- Gertrude Nelson
Gertrude DeWitt Nelson (
December 26 ,1898 -November 29 ,2001 ) was anAfrican American military, civilian, andAmerican Red Cross nurse fromLouisiana whose career spanned much of the 20th century. She was born at the end of the 19th century and died at the start of the 21st century.Nelson was born in Colfax, the seat of
Grant Parish , which is named for Schuyler M. Colfax, the vice president underU.S. President Ulysses S. Grant . She received her early education from the J.B. LaFarge School in Alexandria, the seat ofRapides Parish , in central Louisiana. OnJune 20 ,1929 , she earned abachelor's degree in nursing from theTuskegee Institute inTuskegee, Alabama , anhistorically black college , which includedGeorge Washington Carver andBooker T. Washington on the faculty and in the administration. After her Tuskegee years, Nelson taught atBishop College in Marshall, the seat of Harrison County,Texas . She was also the dean of women at Bishop, another historically black institution which opened its doors in 1881 and closed permanently, having relocated to Dallas, in 1988.Thereafter, Nelson worked as a nurse at a hospital on
Rikers Island inNew York City , where one of her patients for a time wasMary Mallon , or "Typhoid Mary ". She was later recruited by the Red Cross for duty with theU.S. Army Nurse Corp duringWorld War II . She achieved the rank of major before she retired from the Army and returned to her home area in Pineville, across the Red River from Alexandria. She was a nurse for the Cenla [Central Louisiana] Community Action Committee, the Alexandria-Pineville "anti-poverty " program established byGreat Society legislation. She worked in areahospital s,nursing home s and did volunteer work for many years.Nelson died in the Veterans Affairs Medical Nursing Home in Pineville at the age of 102 years and eleven months. She was survived by two adopted children, Gerald Williams of
Atlanta, Georgia , and Linda Nelson of the Taylor Hill community in Rapides Parish.Services were held in Nelson's home church, the Union
Baptist Church in Colfax. Interment was in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Pineville with full military honors through the Alexandria/Pineville Veterans Honor Guard. She often attended the Good Hope Baptist Church in Pineville.On
December 27 ,1998 , thenMayor Fred H. Baden issued a proclamation declaring "Gertrude Nelson Day" in Pineville. It was one day after her hundredth birthday.The family requested memorials to the
Alzheimer's Association, P.O. Box 2471, Monroe, Louisiana 71207.References
* [http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=john+baden+of+pineville%2C+la.%2C+obit&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&u=ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/la/rapides/obits/dec2001.txt&w=john+baden+pineville+la+obit+obits&d=QzWIkOxsOS9j&icp=1&.intl=us US GenWeb]
* [http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi rootsweb]
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