Cadet Nurse Dorothy R. Strong Oral History

title:

Cadet Nurse Dorothy R. Strong Oral History

creator:

Strong, Dorothy (Reeks) (1924 July 11 - )

subject:

USPHS Cadet Nurse Corps

description:

Dorothy Strong (formerly Reeks) was born on July 11, 1924 in Newburgh, New York. In 1942, she entered the Lenox Hospital School of Nursing in New York City, and when the Cadet Nurse Corps was formed in 1943, she and several other classmates of hers enlisted. She remained at this same school for most of her nurse’s training, but for the last six months she was asked to go to Rhodes General Hospital in Utica, New York, an Army hospital that had been constructed in November 1942. There were 72 total cadet nurses there at the same time as her, six of whom were from Lenox Hill. She was an officer candidate here, so their training was to prepare them for working as charge nurses on the wards with both other nurses and corpsmen. She finished her nurse’s training around the same time the war and Cadet Nurse program ended in August 1945. Although they were technically still obligated to serve in the Army of Navy, the military let nurses like Dorothy stay out of the service. She excelled so much as a cadet nurse that she was offered an Appelli Scholarship to go to the Columbia Hospital and earn a college degree, but her future husband was returning from overseas, so she turned it down to be with him. They married in June 1946 and moved to Berkeley, California together so he could attend University of California: Berkeley. They had two children while in California, he graduated in 1950, they moved to Washington, DC, and had two more children while living there. She worked in both California and DC for some time, but after having their third child, she stopped working for a while. After her husband was majorly injured in a car accident, however, she re-entered nursing in 1972 to supplement the family’s income, retiring in 1994. Because the war ended before she formally entered the Army Nurse Corps, the highest rank Strong reached was cadet nurse, and she didn’t receive any military awards. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Driver, Wanda | Kramer, Ardith

date:

2003-12-05

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

903; 2004.903

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

586170

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-45

rights:

Unrestricted