Ruth Beery wrote letters to the next-of-kin of soldiers who had died at the 8th Evacuation Hospital. Her letters were brief - affirming that the loved one had been cared for in a hospital by doctors and nurses who did everything they could for his comfort and recovery.
Ruth Beery was born on May 18, 1901, in Missouri to a Methodist minister, Dewitt Aldine Beery, and his wife, Jennie. Her family moved to Virginia when she was four. Following completion of her secondary school studies at Jefferson High School in Roanoke, she attended and graduated from Emory and Henry College. Beery then trained at the University of Virginia Hospital where she remained as an instructor in science at the School of Nursing. While later a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, she was asked to be the principal chief nurse of the World War II hospital sponsored by the University of Virginia. Before she could accept the offer, the Army had to grant her an age waiver as she was 41, one year older than the Army age limit for entering service. Read more
During World War II Captain Ruth Beery kept a small black notebook labeled "Addresses of Deceased." Her earliest entry is dated December 23, 1943, and her last, more than 200 deaths later, is dated May 23, 1945, about two weeks after Victory in Europe Day.... After the war Beery wrote letters to the next-of-kin of many of the soldiers who had died at the 8th Evacuation Hospital.... Assuming that Beery kept all of the letters she received in response to her letters, nearly half of the next-of-kin wrote her back. These 53 letters form the bulk of the Ruth Beery collection and range from a polite thank you penned by a remarried wife to the desperate pleas for more information about a beloved son. Read more
The collection includes "form" letters written by Ruth Beery to the next-of-kin and the 53 letters that she received in response. Read the Letters
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