View Cenotaph CENOTAPH HERE.
Clayton, Barbour County, Alabama is the birthplace of Katherine Dent, born December 22, 1877. Her parents Anna Virginia Petty and John Herbert Dent (CSA Civil War Veteran) were married there also at the ages of 21 and 24 respectively. She had four brothers. Tragically her mother Anna passed in 1899 when Katherine was only 12. Two years later her father remarried a lady named Katie Doster and they had a son Edmund Doster. Her growing up years are not documented but at one point she enrolled and graduated from nursing school at the New Orleans, Louisiana Sanitarium. Before joining the Red Cross, she practiced nursing professionally in the New Orleans area was a Charter Member of the Louisiana State Graduate Nurses Association and served as its president in 1912.
In her late thirties, the United States declared war on Germany, April 6, 1917 and entered the World War that had been raging in Europe since 1914. Obviously, doctors and nurses would be needed. With only 403 nurses in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) when the war began, the Surgeon General called for volunteers. Women in hospitals and private duty as well as many in training responded. Those already staffing hospitals could join the ANC through the Army’s newly established base hospital system and through the American Red Cross. By the end of the war, 21,480 women served in the Army Nurse Corps rendering service “beyond expectations” at a time when women were not even allowed to vote”. Katherine now a nurse with the Red Cross volunteered for duty in France as an Army Nurse. The Tuscaloosa News printed that she was maintaining a family tradition for loyalty and willingness to serve her country and that she came from fighting stock, being the great-granddaughter of Commodore John Herbert Dent for whom the USS Destroyer Dent was named. The US Army called her to active service on December 9, 1917.
Base Hospital No. 24 was organized in January 1917, at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, and was mobilized August 31, 1917, at Jackson Barracks, Louisiana. On September 3, 1917, the organization was transferred to Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where it was trained and equipped. On February 16, 1918 at age 41, Katherine departed New York Harbor with US Army Base Hospital # 24 aboard the British ship RMS Carmania. The passenger list totaled 1,351 officers, 150 nurses and 2,061 enlisted men. A favorite aunt of the same name, Katherine Dent of Biloxi, Mississippi was listed as her next of kin. They arrived in Liverpool, England, March 4, 1918, and proceeded by way of Southampton and Le Havre to Limoges, Department of Haute Vienne, in base section No. 2, reaching there March 15, 1918. It was the second hospital to arrive at that station, where it formed a part of a three-unit hospital center. The hospital was located in a factory plant, which previously had been occupied by Mobile Hospital No. 39. In addition to the factory plant, there were 14 wooden barracks, used as wards and as quarters.
David Michaels wrote in his booklet “Military Nurses in WW I” May 24, 2019 that “Nurses treated numerous types of wounds, as well as infections and mustard gas burns. They were also faced with soldiers suffering from emotional injuries, including shell shock. Some were trained in social work, including psychiatric training, in order to help current soldiers and those returning home deal with their experiences”. He included this excerpt from the dairy of nurse Helen Boylston “War nursing’s more common hazards included infected fingers, sickness, and physical strain. “My back is busted in two tonight. Slowly, [moving] down the ward, doing the dressings and making the beds,” Boylston wrote in her diary. This frequent changing of dressings and application of antiseptic, though physically exhausting, served a critical medical function in the pre-antibiotic era: It became the most effective method for healing infected war wounds and prevented many limb amputations.
If the carnage of war wasn’t enough, the 1918 Flu Pandemic was attacking worldwide killing hundreds of thousands of people. Unfortunately the military in Europe were not immune and half of those who fell in France was due to the influenza virus. Although a few weeks earlier, Katherine had written to nursing friends that she was “well and busy” she died of pneumonia at Base Hospital # 24 on June 16, 1918. Her father and stepmother were notified by cablegram three days later. Army Nurse Katherine Dent was buried in Grave Number 6, American Cemetery, Limoges, Haute Vienne, France one day after her death.
