could keep track and take care of them better if she was in the service. She first joined the Air Force Nurse Corps in Leavenworth, Kansas and was first stationed at Buckley Field in Colorado for arctic training. After training, she was transferred to a base in Sacramento, California. She almost shipped out to Europe but got pneumonia days before they left, so she was forced to stay in the United States. She instead went to Florida, and in 1944 she was the only nurse assigned to the Pacific Pilot Rescue Ship that came from Boca Raton, Florida. She remained on that ship into 1945, and was discharged from Florida at the very beginning of 1945. A colonel tried to convince her to stay in and go to Germany with the occupation forces but her three brothers were returning home, one with malaria, one with jungle rot, and one with a shrapnel wound, so she was going to return home to take care of them. She wanted to join the convent after graduating high school, but that goal was delayed by her time at nursing school and in the Army Nurse Corps. After her discharge, she was able to pursue that goal once again. Upon her discharge Peters had reached the rank of 1st lieutenant, and for her service she was awarded an American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2006-02-03

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

735.01; 2006.735

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

071727

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1942-46

rights:

Unrestricted