By Gavin Wilk

 

In May 1909, Helen L. Kerrigan, a New York trained nurse and Irish emigrant applied to join the ranks of the American Red Cross (ARC). She received Badge 730 and as part of her official signed agreement, agreed ‘to hold myself in readiness and to enter the service of the American National Red Cross when and where my services may be required as a nurse’.[1] By the time of Kerrigan’s enrolment, the ranks of the Nurses Federation of the ARC consisted of nearly 20,000 members, and as the New York Times noted was in place to ‘furnish volunteer aid to the sick and wounded of armies in the time of war, to carry on a system of relief, national and international, in peace and mitigate the sufferings caused by famine and disaster.’[2] The work of the ARC had in fact been a focus in the news over the previous few months as the organisation’s efforts to offer assistance to the victims of a deadly earthquake in Sicily captured the attention of the American public.[3] Nearly one million dollars had been raised and medical supplies had been shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, the United States (US) government sent upwards of $800,000 in aid and provided naval assistance.

These multi-layered humanitarian efforts were impressive and displayed the dramatic transition within the ARC that had been evolving over the past several years. A central focus of the organisation, as noted by Marian Jones and Julia Irwin, was now to assist American interests within a joint diplomatic and humanitarian context.[4] This international evolution of the ARC would continue and subsequently set the stage for work carried out during the First World War. And as this article will reveal, one of the nurses who contributed to these international ARC war efforts during the war was Kerrigan, who actually served in Europe for a near totality of the conflict. Kerrigan’s experiences provide unique snapshots into the various theatres of war that the ARC was involved in. Her nursing activities, set within the frame of the conflict and a distinguished professional career, also offer a unique biographical historical perspective within the still-emerging history of those nurses affiliated with the ARC during the period.[5]

Kerrigan was born in the mid-1870s to John Kerrigan and Catherine Leonard in Corratubber, Dowra, county Cavan, Ireland.[6] Educated at her local national school, she eventually qualified as a teacher.[7] However, before embarking on an education career in Ireland, Kerrigan decided to emigrate to the US. Although the reasoning for her personal emigration decision is unknown, Kerrigan would have joined the over 400,000 people who departed Ireland between 1891 and 1900.[8] Deciding to leave for the vast majority of these emigrants rested with a desire for greater economic opportunities.[9] For Irish females, another equally important factor in setting their sights to the US was as described by Hasia Diner, ‘the positive upgrading of their status by bringing them to a society that offered greater respect and paid greater homage to women and women’s activities’.[10]

Kerrigan subsequently settled in New York and studied nursing at the New York City Training School for Nurses at Blackwell’s Island. After graduating in June 1897 she, like so many other nurses at the time, undertook initial work as a private nurse, before serving for two and a half years as the head nurse at New York’s Lying-In Hospital.[11] Kerrigan in fact would have worked in the refurbished building on Second Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets which opened its doors to maternity patients in January 1902.[12]

Later in the decade, Kerrigan worked as an ‘office nurse to a surgeon’. She was employed here for five years, and it was during this stint when she was accepted into the ranks of the American Red Cross (ARC).[13]  After joining the ARC, Kerrigan’s career shifted back into the public health realm with the Child Hygiene division of the New York Board of Health. Set up in August 1908 ‘as the first division … under municipal control to deal with the health of children from birth to legal working age’, it focused on reducing infant mortality, providing vaccinations and medical inspections to children, supervising midwives, making sure Child Labor Laws were adhered to, ensuring children received proper medical inspections, and that institutions caring for children were properly run.[14] This work would have proved rigorous and challenging, especially considering that in the initial two and a half years of the division 782,120 examinations were conducted on school children.[15] It is clear that Kerrigan had a focus on furthering the connection with the individuals she cared for. In 1913 and 1914, she took a course at a high school which taught the Italian language.[16] Her goal was presumably to advance her language skills in order to communicate better with the Italian emigrant families she worked with.