The Times-Picayune newspaper, New Orleans, Louisiana gave this account of her funeral as written by Ethel A. Holmes, Chief Nurse of Unit # 24. “Miss Dent died as truly ‘on duty’ as any soldier and her loss to the nurse’s corps is a great one. She was happy in her work and has done excellent work, always sacrificing herself to her patients. I believe if she could have chosen her death it would have been the one she had. She was clothed in her uniform, Red Cross cap and the medical insignia pin at her throat. All the officers and nurses attended her funeral (the nurses of another command relieving us on duty), also the enlisted men. I have never witnessed a more impressive burial. The army chaplain, Protestant (Episcopal) officiated and as the bugler blew taps she was lowered into her grave, which we covered with a mass of flowers. Of course all the nurses sent flowers, the most beautiful roses, hydrangeas, pale blue and pale pink, all varieties. One design was a white pillow with a Red Cross in roses. An exquisite wreath which covered the length of the grave was sent by officer of our command. The enlisted men sent two floral designs. The Red Cross workers and even the maids in our dining room sent beautiful roses.”
The World War would continue for another five months and end with the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918. During its activity, March 16, 1918 to January 10, 1919, Hospital Unit # 24 admitted 3,503 surgical and 3,858 medical cases. It ceased to function on January 10 and the members of the unit sailed from St. Nazaire on the Walter A. Luckenbach, April 9, 1919 arriving in New York, April 19. The unit was demobilized at Camp Shelby, Mississippi on May 3, 1919.
Following the war, families of the fallen were in 1919 given the choice of leaving their sons/daughters buried in an American Cemetery in Europe with their comrades or bring them home for reburial in a State/National Cemetery or in a cemetery in their hometown. Father John chose to leave Katherine buried with those she served and served with in France as did approximately 40% of other families making the same decision. On March 2, 1922 the remains US Army Nurse Katherine Dent were reburied for a final time in Grave 35, Plot A, Row 6, Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial Suresnes, Departement des Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France. Day is done, God is nigh.
In 1929 Congress enacted legislation that paid the travel expenses to the grave sites for mothers and widows whose sons/daughters and husbands had died overseas as members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during the war and whose remains were interred in such cemeteries. The cost would be $5 million dollars and 6,693 eligible women would accept the invitation. The program would continue until October 1933. As a stepmother who served in loco parentis (in the place of a parent) to Katherine less than one year before her death Anna Virginia Petty Dent was eligible to make the pilgrimage and did accept the invitation to go after 1930. For unknown reason(s) however, she did not make the trip.
Epilogue: Katherine’s father John passed in August 1928 at the age of 83 and is buried in Montgomery, Alabama. Stepmother Katie lived to age 80, passing November 1940 and is buried in Mobile, Alabama.
It was my honor to write this short biography from available documents found. I know it doesn’t start to do Katherine or her family justice. Lest we forget…Larry E. Hume, Chief Master Sergeant, US Air Force, Retired.
Clayton, Barbour County, Alabama is the birthplace of Katherine Dent, born December 22, 1877. Her parents Anna Virginia Petty and John Herbert Dent (CSA Civil War Veteran) were married there also at the ages of 21 and 24 respectively. She had four brothers. Tragically her mother Anna passed in 1899 when Katherine was only 12. Two years later her father remarried a lady named Katie Doster and they had a son Edmund Doster. Her growing up years are not documented but at one point she enrolled and graduated from nursing school at the New Orleans, Louisiana Sanitarium. Before joining the Red Cross, she practiced nursing professionally in the New Orleans area was a Charter Member of the Louisiana State Graduate Nurses Association and served as its president in 1912.
