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Nurse Ethel Gladstone Shapiro

  • Unit: Army Nurse Corps, 3rd Army Expeditionary Forces
  • Date of Birth: May 24, 1893
  • Entered the Military: March 15, 1918
  • Date of Death: May 22, 1987
  • Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
  • Cemetery: Section 23, Site 253. Quantico National Cemetery, Triangle, Virginia
Contributed by Mr. Jamie Sawatzky
Rocky Run Middle School
2017–2018

Before the War

Ethel Gladstone was born in England in 1893. Gladstone and her family moved to the Chicago area around 1900. Her father, Lemach, passed away in 1908 and her mother, Toba, died in 1912 leaving Gladstone and her five siblings to fend for themselves.

Gladstone took nursing classes at West Side Hospital in Chicago becoming a registered nurse in 1916. In March 1918, with the United States at war with Germany and the Central Powers, Gladstone joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and served with the 3rd Army Expeditionary Forces. With very little training, Gladstone was sent to France arriving in early summer 1918.

Recruitment poster for nurses in World War I, 1918. American Red Cross. National Library of Medicine (C04102).

Military Experience

Gladstone was immediately sent to Evacuation Hospital Number 7 in eastern France. Evacuation hospitals were mobile, temporary hospitals where doctors and nurses tended to wounded soldiers. At Evacuation Hospital Number 7, Gladstone and her fellow nurses dealt with the overwhelming number of American casualties resulting from the Battle of St. Mihiel in September 1918. 

The operating teams at this temporary hospital faced 170 surgeries per day, while the facility was designed to perform approximately 144 surgeries per day. Gladstone and her fellow nurses received commendations from Major General Charles P. Summerall for bravery and devotion to duty during the Battle of St. Mihiel.  

After the war, Gladstone remained in Europe serving as a nurse in the occupied areas of Germany. She and some of her fellow nurses took the opportunity to travel to Paris in February 1919. In April 1919, Gladstone received orders to report to La Baule on the coast of France to prepare for departure back to the United States.
Gladstone set sail on May 15, 1919 from Brest, France on the SS Imperator arriving in Hoboken, New Jersey on May 22.

U.S. Army School of Nursing at Camp Wadsworth, Spartanburg, South Carolina, September 24, 1918. Bain News Service. National Archives and Records Administration (165-WW-257A-019).
Tents and canteen at Evacuation Hospitals #6 and #7 in Meuse, France, October 14, 1918. Lieutenant Adrian Duff. National Archives and Records Administration (111-SC-30554).
Nurses at Base Hospital #44, Nievere, France, January 20, 1919. Private First Class C. L. Eddy. National Archives and Records Administration (111-SC-46425).

Veteran Experience

Upon her return to the United States, Gladstone moved to Sacramento, California where she served as a sanitarium nurse. Gladstone married Charles J. Huber in 1922 and they had a child, Robert, in 1926. Charles Huber died in 1940. Gladstone later married Jacob Shapiro and settled in Fairfax, Virginia.

Commemoration

Ethel Gladstone Shapiro died of pneumonia on May 22, 1987 and is buried at Quantico National Cemetery in Triangle, Virginia.

The grave of Ethel Gladstone at Quantico National Cemetery in Triangle, Virginia, 2019. Courtesy of Jamie Sawatzky.
Memorial to World War I Nurses at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Courtesy of Arlington National Cemetery.

Bibliography

American Red Cross. Five Thousand by June: Graduate Nurses Your Country Needs You. Poster. 1918. National Library of Medicine (C01402). Image.

Annex: Evacuation Hospital #6 and Evacuation Hospital #7; Records of the American Expeditionary Forces — World War I, Record Group 120 (Box 715); National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

Bain News Service. Army School of Nursing, Camp Wadsworth…. Photograph. September 24 1918. National Archives and Records Administration (165-WW-257A-019). Image.

California. Sacramento County. 1920 U.S. Census. Digital Images. http://ancestry.com.

California. Sacramento County. 1930 U.S. Census. Digital Images. http://ancestry.com. 

Camp Hospitals  #91 and #92; Records of the American Expeditionary Forces — World War I, Record Group 120 (Box 680); National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

Duff, Lieutenant Adrian. View of the tents, canteen, kitchen…. Photograph. October 14, 1918. National Archives and Records Administration (111-SC-30554). Image.

Eddy, Private First Class C. L. Nurses at Base Hospital No. 44... Photograph. January 20, 1919. National Archives and Records Administration (111-SC-46425). Image.

“Ethel Gladstone.” Jewish Virtual Library.  Accessed December 3, 2018.  https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ethel-gladstone. 

“Ethel Gladstone.” Jewish Women’s Archive. Accessed December 3, 2018.  https://jwa.org/people/gladstone-ethel. 

Ethel Gladstone, R-File, National Archives and Records Administration — St. Louis.

Ethel Gladstone. U.S. Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910–1939. Digital Images.  http://ancestry.com.

Ethel Gladstone. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, BIRLS Death File, 1850–2010. Digital Images. http://ancestry.com.

Ethel Gladstone. Virginia Death Records, 1912-2014.  Digital Images. http://ancestry.com.

Evacuation Hospital #7; Records of the American Expeditionary Forces — World War I, Record Group 120 (Box 716); National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

Evacuation Hospital #29; Records of the American Expeditionary Forces — World War I, Record Group 120 (Box 773); National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.

Illinois. Cook County. 1910 U.S. Census. Digital Images http://ancestry.com.

Lynch, Charles, Ford, Joseph, and Weed, Frank. The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War: Volume VIII Field Operations. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Medical Department, 1926. https://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwi/fieldoperations/default.htm.

National Museum of American Jewish History. Women in the Military: A Jewish Perspective. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Jewish Military History, 1999. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=1OMTBAAAQBAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP1.

Returns of the Army Nurse Corps at Evacuation Hospitals, 1918–1919; Records of the American Expeditionary Forces — World War I, Record Group 120 (Box 1); National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.