In May 1914, Kerrigan sent a short note to Jane Delano, the chair of the National Committee of the ARC Nursing Service, noting that her postal address in New York had changed. She closed the message by declaring that ‘I am … ready for active service if need be’.[17] Upon receiving the message, Delano contacted Annie Rhodes, the secretary of the Manhattan local ARC committee and mentioned Kerrigan’s commitment.[18] A few days later, Delano responded to Kerrigan that she should ‘notify the Manhattan committee of your willingness to serve in case of a call for nurses.’[19] In June, Kerrigan subsequently undertook and passed a medical examination and applied for a foreign service assignment with the ARC.[20] Initially, in early July Kerrigan was told that after submitting her certificate of immunity, she would be ‘placed on the eligible list for appointment should nurses be called upon for service in Mexico’.[21]  However, once war began in Europe a few weeks later, the possible destination of foreign service moved understandably to the European continent, and Kerrigan ‘promptly’ applied for an assignment there.[22]

Kerrigan’s application was at first denied on 25 August because as noted by Delano, ‘it had been decided by the State Department that the Red Cross should at this time send only native born citizens of the United States for Europe’.[23] Within a few days, certain exceptions to this rule had been made, and a ‘Special Group’ of doctors, and nurses who ‘need not be native born’ were to be quickly organised in New York and sail to Europe aboard a commercial steamer. This small unit which was to be placed under the direction of American doctor, Edward Ryan, was destined for southern Europe, and eventually Serbia.[24]

Kerrigan was subsequently chosen to be part of the twelve-person nursing contingent within the unit led by Mary Gladwin.[25] Originally born in England, Gladwin had emigrated to the US with her family as a child and was now one of the most respected nurses in the US. A former superintendent of nurses at the City Hospital of Cleveland and current superintendent of the visiting nurses’ association in Akron, Ohio, as well as the Ohio secretary of the ARC, Gladwin had experience serving overseas in foreign conflicts. She led a nursing unit in the Philippine islands during the Spanish-American War and worked at a Japanese hospital during the Russo-Japanese War.[26] Arrangements were subsequently made in haste and in early September the group of nurses including Delano and Gladwin and the other members gathered in Manhattan at the Park Avenue Hotel.[27] Over the next few days Kerrigan and her colleagues prepared and were given their gear, which included twelve aprons, six collars, one cape, one sweater, six uniforms, four caps, one hat, one steamer rug, and one duffle bag.[28] On 8 September, the contingent promptly departed at 4pm out of New York harbour aboard the Greek ship Ioannina.[29]

Upon arriving in Salonica, Greece, the unit’s members made their way to Belgrade, Serbia where they were asked to run the city’s military hospital. On 15 October, they entered the hospital building and found beds ‘filled with wounded Serbs’.[30] Belgrade was under constant bombardment from the Austro-Hungarian Army, and as Gladwin later described, ‘There was no time during the first six months [of nursing work] that some of the guns were not fired’. [31] Faced with this constant stress, any opportunity for a break was always welcomed by the nurses. On a Sunday afternoon in late October, Kerrigan along with Gladwin and another nurse were invited by a patient’s wife to visit her home for a meal. Although the nurses and hostess could hardly understand each other, a warmness was quite evident. During the walk to the house, Gladwin noted later in her diary that ‘Never was a more satisfactory conversation [occurred in which] we were each perfectly happy.’[32]

By early December, the situation in Belgrade had become extremely tenuous. At the end of November, the Serbian Army evacuated the city due to a lack of ammunition. The Austro-Hungarian army promptly arrived, and the nurses were faced with an ‘insupportable burden of work’ as they had to care for the Austrians, many of whom were wounded, and afflicted with frozen limbs and infections including dysentery, typhoid and typhus.[33] Kerrigan later noted to a friend in a letter, a snippet of which was published in the American Journal of Nursing, that she would ‘never forget the awful sights’ and ‘was to all intents and purposes a prisoner for thirteen days in which the Austrians had possession of the city’.[34] Although the Austrian occupation was brief, as the Serbians re-entered the city before Christmas, the tumultuous and fluid period led to an outbreak of typhus in early 1915 which took the life of a visiting American doctor, and eventually afflicted much of the nursing staff.[35]

On 10 April, Gladwin described in her diary that ‘Nurse Kerrigan took to her bed yesterday. Looks like typhus’.[36] Over two weeks later, Kerrigan was ‘desperately ill’, but looked to be slowly recovering.[37] By 9 May, Gladwin noted she was ‘doing very well and is able to sit up in bed.’[38] Kerrigan slowly recuperated, and in June 1915, she departed Belgrade and eventually Greece through the assistance of tea magnate and philanthropist Thomas Lipton. He had arrived in Salonica with his yacht, the Erin, which had by now been converted into a Red Cross hospital ship, in order to provide assistance to Red Cross staff. Kerrigan subsequently had ‘two weeks of good food and care on board’ the vessel.[39]

