Cora Elm

Cora Elm (February 18, 1891 – June 9, 1949) was an American nurse. She was a member of the Oneida Nation, and attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School from 1906 to 1913. She served as a Red Cross nurse in France during World War I.

Cora Elm
A young Oneida woman wearing a white nurse's cap and uniform
Cora Elm in nurse's uniform in 1916
BornFebruary 18, 1891
Oneida reservation, Wisconsin
DiedJune 9, 1949
North Carolina
Other namesCora Sinnard (married name)
OccupationNurse

Early life and education

Elm was born on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin, one of eleven children born to Nicholas Elm and Jane Hill Elm. Her home language was Oneida.[1] Her father was a farmer, born in Canada,[2] and her grandmother was a midwife. Her grandfather Jacob Hill was a hereditary chief in the Oneida nation.[3] She attended the Carlisle Indian School from 1906 to 1913,[4] and trained as a nurse at the Episcopal Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia, graduating in 1916.[5][6]

Career

Elm worked as supervisor of the wards at the Episcopal Hospital after she graduated. Elm participated in demonstration for women's suffrage at the White House in 1917.[7]

In December 1917[8] Elm volunteered for overseas service and sailed to France, where she worked as a Red Cross nurse at the base hospital in Nantes.[9] Elm wrote about her wartime experiences for the Carlisle Arrow magazine.[10] "My life overseas was not very easy. Although I was in a base hospital, I saw a lot of the horrors of war. I nursed many a soldier with a leg cut off, or an arm", she later wrote.[5] In 1920 she was sent by the Red Cross to do relief work in Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania.[5] She was one of the two Native American nurses known to serve in Europe during the war (the other being Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture), though others served in stateside military hospitals.[11]

After marriage and motherhood, she was a ward supervisor at Fort Bayard in New Mexico, and at Wood Veterans Hospital in Milwaukee.[5]

Personal life

Elm married James E. Sinnard in 1921.[12] They had a son, James Jr., born in 1926, before they divorced. In 1934, she was charged with breaking her husband's car windows, and her brother and two other men were charged with assault against her husband, but the charges were dropped.[13] Her son served in World War II.[14] She died in 1949, aged 58 years, at a veterans' hospital in North Carolina.[3] She was buried with military honors, and her gravesite at Holy Apostles Church Cemetery in Oneida includes a military headstone.[15]

References
  1. Lewis, Herbert S.; McLester, L. Gordon (2005-01-01). Oneida Lives: Long-lost Voices of the Wisconsin Oneidas. U of Nebraska Press. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-8032-8043-4.
  2. "Nicholas Elm, 86, Hobart Town, Dies". Green Bay Press-Gazette. 1935-04-17. p. 18. Retrieved 2021-10-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Indian Nurse in First World War Dies in Hospital". Green Bay Press-Gazette. 1949-06-13. p. 29. Retrieved 2021-10-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Commencement Week for Carlisle Indians". Philadelphia Inquirer. March 30, 1913. p. 6. Retrieved October 11, 2021 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  5. Foxwell, E. (2017-06-05). "Cora Elm, Native American nurse in WWI France". American Women in World War I. Archived from the original on 2017-09-30. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  6. Hauptman, Laurence M. (Fall 2018). "On the Western Front: Two Iroquois Nurses in World War I". NMAI Magazine. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  7. "Indian Girls Will Plead for Suffrage". March 1, 1917. Retrieved October 11, 2021.
  8. "A Red Cross Nurse". The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man: 2. December 21, 1917.
  9. "Indian Girls as Trained Nurses". The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man: 6–7. June 7, 1918.
  10. "News from Cora Elm". The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man. 14: 1. 1917.
  11. Stur, Heather (2019-09-26). The U.S. Military and Civil Rights Since World War II. ABC-CLIO. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-4408-4206-1.
  12. "Nursing News and Announcements". The American Journal of Nursing. 21: 429. 1921.
  13. "Eugene Frazo Pays $33.41 Fine, Costs for Theft of Tire". Green Bay Press-Gazette. 1934-08-07. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-10-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "James Sinnard Jr". Green Bay Press-Gazette. 1985-03-06. p. 10. Retrieved 2021-10-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "American Indians in WWI: Army Nurse Corps". World War I Centennial. Archived from the original on 2021-04-14. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
  • Thielel, "Biography" Voices from the Carlisle Indian School (May 15, 2017); a blogpost about Cora Elm Sinnard, including her 1917 passport photo
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