Ramsey County History – Summer 2017: “The Ties That Bind: Mounds-Park Nurses and the Great War”

 The Ties That Bind: Mounds-Park Nurses and the Great War
Author: Johannes R. Allert

After the United States entered World War I in 1917, some graduates of the Mounds-Park Nursing School in St. Paul joined the American Red Cross, which played a supportive role in the conflict, and twenty-four graduates volunteered for service in the ranks of the US military. Because most of the American soldiers who were seriously wounded in France were shipped home to US Navy hospitals for additional medical treatment and rehabilitation, nineteen of the Mounds-Park nurses provided care for these casualties. Just when the medical staffs at these hospitals were providing treatment to so many who had been wounded in the last months of 1918, they also had to confront the world-wide influenza pandemic. This essay focuses on the service of two Mounds-Park nurses, Anna Dahlby and Esther Kirbach, who died from the flu and are forever remembered at Ramsey County’s Peace Memorial.
PDF of Allert article