Myrtle J. Nash, along with her twin Mabel, were born to William Abraham Nash (a farmer who had served in the 47th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War) and Sarah Elizabeth Goudy Nash in Illinois on 10 Mar 1882; they had two brothers. The sisters attended Pawnee Academy in Pawnee City, Nebraska, and Nash initially gave music lessons. By 1906, she was a nurse in Kansas City, and the January 1913 Red Cross Bulletin noted that she had assisted in relief efforts in Mississippi after the 1912 flood.
Described by the 9 Aug. 1919 [Topeka] Kansas Farmer as “slight, dainty, with a merry twinkle in her eye” [her 1917 passport application listed her as 5 foot, 1 1/2 inches], Nash sailed for Europe on the SS St. Paul in May 1917 as part of the St. Louis unit (a medical unit spearheaded by the Washington University in St. Louis medical school). She worked at Base Hospital No. 21 in Rouen in 1917–18 before serving at Coblenz No. 9 in 1919 with the U.S. Third Army (which was on occupation duty).
Over two years, she wrote letters home that appeared in a variety of newspapers. Although a newspaper noted that one letter was heavily censored, Nash’s facility for observation and description still can be seen.
The first stop for the St. Louis unit was England. Wrote Nash in a 4 Sept. 1917 letter to her friend Mary Carlisle (published in the 1 Oct. 1917 Atchison [KS] Daily Globe, 5):
We had a delightful stay in London. …. We were entertained at Mrs. Whitelaw Reid’s [Elisabeth Mills Reid, an American], [US] Ambassador [Walter Hines] Page’s and Mrs. Waldorf Astor’s [the American-born Nancy Langhorne Astor, who was an MP]. Mrs. Astor’s large estate has been rented by the Canadians as a convalescent hospital. It is wonderful. It accommodates about 2,000 patients.
Then the unit headed to Rouen, where Base Hospital No. 21 was set up on a racecourse. According to the Activities of Base Hospital 21, the hospital cared for mostly British and overseas troops (some 58,710) and 2,833 Americans in more than 18 months, with a morality rate of about 2 percent. Nash wrote her sister Mabel on 3 July 1917 (published in the 9 Aug. 1917 Hoxie [KS] Sentinel [1]):
Continue readingI can not write the conditions here for they are beyond words, but I know we are doing wonderful work and our patients are so appreciative. I have charge of a tent ward, or rather two—twenty-eight beds. There are hundreds of patients in the camp. I have all surgical cases. We have a large medical department though.
I have the amputations, nearly all the wounds of course are infected and terrible ones at that, where a bullet goes through the thigh and riddles the leg. One patient of mine has five wounds below the knee, a gangrenous foot all shattered to pieces, three wounds above the knee and two toes amputated on the other foot. We sent one patient home with both legs, one arm and three fingers from the other hand gone, but he left singing, “I want to go back to Blighty.”They are so brave, we give very little hypos, they have had so many inoculations that they hate the needle and prefer to stand the pain. I have some so young, only 19 and have been in service two years. We have graphophones [sic] and accordions in the wards. How the men do sing and play.
…. We have to learn French for we can not buy unless we can talk their language. I began lessons Saturday, the lesson lasting from two to three. ….
Tomorrow is the Fourth [of July] and I have sent for little U.S. flags for each of my patients. We are going to have quite a celebration, base ball between the Cleveland unit and ours [Nash indicated in her 1 Oct 1917 letter that the Cleveland, aka Lakeside, unit was about 1 mile away from her location; and the Activities of Base Hospital 21 stated that the St. Louis unit won all its games against the Cleveland unit]. I want to go.
We like our superintendent, Miss [Julia] Stimson, so much. She is a graduate of Vassar and the daughter of a Congregational minister [Henry A. Stimson]. She puts church above every thing, we must attend prayer meeting at night if possible and church on Sunday. Our dean is Episcopal but we have Scotch Presbyterian services too on Sunday. ….
It rains nearly every day but the sun shines most all of the time. We live in huts, very comfortable now but they say they are terribly cold in winter. I sleep under three blankets and in my bath robe each night. We eat five times a day, at 7 a.m., 9 a.m., noon, 4 p.m., and 7 p.m., and we are always hungry. The doctors go to tea the same as we.
I am enjoying my work so much and there is so much good to be done and now our boys are at the front and will soon need us and we are ready for them, but … they can be no braver than the British, and their politeness such as I have never seen before. It is almost painful at times for it is, “No, sister,” “That is lovely, sister,” “O, thank you sister,” until we are nearly “sistered” to death. Even the colonels in the English army salute the nurses but our Americans don’t trouble themselves. We like our American medical officers very much they are so professional and that is what we have to be in the army.
American Women in World War I 