Before Kerrigan had left Serbia, Jane Delano received a letter from a friend of Kerrigan’s who declared that ‘Knowing her enthusiasm for her work, she will probably want to stay and work harder than ever, but I suppose the Red Cross will decide whether she stays or not’.[40] As it turned out, Kerrigan did indeed ask to remain in Europe, and the Red Cross in turn re-assigned her to France, where she began working with the renowned bone specialist, Dr. Ralph Fitch, who had opened and was running a hospital in St. Valery-en-Caux on the Normandy coast of northern France.[41] In describing the work, Kerrigan commented that it ‘is quite interesting. The French soldiers make ideal patients, so brave and cheerful and ready to go back to the trenches and fight for their beloved France’.[42]

In late summer 1917, Kerrigan received an award from the Serbian government for her service in Belgrade. When notifying Delano of this, Kerrigan was introspective and deeply pleased, noting ‘My Red Cross cape is faded and torn after three years hard service but I was proud to have my decoration pinned on it’.[43] In October, Kerrigan moved to another assignment at the ARC Hospital in Evreux, France. She worked here for the remainder of the war, and then in 1919 transferred to the Children’s Bureau in Paris. In May 1919, she served in Montenegro on a nursing ‘assignment’ with a French unit. Here she ‘showed a fine spirit and was most efficient and adaptable’.[44] Kerrigan would also receive an award from the French government for her service during and after the war.[45]

Kerrigan returned to the US aboard the Rochambeau in October 1919.[46] She offered a glimpse of her experiences in Europe at a talk at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York in November, before quickly returning to her career as a public health nurse.[47] She soon settled in Rumson, New Jersey, worked as a public health nurse in the state’s Monmouth County, and instructed classes in Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick.[48] Throughout the 1920s, Kerrigan continued to move forward in furthering her education and skills. For example, she took a summer course in Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick at Simmons College in Boston in 1923, and a child study work course at Rutgers University in 1929.[49] She was also involved in raising awareness of public health in the local community, including the importance of proper child dietary habits.[50]

In November 1934, Evelyn Walker, the Supervisor of Red Cross Nursing Posts in Monmouth County wrote to Clara Noyes, the Director of Nursing of the ARC, noting that Kerrigan was approaching fifteen years as a public health nurse in the county. Walker referred to Kerrigan as ‘one of the finest public health nurses that I know … she has a marvelous influence for good in her community and while she has one of the biggest Irish hearts that you could think of, she has not allowed her heart to rule her head’.[51] Nearly three years later, Kerrigan retired. While being honoured at the Rumson Country Club with a ‘testimonial dinner’, Walker described her further as ‘one of our first and finest pioneer public health nurses in Monmouth county’. After being presented with a corsage of roses and a scrapbook, it was announced that she would receive an Afghan blanket with each square created by a different nurse colleague.[52] As Kerrigan’s nursing file shows, even as she moved into retirement, her activity in ARC affairs continued. She served in the Third Reserve of the ARC during the Second World War period, and assisted with local activities including ambulance services.[53] In August 1945, she received an award from the ARC for her ‘meritorious personal service’.[54]

On 20 June 1950, Kerrigan died at Riverview Hospital in Red Bank, New Jersey.[55] This nurse, who was a ‘remarkable influence in her community’ and who had ‘a real understanding of human nature’, impacted many throughout her life.[56] One could only assume that her career as a public health nurse and commitment to the ARC was initially shaped by being an emigrant and reinforced  by her experiences in Europe during the First World War. Indeed, the five years she spent in Europe during and after the conflict clearly formed the cornerstone of her career and life. The memories of the hardships and lessons she experienced would have etched a place in her mind forever and surely emboldened and inspired her as she cared for others.

 

Endnotes

[1] ARC, New York State Branch, Application for General Nursing Service, Helen L. Kerrigan, 15 May 1909, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at: www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. ARC. ‘Nurse’s Agreement’, Helen L. Kerrigan, 15 May 1909, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at: www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[2] Anonymous, ‘The American Red Cross’, New York Times, 3 December 1909, 10. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[3] William Curtis, ‘How Succor Was Carried to Earthquake Sufferers’, Evening Star (Washington, DC), 2 March 1909, 16. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[4] Marian Jones, The American Red Cross from Clara Barton to the New Deal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 138-9; Julia Irwin, Making the World Safe: the American Red Cross and a nation’s humanitarian awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 40-7.

