US Army Nurse In WWII Belgium Is My Aunt
When I last posted some WWII photos it caught the attention of the author of another blog, European Center of Military History and I told him that I had a couple photos of my aunt Joyce Moline who had been in Belgium during WWII. I am rather slow when it comes to getting pictures scanned and uploaded, so I am just now getting around to honoring my aunt’s military service with this post.
Joyce is blond girl far right
She was born Joyce Lorraine Moline on 29 October 1921 in Seattle, WA to parents Helen (Nordgren) and Elvin B. Moline. The second daughter to be born, (older sister Jeane and her younger sister Joan were her siblings; Joan was my mother) at the age of eight she lost her mother to a tragic pedestrian accident on a street corner in Seattle in 1929.
In 1933 the Moline family, with new stepmother Lillian Vera “Eppie” Epstein Moline moved to a small logging town named Bordeaux, where Joyce and her sisters would grow up amid fir trees and lumber by the railroad cars full. Eppie was a registered nurse, but she didn’t work as one when they lived in Bordeaux. I imagine that taking care of a husband and three growing girls was a mighty job in of itself.
It’s my opinion that you have to have a certain kind of personality to be a nurse, and to become an Army nurse was even more of a challenge. Joyce graduated from Rochester High School in 1939 and soon after she went off to nursing school in Seattle. After completion she took a job nursing in Alaska at a small clinic. When Word War II began she enlisted as a Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps.
Joyce’s military records are a bit sketchy and incomplete because some of them were lost after the war. From the records I have, I know she was awarded the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal for her service in Belgium. And I know she served in Belgium because of these two photos below.
Chateau D’ Ardennes - May 1945
After the war, Joyce became a licensed RN in CA on March 1958. The license expired on November 30, 1979. Her license number was RN 12742. She was licensed under the name Joyce Lorraine Huntley. She was the wife of Frank Huntley. Joyce passed away on 23 September 1990.
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Filed under: Genealogy
Wow those are some great old pictures. I have enjoyed reading your posts and looking at your photos. Thanks for the great articles.
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I was hoping someone would enjoy seeing the old photos I have been posting. Thanks very much for visiting and leaving your nice comment.
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My Aunt also served in Belgium during WWII. We know she was in Brussells as she had a cerfificate of thanks for her service from the mayor of the city.
I’m trying to locate records about her service but have not found any good sources. Have you any suggestions. Her name was Alma Bachman. She returned to Buffalo, NY after the war until she came back to Pennsylvania in 1953 to be our school nurse.
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@ Martha
You can obtain for free your aunt’s military records from the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO. Here is the link to their site. http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/
Let me know if I can be some further help.
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they are the heroes in WWII..
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My book contains oral histories of over 100 nurses who served overseas in WW2. Though the nurses you may want to know about are not in it, the nurses served all over the world, and you may enjoy reading what it was like in their part of the war. Published by Michigan State University Press, the book is No Time For Fear, Voices of American Military Nurses in World War II. Have your library find it through the Interlibrary Loan if you don’t want to use Amazon to buy it.
They were remarkable women!
Diane Fessler
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Diane: Thank you for telling me (and my readers) about your book. I will sure look for it one way or another.
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Hi Thanks for posting pictures of your aunt. I am researching info for a book I want to write. I just love seeing all the nurses who sacrificed for our soldiers. My dad, uncle and stepdad were all in WWII. Everyone was a hero back then, even the ones planted under white crosses. Lots of joy, Peggy