In her late thirties, the United States declared war on Germany, April 6, 1917 and entered the World War that had been raging in Europe since 1914. Obviously, doctors and nurses would be needed. With only 403 nurses in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) when the war began, the Surgeon General called for volunteers. Women in hospitals and private duty as well as many in training responded. Those already staffing hospitals could join the ANC through the Army’s newly established base hospital system and through the American Red Cross. By the end of the war, 21,480 women served in the Army Nurse Corps rendering service “beyond expectations” at a time when women were not even allowed to vote”. Katherine now a nurse with the Red Cross volunteered for duty in France as an Army Nurse. The Tuscaloosa News printed that she was maintaining a family tradition for loyalty and willingness to serve her country and that she came from fighting stock, being the great-granddaughter of Commodore John Herbert Dent for whom the USS Destroyer Dent was named. The US Army called her to active service on December 9, 1917.
Base Hospital No. 24 was organized in January 1917, at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, and was mobilized August 31, 1917, at Jackson Barracks, Louisiana. On September 3, 1917, the organization was transferred to Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where it was trained and equipped. On February 16, 1918 at age 41, Katherine departed New York Harbor with US Army Base Hospital # 24 aboard the British ship RMS Carmania. The passenger list totaled 1,351 officers, 150 nurses and 2,061 enlisted men. A favorite aunt of the same name, Katherine Dent of Biloxi, Mississippi was listed as her next of kin. They arrived in Liverpool, England, March 4, 1918, and proceeded by way of Southampton and Le Havre to Limoges, Department of Haute Vienne, in base section No. 2, reaching there March 15, 1918. It was the second hospital to arrive at that station, where it formed a part of a three-unit hospital center. The hospital was located in a factory plant, which previously had been occupied by Mobile Hospital No. 39. In addition to the factory plant, there were 14 wooden barracks, used as wards and as quarters.
David Michaels wrote in his booklet “Military Nurses in WW I” May 24, 2019 that “Nurses treated numerous types of wounds, as well as infections and mustard gas burns. They were also faced with soldiers suffering from emotional injuries, including shell shock. Some were trained in social work, including psychiatric training, in order to help current soldiers and those returning home deal with their experiences”. He included this excerpt from the dairy of nurse Helen Boylston “War nursing’s more common hazards included infected fingers, sickness, and physical strain. “My back is busted in two tonight. Slowly, [moving] down the ward, doing the dressings and making the beds,” Boylston wrote in her diary. This frequent changing of dressings and application of antiseptic, though physically exhausting, served a critical medical function in the pre-antibiotic era: It became the most effective method for healing infected war wounds and prevented many limb amputations.
If the carnage of war wasn’t enough, the 1918 Flu Pandemic was attacking worldwide killing hundreds of thousands of people. Unfortunately the military in Europe were not immune and half of those who fell in France was due to the influenza virus. Although a few weeks earlier, Katherine had written to nursing friends that she was “well and busy” she died of pneumonia at Base Hospital # 24 on June 16, 1918. Her father and stepmother were notified by cablegram three days later. Army Nurse Katherine Dent was buried in Grave Number 6, American Cemetery, Limoges, Haute Vienne, France one day after her death.
The Times-Picayune newspaper, New Orleans, Louisiana gave this account of her funeral as written by Ethel A. Holmes, Chief Nurse of Unit # 24. “Miss Dent died as truly ‘on duty’ as any soldier and her loss to the nurse’s corps is a great one. She was happy in her work and has done excellent work, always sacrificing herself to her patients. I believe if she could have chosen her death it would have been the one she had. She was clothed in her uniform, Red Cross cap and the medical insignia pin at her throat. All the officers and nurses attended her funeral (the nurses of another command relieving us on duty), also the enlisted men. I have never witnessed a more impressive burial. The army chaplain, Protestant (Episcopal) officiated and as the bugler blew taps she was lowered into her grave, which we covered with a mass of flowers. Of course all the nurses sent flowers, the most beautiful roses, hydrangeas, pale blue and pale pink, all varieties. One design was a white pillow with a Red Cross in roses. An exquisite wreath which covered the length of the grave was sent by officer of our command. The enlisted men sent two floral designs. The Red Cross workers and even the maids in our dining room sent beautiful roses.”