[5] Works include Katherine Johnson, ‘Called to serve: American nurses go to war, 1914-1918’ (Unpublished MA thesis, University of Louisville, 1993). Available at https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd/701/ [Accessed 1 September 2023]; Julia Irwin, ‘Beyond Versailles: Recovering the Voices of-Nurses in Post-World War I U.S.-European Relations’, Nursing History Review, 24/1 (2016), 12-40. Available at https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrnhr/24/1/12 [Accessed 1 September 2023]; Julia Irwin, ‘Nurses Without Borders: The History of Nursing as U.S. International History’, Nursing History Review, 19/1 (2011), 78-102, available at https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrnhr/19/1/78 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[6] Anonymous, ‘Helen Kerrigan’, Asbury Park Press, 21 June 1950. Available at www.newspapers.com[Accessed 1 September 2023]. There are discrepancies with Kerrigan’s actual date of birth in her American Red Cross (hereafter ARC) files. It appears that she was born on 13 December, but the years range from 1873, 1875 and 1876. See ARC, Nurse’s Record for Local Committee, Helen L. Kerrigan, c. 1942, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]; Helen L. Kerrigan, ARC Division Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick Application for Instructor, 5 April 1923, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]; Helen L. Kerrigan, ARC Nursing Service form, c. October 1919, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959. Available at www.ancestry.com  [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[7] Helen L. Kerrigan, ARC Division Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick Application for Instructor, 5 April 1923, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[8] Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 571.

[9] Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 358, 407.

[10] Hasia Diner, Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish immigrant women in the nineteenth century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 72.

[11] Helen L. Kerrigan ARC Nursing Service form, c. October 1919, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959.  Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[12] For more information on the Lying in Hospital, Jeanne Kisacky, ‘Germs are in the details: Aseptic Design and General Contractors at the Lying-In Hospital of the City of New York, 1897-1901’, Construction History, 28/1, 83-106. Available at https://doi.org/10.2307/3406151 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[13] ARC, New York State Branch, Application for General Nursing Service, Helen L. Kerrigan, 15 May 1909, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[14] Helen L. Kerrigan ARC Nursing Service form, c. October 1919, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. S. Josephine Baker, The Division of Child Hygiene of the Department of Health of the City of New York (New York: Health Department City of New York, 1912), 9. Available at https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/contagion/catalog/36-990059769350203941 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[15] Anonymous, ‘Slack Supervision of Children’s Health’, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 17 October 1911, 25. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[16] Kerrigan to Jane Delano, 3 November 1917, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[17] Helen L. Kerrigan to Jane Delano, 8 May 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’, Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[18] Jane Delano to Annie Rhodes, 13 May 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[19] Delano to Kerrigan, 13 May 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[20] ARC Nursing Service Physical Examination, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’, 27 June 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. Delano to Kerrigan, 7 July 1914. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[21] Delano to Kerrigan, 7 July 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[22] Delano to Kerrigan, 25 August 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[23] Delano to Kerrigan, 25 August 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[24] Delano to Mary E. Gladwin, 30 August 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Mary E. Gladwin’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].  578. Ryan was originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and had recently served for the ARC in Mexico. He was in Serbia when the First World War broke out. See Anonymous, ‘Scranton War Hero is Dead in Persia’, Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 September 1923, 11, available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]; Agnes Gardner, ‘American Red Cross Work in Serbia’, The American Journal of Nursing, 16/1 (1915), 36-40, available at https://doi.org/10.2307/3406151 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[25] Anonymous, ‘Good Luck Salutes Greet ‘Red Cross’’, New York Times, 8 September 1914, 6. Available at www.proquest.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[26] Anonymous, ‘Good Luck Salutes Greet ‘Red Cross’’, New York Times, 8 September 1914, 6. Anonymous, ‘Mary Gladwin To Go Abroad As Red Cross Nurse’, Akron Beacon Journal, 2 September 1914, 1. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. Anonymous, ‘Miss Mary Gladwin Will Serve as Nurse in Europe’, Akron Evening Times, 2 September 1914, 1. Available at www.newspapers.com[Accessed 1 September 2023]; Anonymous, ‘Akron Nurse To Leave Soon For Europe War Land’, Akron Evening Times, 3 September 1914, 9. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[27] Delano to Gladwin, 31 August 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Mary E. Gladwin’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[28] ARC European Service Equipment for Nurses for Helen L. Kerrigan, 3 September 1914, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[29] Anonymous, ‘Good Luck Salutes Greet ‘Red Cross’’, New York Times, 8 September 1914, 6. Available at www.proquest.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[30] Lavinia Dock, History of American Red Cross Nursing (New York: MacMillan, 1922), 176. Available at http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/14310740R [accessed 1 September 2023].

