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![]() A Guide to the Lula Myrtle Rhone Papers, 1900-1975
Biographical NoteBorn in Clinton County, Pennsylvania in 1893, Lula Myrtle Rhone was a nurse in the U.S. Army form June 1918 to 1921. She graduated from training school in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, in 1917 and enrolled in the American Red Cross Nursing Service as a registered nurse in June 1918. Her basic training was at Fort Banks, Massachusetts, and she then served in an Army hospital in Savenay, France. Back in the United States, she took the oath of office in November 1919 and served in the Army Nurse Corps at the Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, California, and the camp hospital in Camp Lewis, Washington. In 1921 she was honorably discharged from military service as a 2nd Lieutenant nurse. Shortly after returning from overseas, Lula married war veteran Frank Deppen who was recovering from severe chemical warfare injures at the Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado. He died from his injures around 1922. They had one daughter, Mona Lisa, eventually renamed Frankie Ellen Deppen. Lula remarried to Samuel Roger Gorrell, from Kentucky, and in 1936 they had a child named Roger Lee Gorrell. The Gorrells settled in Muleshoe, Texas, where Lula worked as a nurse in the Green Hospital and Clinic for 10 years and as a school nurse at the Muleshoe Independent School for another 10 years. She spent the rest of her life in Muleshoe where she died in July 1978. Return to the Table of Contents Scope and ContentsComprised of correspondence, photographs, diaries, certificates, booklets, books, postcards, scraps and clippings, the Lula Myrtle Rhone Papers, 1900-1975, document the experiences of a professional American nurse from her service in the Red Cross and the Army Nurse Corps during World War I and the immediate following years to her practice as a school nurse during the 1950s and 1960s. Her service on a base-hospital in France is revealed by several stamped passes and cards, an American Red Cross badge, official correspondence, photographs, a diary, a song sheet for army nurses, and assorted booklets, photo postcards, scraps and clippings. The correspondence, including letters from her first husband, illustrates the bonds developed between nurses and soldiers. Later service in the Army Nurse Corps is reflected in official documents and certificates. Some official documents relating to both of her husbands’ participation in World War I are also included. Contracts, awards, routine duties, children lists, correspondence and photographs document her school nurse years. The collection includes also personal photographs, which span from the early 1900s to the 1970s, and a number of negatives, slides and audiotapes. Return to the Table of Contents
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Return to the Table of Contents Administrative InformationPreferred CitationLula Myrtle Rhone Papers, 1900-1975, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin. Processing InformationThis collection was processed by Paloma Graciani Picardo, June 2014. This collection contains unprocessed materials. Return to the Table of Contents Detailed Description of the Papers
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