The World War would continue for another five months and end with the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918. During its activity, March 16, 1918 to January 10, 1919, Hospital Unit # 24 admitted 3,503 surgical and 3,858 medical cases. It ceased to function on January 10 and the members of the unit sailed from St. Nazaire on the Walter A. Luckenbach, April 9, 1919 arriving in New York, April 19. The unit was demobilized at Camp Shelby, Mississippi on May 3, 1919.
Following the war, families of the fallen were in 1919 given the choice of leaving their sons/daughters buried in an American Cemetery in Europe with their comrades or bring them home for reburial in a State/National Cemetery or in a cemetery in their hometown. Father John chose to leave Katherine buried with those she served and served with in France as did approximately 40% of other families making the same decision. On March 2, 1922 the remains US Army Nurse Katherine Dent were reburied for a final time in Grave 35, Plot A, Row 6, Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial Suresnes, Departement des Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France. Day is done, God is nigh.
In 1929 Congress enacted legislation that paid the travel expenses to the grave sites for mothers and widows whose sons/daughters and husbands had died overseas as members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during the war and whose remains were interred in such cemeteries. The cost would be $5 million dollars and 6,693 eligible women would accept the invitation. The program would continue until October 1933. As a stepmother who served in loco parentis (in the place of a parent) to Katherine less than one year before her death Anna Virginia Petty Dent was eligible to make the pilgrimage and did accept the invitation to go after 1930. For unknown reason(s) however, she did not make the trip.
Epilogue: Katherine’s father John passed in August 1928 at the age of 83 and is buried in Montgomery, Alabama. Stepmother Katie lived to age 80, passing November 1940 and is buried in Mobile, Alabama.
It was my honor to write this short biography from available documents found. I know it doesn’t start to do Katherine or her family justice. Lest we forget…Larry E. Hume, Chief Master Sergeant, US Air Force, Retired.
View Cenotaph CENOTAPH HERE.
Clayton, Barbour County, Alabama is the birthplace of Katherine Dent, born December 22, 1877. Her parents Anna Virginia Petty and John Herbert Dent (CSA Civil War Veteran) were married there also at the ages of 21 and 24 respectively. She had four brothers. Tragically her mother Anna passed in 1899 when Katherine was only 12. Two years later her father remarried a lady named Katie Doster and they had a son Edmund Doster. Her growing up years are not documented but at one point she enrolled and graduated from nursing school at the New Orleans, Louisiana Sanitarium. Before joining the Red Cross, she practiced nursing professionally in the New Orleans area was a Charter Member of the Louisiana State Graduate Nurses Association and served as its president in 1912.
In her late thirties, the United States declared war on Germany, April 6, 1917 and entered the World War that had been raging in Europe since 1914. Obviously, doctors and nurses would be needed. With only 403 nurses in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) when the war began, the Surgeon General called for volunteers. Women in hospitals and private duty as well as many in training responded. Those already staffing hospitals could join the ANC through the Army’s newly established base hospital system and through the American Red Cross. By the end of the war, 21,480 women served in the Army Nurse Corps rendering service “beyond expectations” at a time when women were not even allowed to vote”. Katherine now a nurse with the Red Cross volunteered for duty in France as an Army Nurse. The Tuscaloosa News printed that she was maintaining a family tradition for loyalty and willingness to serve her country and that she came from fighting stock, being the great-granddaughter of Commodore John Herbert Dent for whom the USS Destroyer Dent was named. The US Army called her to active service on December 9, 1917.
