Josephine Heffernan

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Josephine Heffernan
Heffernan in uniform as a Second Lieutenant in 1920
Born(1876-03-11)11 March 1876[1]
Dublin, United Kingdom
Died1962[2]
Bray, Republic of Ireland
NationalityIrish, American
OccupationRegistered Nurse
Years active1913–1935
Known forChief Nurse U.S. Army Nurse Corps

Josephine E. Heffernan (11 March 1876 – 1962) was an Irish-American nurse who served during the First World War. She was born in Dublin and immigrated to the US in 1906, where she joined the United States Army in 1913. She served as a nurse in California and Mississippi, before being stationed at the American hospital at Rimaucourt, France. After the war, Heffernan went on to see service in China, the Philippines, and Pearl Harbor.

In 2002 a bracelet belonging to Heffernan was discovered by a schoolboy in Rimaucourt, who enlisted the aid of his teacher to return the piece to Heffernan's family. The efforts to identify Heffernan and return the bracelet were the subject of a 2017 film documentary which first aired in January of 2018.

Early life[]

Josephine Heffernan was born in Dublin to John Heffernan, who worked as a baker, and Christine Allen.[1][2] Her family later moved to Bray after her father's death.[1][2] There she worked as a book-keeper.[3]

Heffernan emigrated to the United States in 1906.[2][4][5]

Career and later life[]

Heffernan joined the United States Army Nurse Corps in 1913.[2][4][5] In 1917, she became the chief nurse at a hospital at Fort McDowell on Angel Island in California.[6]: 123  She was later transferred to Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi.[6]: 124  She arrived to find Shelby in a state of emergency, with 240 patients and facing shortages of both supplies and staff. She recalled:

We all worked together. Nurses during those days did not spare labor. Meanwhile, time-slips, hadn't any use for them. Nurses stayed on duty until relieved by others ... Marvelous what one can do when emergency calls.[6]: 124 

In 1918, Heffernan was appointed Chief Nurse of U.S. Army Base Hospital No. 59 at the army's Rimaucourt Hospital Center.[2][4][5] After the First World War, Heffernan continued her career in the Army Nurse Corps at stations in the U.S., China, the Philippines, and Hawai'i.[2] In 1920 she was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant, the basic rank for nurses.[3]

Heffernan retired in 1935,[2] and moved back to Bray in 1943.[5] She never married or had children.[5] Heffernan died in 1962.[5]

Bracelet[]

Whilst working in the American hospital, Heffernan lost a bracelet with her name engraved. The bracelet was found in 2002 by an eight-year-old in a garden in Rimaucourt, who asked his teacher for help in locating the owner and their family.[1][2][4][5][7] This led to a 15-year-long search to find out more about Heffernan, in order to return the bracelet. The teacher eventually met with Marjorie Desrosier in 2017, an American Nurse Historian who was giving a local talk about nurses in the First World War.[1] They also enlisted the aid of the local Bray Cualann Historical Society.[3]

The search initially started in the US, as Heffernan was believed to be American, but where ancestry records showed that no-one of that name was born in the years 1880 or 1881.[1][5] The search then widened after she was shown to be of Irish birth.[1][5] The bracelet was returned to Heffernan's family in 2017.[2][4][5][7] The return of the bracelet was filmed, and the search was covered in a French language documentary Josephine H by France 2, which first aired in January of 2018.[1][3][5][7] An exhibition on the discovery of the bracelet was shown at the Yarn storytelling festival in Bray.[8]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h White, Brian (12 January 2018). "The Story Of The Josephine Heffernan Bracelet". County Wicklow Heritage. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j "Talk on Bray nurse Josephine Heffernan who served in WWI". Irish Independent. 17 February 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Josephine Heffernan: 100 Years Ago a Bracelet Was Lost During World War One". . Retrieved 6 December 2018.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Mulraney, Frances (1 November 2017). "Irish US Army nurse's World War I bracelet returned after worldwide hunt". Irish Central. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k "Irishwoman's WWI bracelet returned after worldwide search". Raidió Teilifís Éireann. 1 November 2017. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c Sarnecky, Mary T. (October 1999). A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 3 December 2018. josephine heffernan nurse.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c "De la Haute-Marne aux Etats-Unis : l'histoire d'une infirmière de 14-18". France 3 (in French). 8 January 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  8. ^ "Yarn is back for ninth year". Irish Independent. 3 November 2018. Retrieved 19 December 2018.

External links[]

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