Nora Emilie Anderson, ANC, Base Hospital 68

Special thanks to Chery Kinnick, herself of Norwegian descent,

and author of the blog, Nordic Blue, who contributed this entry.

“She is a good girl and a good nurse.”

Not many forgotten fallen of World War I were fortunate enough to have a personalized record made of their last hours on earth. The story of this unexpected blessing bestowed upon Nora Emilie Anderson, as she lay dying in an overseas American military hospital, would eventually reach grateful family members back in Minnesota.

Nora had served as an Army Corps nurse at Base Hospital 68, Mars-sur-Allier, France for several months when she fell ill, presumably with Spanish Influenza. She then contracted spinal meningitis, which ended up taking her life on January 16, 1919.¹ Ironically, the armistice had been signed weeks before, in November 1918. Many American medical personnel remained in Europe to continue helping with the sick and the wounded.

In October 1918, the weekly bulletin of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe documented a sharp rise in reports of cerebrospinal meningitis approximately 1 week after sharp increases in reports of influenza and pneumonia. The bulletin noted that “it has been a usual observation that when infections of the upper respiratory tract prevail, the incidence of meningitis in the community increases soon after and this rule prevails at present.²

An account of Nora’s last days was related in empathetic detail by a chaplain who attended her. Gustav Stearns, 127th Infantry, AEF, was present at Mars-sur-Allier during the 1918 holiday season. He later published his recollections in the Lutheran Church Herald. After preaching a Christmas sermon to wounded American soldiers at Convalescent Camp No.1, he was asked to take greetings of peace and goodwill to wounded German Army soldiers at the camp. Before the end of the day, Stearns was approached by a Roman Catholic chaplain who also wore an American army uniform.³

The Catholic chaplain assigned to Base Hospital 68 was urgently looking for a Protestant chaplain to give Holy Communion to a woman of Lutheran faith who lay dying. He encouraged Stearns to follow him at once. “She is a good girl and a good nurse. Her name is Nora Anderson. She has worked hard and faithfully to bring comfort to our sick and wounded soldiers,” the Catholic chaplain told Stearns. He also made known that the young nurse’s dying request was to receive Holy Communion from a Lutheran pastor, and to hear him speak in the language of her childhood: Norwegian. The Catholic chaplain was relieved that he was able to secure the help of a Protestant pastor, even if some of the other particulars could not be met.⁴

When they entered the room where Nora lay, Stearns saw that her head was bandaged and she seemed unable to move. Her eyes were open, however, and she was able to see the two men as they approached. The Catholic chaplain spoke to Nora in a quiet and reassuring tone. “I told you I was going to find a Protestant chaplain for you, did I not?” He then left Stearns with Nora, who began his visit with a Scripture passage and a prayer. When asked if she would like to have him write to her family back home, Nora replied:

Yes. I know I have not long to live. Tell my folks that I was not afraid to die. Tell them I believe that Jesus died for me and that He will welcome me in heaven. And then, there is something else. You see, this is Christmas, and I would like to have you tell them that I said, ‘Glædelig Jul’ [Norwegian for ‘Merry Christmas’].⁵

Nora was a second-generation Norwegian-American born to immigrants Nels Klagstad Anderson and Elisa Olsdatter Thorsen on January 15, 1881, in Rock Dell. The township, located in Olmstead County in the southeastern corner of Minnesota, got its name from Quartzite outcroppings in the area.⁶ Nora was a school teacher in Red Lake County, Minnesota and North Dakota for about ten years.

⁷

She then followed her desire to work in the medical field and entered nurse’s training at the Deaconess Hospital in Grand Forks, North Dakota, graduating in 1911.⁸ Serving the Red River Valley near the Canadian border, it was the first hospital in America built and owned by a Scandinavian.⁹ As soon as the United States entered the war in April 1917, Nora wanted to enlist as a Red Cross nurse. She ended up deferring for a while due to her mother’s illness.

After enlisting in the Army Nurse Corps on February 20, 1918, she was assigned to duty at Camp Custer, Michigan until August of that year. She was sent on overseas duty in September with other members of Base Camp 68, organized earlier that year at Camp Crane in Allentown, Pennsylvania.¹⁰ Together with 86 other Army Corps nurses, Nora was transported aboard the Balmoral Castle from Hoboken, New Jersey to Southhampton, England, followed by additional transport on the Gloucester Castle, which disembarked from Southhampton on October 1, 1918.¹¹

When Nora became gravely ill in late December and was visited by Chaplain Stearns in her hospital room at Mars-sur-Allier, she told him about her home in Minnesota:

[My parents] are Norwegian Lutherans, and so am I. I have been lying here thinking about Minnesota at Christmas time. The wide prairies and the snow-drifts and the big Christmas trees and the church services and I suppose it isn’t very brave of me, but I’m just a little homesick... Have you ever been out in Minnesota, Chaplain?¹²