Base Hospital No. 24 was organized in January 1917, at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, and was mobilized August 31, 1917, at Jackson Barracks, Louisiana. On September 3, 1917, the organization was transferred to Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where it was trained and equipped. On February 16, 1918 at age 41, Katherine departed New York Harbor with US Army Base Hospital # 24 aboard the British ship RMS Carmania. The passenger list totaled 1,351 officers, 150 nurses and 2,061 enlisted men. A favorite aunt of the same name, Katherine Dent of Biloxi, Mississippi was listed as her next of kin. They arrived in Liverpool, England, March 4, 1918, and proceeded by way of Southampton and Le Havre to Limoges, Department of Haute Vienne, in base section No. 2, reaching there March 15, 1918. It was the second hospital to arrive at that station, where it formed a part of a three-unit hospital center. The hospital was located in a factory plant, which previously had been occupied by Mobile Hospital No. 39. In addition to the factory plant, there were 14 wooden barracks, used as wards and as quarters.
David Michaels wrote in his booklet “Military Nurses in WW I” May 24, 2019 that “Nurses treated numerous types of wounds, as well as infections and mustard gas burns. They were also faced with soldiers suffering from emotional injuries, including shell shock. Some were trained in social work, including psychiatric training, in order to help current soldiers and those returning home deal with their experiences”. He included this excerpt from the dairy of nurse Helen Boylston “War nursing’s more common hazards included infected fingers, sickness, and physical strain. “My back is busted in two tonight. Slowly, [moving] down the ward, doing the dressings and making the beds,” Boylston wrote in her diary. This frequent changing of dressings and application of antiseptic, though physically exhausting, served a critical medical function in the pre-antibiotic era: It became the most effective method for healing infected war wounds and prevented many limb amputations.
If the carnage of war wasn’t enough, the 1918 Flu Pandemic was attacking worldwide killing hundreds of thousands of people. Unfortunately the military in Europe were not immune and half of those who fell in France was due to the influenza virus. Although a few weeks earlier, Katherine had written to nursing friends that she was “well and busy” she died of pneumonia at Base Hospital # 24 on June 16, 1918. Her father and stepmother were notified by cablegram three days later. Army Nurse Katherine Dent was buried in Grave Number 6, American Cemetery, Limoges, Haute Vienne, France one day after her death.
The Times-Picayune newspaper, New Orleans, Louisiana gave this account of her funeral as written by Ethel A. Holmes, Chief Nurse of Unit # 24. “Miss Dent died as truly ‘on duty’ as any soldier and her loss to the nurse’s corps is a great one. She was happy in her work and has done excellent work, always sacrificing herself to her patients. I believe if she could have chosen her death it would have been the one she had. She was clothed in her uniform, Red Cross cap and the medical insignia pin at her throat. All the officers and nurses attended her funeral (the nurses of another command relieving us on duty), also the enlisted men. I have never witnessed a more impressive burial. The army chaplain, Protestant (Episcopal) officiated and as the bugler blew taps she was lowered into her grave, which we covered with a mass of flowers. Of course all the nurses sent flowers, the most beautiful roses, hydrangeas, pale blue and pale pink, all varieties. One design was a white pillow with a Red Cross in roses. An exquisite wreath which covered the length of the grave was sent by officer of our command. The enlisted men sent two floral designs. The Red Cross workers and even the maids in our dining room sent beautiful roses.”
The World War would continue for another five months and end with the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918. During its activity, March 16, 1918 to January 10, 1919, Hospital Unit # 24 admitted 3,503 surgical and 3,858 medical cases. It ceased to function on January 10 and the members of the unit sailed from St. Nazaire on the Walter A. Luckenbach, April 9, 1919 arriving in New York, April 19. The unit was demobilized at Camp Shelby, Mississippi on May 3, 1919.
Following the war, families of the fallen were in 1919 given the choice of leaving their sons/daughters buried in an American Cemetery in Europe with their comrades or bring them home for reburial in a State/National Cemetery or in a cemetery in their hometown. Father John chose to leave Katherine buried with those she served and served with in France as did approximately 40% of other families making the same decision. On March 2, 1922 the remains US Army Nurse Katherine Dent were reburied for a final time in Grave 35, Plot A, Row 6, Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial Suresnes, Departement des Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France. Day is done, God is nigh.
