25 March 1918 : Nurse Patricia Irene Byron, US Army Nurse Corps

Patricia Byron was born 10 October 1882 in Butler, Pennsylvania.

 Location of Butler, Pennsylvania in the north east of the USA (cc OpenStreetMap)

Ms Byron graduated from Hope Hospital, Ft Wayne in 1906.

Allen County Tuberculosis Hospital  (c) Allen County Hospital 2022

Patricia was appointed Superintendent of the Allen County Tuberculosis Hospital soon afterwards. In the summer of 1917, she volunteered to be an Army nurse and was sent to Camp McArthur in Texas where she died, of tuberculosis, on 25 March 1918.

Nurses at Base Hospital Camp,  Waco, Texas. Source: George H. Williams papers, #3297, Box 179, Folder 9. The Texas Collection. © 2022 Baylor University

 

She is buried in Fullerton, California, the ‘Irene Byron Hospital', Allen County was named in her honour.

25 March 1918

Further Reading : A Fort Wayne Nurse, a Public Health Crisis, and World War I: Irene Byron and the Anti-Tuberculosis Crusade. Peggy Seigel, Indiana Magazine of History, Indiana University Press. Vol.117, No.1, March 2021. pp 13-47.

Additional images © 2022 Allen County Department of Health and Baylor University.