[31] Dock, History of American Red Cross Nursing, 177.

[32] Mary E. Gladwin Diary, 9 November 1914, Ohio Memory, World War I in Ohio Collection. Available at https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p16007coll51/id/3431 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[33]  Dock, History of American Red Cross Nursing, 178.

[34] ‘Letters to the Editor’, [piece of letter written from Helen L. Kerrigan to Cadwalder Jones, chairman of City Hospital Advisory Board], American Journal of Nursing, 16:6 (1916), 536. Available at https://doi.org/10.2307/3405075 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[35] Dock, History of American Red Cross Nursing, 179-183.

[36] Mary E. Gladwin Diary, 10 April 1915, Ohio Memory, World War I in Ohio Collection. Available at https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p16007coll51/id/3461 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[37] Mary E. Gladwin Diary, 29 April 1915, Ohio Memory, World War I in Ohio Collection. Available at https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p16007coll51/id/3459 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[38] Nursing Service Efficiency Record, Helen Kerrigan, snippet of note from Gladwin, 9 May 1915, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[39] Delano to Mary Kerrigan, 18 June 1915, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Mary E. Gladwin’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].  Anonymous, ‘Army Nurse Gives Talk at Skidmore’, The Saratogian, 6 November 1919, 2. Available at https://fultonsearch.org/ [accessed 1 September 2023]. For more information on the assistance of Lipton in June 1915, see Gardner, ‘American Red Cross Work in Serbia’, 36-40.

[40] Pauline Meyer to Delano, 10 May 1915, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[41] Kerrigan to Delano, 11 January 1915 (sic) 1916,  US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]; Anonymous, ‘ “Scrub” and “Obey” Watchwords at Dr. Fitch’s Hospital at St. Valery-en-Caux, Speaker Says’, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 12 April 1917, 15.

[42] ‘Letters to the Editor’, [piece of letter written from Helen L. Kerrigan to Cadwalder Jones, chairman of City Hospital Advisor Board], American Journal of Nursing, 16:6, 536. Available at https://doi.org/10.2307/3405075 [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[43] Kerrigan to Delano, 5 September 1917, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[44] Helen L. Kerrigan ARC Nursing Service form, c. October 1919, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[45] Helen L. Kerrigan ARC Nursing Service form, c. October 1919, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. The Daily Register (Red Bank, New Jersey), 10 June 1937, 15. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[46] ‘Helen Kerrigan’, Page 207, Line 27, New York, US, Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, SS Rochambeau, departed Le Havre, France 30 September 1919 and arrived in New York 9 October 1919. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[47] Anonymous, ‘Army Nurse Gives Talk at Skidmore’, The Saratogian, 6 November 1919, 2. Available at https://fultonsearch.org/ [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[48] Nurses Services Slip, Helen Kerrigan, 1 December 2019, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]; Clara Noyes, Director of Nursing, ARC to Evelyn Walker, Supervisor Red Cross Nursing Posts in Monmouth County, 19 November 1934, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[49] ARC, Record of Student’s Work, Helen L. Kerrigan, Summer Course for Hygiene Instructors, Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts, 21 September 1923, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. Annie S. Humphrey, Director, Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick to Isabelle W. Baker, Director, Home Hygiene and Care of Sick, Nat’l, 3 May 1923, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. Anonymous, ‘Rumson News’, The Daily Register, 26 June 1929, 18. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[50] Anonymous, ‘Health Class in Fair Haven School’, Asbury Park Press, 29 October 1921, 1. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[51] Walker to Noyes, 17 November 1934, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[52] Anonymous, ‘County Nurses Pay Tribute to Miss Kerrigan’, The Daily Register (Red Bank, New Jersey), 10 June 1937, 15. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[53] ARC, Nurse’s Record for Local Committee, Helen L. Kerrigan, c. 1942, US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023]. Anonymous, ‘Miss Nelly Porter Taken To Hospital’, The Daily Register, 24 September 1942. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[54] Anonymous, ‘Helen Kerrigan’, Asbury Park Press, 21 June 1950, 2. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[55] Anonymous, ‘Helen Kerrigan’, Asbury Park Press, 21 June 1950, 2. Available at www.newspapers.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].

[56] ARC, Public Health Nursing, Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick Efficiency Report, Helen Kerrigan, signed by Evelyn T. Walker, 14 March 1928. US ARC Nurse Files, 1916-1959, ‘Helen L. Kerrigan’. Available at www.ancestry.com [Accessed 1 September 2023].