In 1929 Congress enacted legislation that paid the travel expenses to the grave sites for mothers and widows whose sons/daughters and husbands had died overseas as members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during the war and whose remains were interred in such cemeteries. The cost would be $5 million dollars and 6,693 eligible women would accept the invitation. The program would continue until October 1933. As a stepmother who served in loco parentis (in the place of a parent) to Katherine less than one year before her death Anna Virginia Petty Dent was eligible to make the pilgrimage and did accept the invitation to go after 1930. For unknown reason(s) however, she did not make the trip.
Epilogue: Katherine’s father John passed in August 1928 at the age of 83 and is buried in Montgomery, Alabama. Stepmother Katie lived to age 80, passing November 1940 and is buried in Mobile, Alabama.
It was my honor to write this short biography from available documents found. I know it doesn’t start to do Katherine or her family justice. Lest we forget…Larry E. Hume, Chief Master Sergeant, US Air Force, Retired.
Clayton, Barbour County, Alabama is the birthplace of Katherine Dent, born December 22, 1877. Her parents Anna Virginia Petty and John Herbert Dent (CSA Civil War Veteran) were married there also at the ages of 21 and 24 respectively. She had four brothers. Tragically her mother Anna passed in 1899 when Katherine was only 12. Two years later her father remarried a lady named Katie Doster and they had a son Edmund Doster. Her growing up years are not documented but at one point she enrolled and graduated from nursing school at the New Orleans, Louisiana Sanitarium. Before joining the Red Cross, she practiced nursing professionally in the New Orleans area was a Charter Member of the Louisiana State Graduate Nurses Association and served as its president in 1912.
In her late thirties, the United States declared war on Germany, April 6, 1917 and entered the World War that had been raging in Europe since 1914. Obviously, doctors and nurses would be needed. With only 403 nurses in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) when the war began, the Surgeon General called for volunteers. Women in hospitals and private duty as well as many in training responded. Those already staffing hospitals could join the ANC through the Army’s newly established base hospital system and through the American Red Cross. By the end of the war, 21,480 women served in the Army Nurse Corps rendering service “beyond expectations” at a time when women were not even allowed to vote”. Katherine now a nurse with the Red Cross volunteered for duty in France as an Army Nurse. The Tuscaloosa News printed that she was maintaining a family tradition for loyalty and willingness to serve her country and that she came from fighting stock, being the great-granddaughter of Commodore John Herbert Dent for whom the USS Destroyer Dent was named. The US Army called her to active service on December 9, 1917.
Base Hospital No. 24 was organized in January 1917, at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, and was mobilized August 31, 1917, at Jackson Barracks, Louisiana. On September 3, 1917, the organization was transferred to Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where it was trained and equipped. On February 16, 1918 at age 41, Katherine departed New York Harbor with US Army Base Hospital # 24 aboard the British ship RMS Carmania. The passenger list totaled 1,351 officers, 150 nurses and 2,061 enlisted men. A favorite aunt of the same name, Katherine Dent of Biloxi, Mississippi was listed as her next of kin. They arrived in Liverpool, England, March 4, 1918, and proceeded by way of Southampton and Le Havre to Limoges, Department of Haute Vienne, in base section No. 2, reaching there March 15, 1918. It was the second hospital to arrive at that station, where it formed a part of a three-unit hospital center. The hospital was located in a factory plant, which previously had been occupied by Mobile Hospital No. 39. In addition to the factory plant, there were 14 wooden barracks, used as wards and as quarters.
David Michaels wrote in his booklet “Military Nurses in WW I” May 24, 2019 that “Nurses treated numerous types of wounds, as well as infections and mustard gas burns. They were also faced with soldiers suffering from emotional injuries, including shell shock. Some were trained in social work, including psychiatric training, in order to help current soldiers and those returning home deal with their experiences”. He included this excerpt from the dairy of nurse Helen Boylston “War nursing’s more common hazards included infected fingers, sickness, and physical strain. “My back is busted in two tonight. Slowly, [moving] down the ward, doing the dressings and making the beds,” Boylston wrote in her diary. This frequent changing of dressings and application of antiseptic, though physically exhausting, served a critical medical function in the pre-antibiotic era: It became the most effective method for healing infected war wounds and prevented many limb amputations.