Chaplain Stearns broke some good news to Nora as gently as possible, since he did not want to excite her and worsen her condition. He asked her to keep perfectly quiet and then said that not only had he been to Minnesota, but he was also born there. He was also a graduate of St. Olaf College and a pastor of the Lutheran Church. Stearns then began giving her Holy Communion in Norwegian, fulfilling her last wish.¹³

At first, Nora assumed a faraway look, and then closed her eyes as if imaging she was elsewhere while listening to his words. When the pastor finished communion, she responded to him in Norwegian and expressed her gratitude. She lingered between life and death for another two weeks afterward. The chaplain later wrote to Nora’s father. “The reply of gratitude which he sent me, I shall treasure until my dying day,” Stearns offered.¹⁴

The day after her death, Nora Emilie Anderson was buried with full military honors at the American Hospital Cemetery at Mars-sur-Allier. The funeral procession was headed by an escort of dozens of soldiers, as well as Chaplain Stearns, who preached her funeral sermon. The casket was covered with an American flag and transported by a hearse.¹⁵ She was the last of five nurses to die at the Base Camp 68 hospital in France. The others were: Mary Burke (d. October 7, 1918), Henrietta Drummond (d. October 10, 1918), Grace Micheau (d. October 28, 1918), and Gladys N. Lyon (d. December 19, 1918).¹⁶

Nora’s body was later relocated to St. Mihiel American Cemetery, Thiacourt, Meurthe-et-Moselle in France, Grave #30, Row 11, Block A.¹⁷ The Anderson family placed a cenotaph near their home at Landstad Cemetery, Pennington County, Minnesota, so they would have a place to visit and honor Nora’s memory.¹⁸ For her military service, she received a Nurse Corps Badge and World War I Victory Medal.¹⁹

The sentiments of Nora’s fellow military personnel at the end of the war can best be represented by a memoriam published in a Base Hospital 68 history:

Our happiness in returning to America was tempered with one solemn thought... Every [person] felt the regret that these comrades who had shared our joy in sailing for France, to do our little part for Freedom, could not be spared to share the joy of our home-coming. But it is for us, the living, to hope that as good and as honorable a death awaits us...²⁰

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References:

1. U.S., Veteran’s Administration Master Index [online database]. FamilySearch.org (accessed November 2, 2020).
2. John F. Brundage. “Interactions between influenza and bacterial respiratory pathogens: implications for pandemic preparedness.” Lancet Infectious Diseases, May 6, 2006; 6(5): 303-312 [online], PMC; U.S. National Libraries of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7106411/ (accessed November 2, 2020).
3. Gustav Stearns. “Christmas in France, 1918.” Lutheran Church Herald (Dec. 19??); [article online]: “Nora ‘Emelia’ Anderson, ANC, Her Service, Illness and Death as written by her attending clergyman,” The United State World War One Centennial Commission [online database], https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/nurses-we-remember/1349-nora-emelia-anderson-anc-her-service-illness-and-death-as-written-by-her-minister.html (accessed November 2, 2020).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. U.S., Veteran’s Administration Master Index [database online]. FamilySearch.org (accessed November 1, 2020), Nora E. Anderson; Find-a-Grave.com, Nora Emilie Anderson; Landstad Cemetery, Thief River Falls, Minnesota [cenotaph], Memorial ID 53364997.
7. Gustav Stearns. “Christmas in France, 1918”; Minnesota, Territorial and State Censuses, 1849-1905 [database online], Ancestry.com (accessed November 4, 2020), Nora E. Anderson; Sanders, Red Lake, Minnesota; 1905.
8. “Public Member Trees” [database online], Ancestry.com (accessed November 4, 2020), “Koehn_2010-01-25_2012-03-22” family tree by youngjc_1, profile for Nora Emilie Anderson (1881-1919), “Death in France of Local Nurse: Nora E. Anderson Died Jan. 16 While On Overseas Duty,” undocumented [1919?] Minnesota news clipping.
9. “Grand Forks Deaconess Hospital (Grand Forks, N.D.).” SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context), [online database], https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6w720df (accessed November 4, 2020).
10. North Dakota Military Men, 1917-1918 [database online], Ancestry.com (accessed November 5, 2020),” Nora ‘Emile’ Anderson.”
11. U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939 [database online], Ancestry.com(accessed November 3, 2020), Nora E. Anderson.
12. Gustav Stearns. “Christmas in France, 1918.”
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. “Public Member Trees” [database online], Ancestry.com (accessed November 4, 2020), “Koehn_2010-01-25_2012-03-22” family tree by youngjc_1, profile for Nora Emilie Anderson.
16. Alpha Reuben Sawyer, United States Base Hospital 68 A.E. F.: History of the Organization and Personnel (Boston: Griffith-Stillings), 1920. p.64.
17. Nora Emilie Anderson,” HonorStates.org, https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=141510(accessed November 4, 2020).
18. Find-a-Grave.com, Nora Emilie Anderson; Landstad Cemetery, Thief River Falls, Minnesota [cenotaph], Memorial ID 53364997.
19. Nora Emilie Anderson,” HonorStates.org.
20. Sawyer, United States Base Hospital 68 A.E. F., p.64.