If the carnage of war wasn’t enough, the 1918 Flu Pandemic was attacking worldwide killing hundreds of thousands of people. Unfortunately the military in Europe were not immune and half of those who fell in France was due to the influenza virus. Although a few weeks earlier, Katherine had written to nursing friends that she was “well and busy” she died of pneumonia at Base Hospital # 24 on June 16, 1918. Her father and stepmother were notified by cablegram three days later. Army Nurse Katherine Dent was buried in Grave Number 6, American Cemetery, Limoges, Haute Vienne, France one day after her death.
The Times-Picayune newspaper, New Orleans, Louisiana gave this account of her funeral as written by Ethel A. Holmes, Chief Nurse of Unit # 24. “Miss Dent died as truly ‘on duty’ as any soldier and her loss to the nurse’s corps is a great one. She was happy in her work and has done excellent work, always sacrificing herself to her patients. I believe if she could have chosen her death it would have been the one she had. She was clothed in her uniform, Red Cross cap and the medical insignia pin at her throat. All the officers and nurses attended her funeral (the nurses of another command relieving us on duty), also the enlisted men. I have never witnessed a more impressive burial. The army chaplain, Protestant (Episcopal) officiated and as the bugler blew taps she was lowered into her grave, which we covered with a mass of flowers. Of course all the nurses sent flowers, the most beautiful roses, hydrangeas, pale blue and pale pink, all varieties. One design was a white pillow with a Red Cross in roses. An exquisite wreath which covered the length of the grave was sent by officer of our command. The enlisted men sent two floral designs. The Red Cross workers and even the maids in our dining room sent beautiful roses.”
The World War would continue for another five months and end with the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918. During its activity, March 16, 1918 to January 10, 1919, Hospital Unit # 24 admitted 3,503 surgical and 3,858 medical cases. It ceased to function on January 10 and the members of the unit sailed from St. Nazaire on the Walter A. Luckenbach, April 9, 1919 arriving in New York, April 19. The unit was demobilized at Camp Shelby, Mississippi on May 3, 1919.
Following the war, families of the fallen were in 1919 given the choice of leaving their sons/daughters buried in an American Cemetery in Europe with their comrades or bring them home for reburial in a State/National Cemetery or in a cemetery in their hometown. Father John chose to leave Katherine buried with those she served and served with in France as did approximately 40% of other families making the same decision. On March 2, 1922 the remains US Army Nurse Katherine Dent were reburied for a final time in Grave 35, Plot A, Row 6, Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial Suresnes, Departement des Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France. Day is done, God is nigh.
In 1929 Congress enacted legislation that paid the travel expenses to the grave sites for mothers and widows whose sons/daughters and husbands had died overseas as members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during the war and whose remains were interred in such cemeteries. The cost would be $5 million dollars and 6,693 eligible women would accept the invitation. The program would continue until October 1933. As a stepmother who served in loco parentis (in the place of a parent) to Katherine less than one year before her death Anna Virginia Petty Dent was eligible to make the pilgrimage and did accept the invitation to go after 1930. For unknown reason(s) however, she did not make the trip.
Epilogue: Katherine’s father John passed in August 1928 at the age of 83 and is buried in Montgomery, Alabama. Stepmother Katie lived to age 80, passing November 1940 and is buried in Mobile, Alabama.
It was my honor to write this short biography from available documents found. I know it doesn’t start to do Katherine or her family justice. Lest we forget…Larry E. Hume, Chief Master Sergeant, US Air Force, Retired.
Inscription
NURSE BASE HOSPITAL 24 A.N.C.
Gravesite Details
Entered the service from Louisiana.
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Half Siblings
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