Cora Elm
Nurse
Army Nurse Corps
February 18, 1891 – June 9, 1949

Cora Elm was one of fourteen Indigenous American nurses who volunteered to serve in the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. Her service, along with the other nurses, demonstrated their commitment to serve their country and paved a path for Indigenous women to assume active roles in the military. Elm’s dedication to duty influenced the acceptance of Indigenous nurses within the profession and their continued enlistment in the military.

Elm was born on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin on Feb. 18, 1891, to Jane Elm and Nicholas Elm. She was raised Episcopalian and was very devout in her faith all her life. She attended school, where she learned English and was also fluent in the Oneida language. Her father owned a 100-acre farm. Although they were needed on the farm, Elm’s father sent her and her seven siblings to boarding schools for a better education. While Elm’s family chose to enroll their children in a boarding school, for many Indigenous families that choice was not an option. Starting in the 1870s, the United States government enacted a series of laws to force Indigenous parents to send their children to off-reservation boarding schools. Failure to comply with these regulations could lead to food and other resources withheld from the family.

Elm enrolled in the United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 23, 1906. The school, also known as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, opened in 1879 and was based in the former U.S. Army Carlisle Barracks. Its mission was based on founder retired Brig. Gen. Richard Henry Pratt’s motto, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” This policy forced the Indigenous children sent there to assimilate and become “American.” Due to his military background, Pratt organized the schools with a military-like structure. Students were forced to speak English, dress in Anglo-American clothing, and adopt American traditions and customs. The goal of these lessons was to make students ashamed of their Indigenous identity.

Elm attended Carlisle until 1913 when she graduated at the age of 22. According to her student file, during her time at the school she “made a splendid record in every way.” Following graduation, Elm enrolled in the Episcopal Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She graduated in 1916 and continued working at the hospital and was appointed Supervisor of Wards.

When the United States entered World War I, nurses were needed to tend to sick and wounded Soldiers. Elm joined the American Expeditionary Forces, Unit 34 in France from 1917-1918 as a nurse. She departed in December 1917 on the Leviathan for Liverpool. In a letter to the student newspaper “The Carlisle Arrow,” Elm described the journey as “a fine voyage without any real excitement.” She continued “We feel quite at home…we are taken care of very well.” While stationed at the base hospital, she tended to over 9,000 wounded Soldiers. Her service spanned 18 months behind the front lines. Of her service, Elm recalled in a 1942 Works Progress Administration interview, “Life overseas was not very easy. Although I was in a base hospital, I saw a lot of the horrors of war. I nursed a soldier with a leg cut off, or an arm.”

The Army recognized the need for highly qualified nurses following the typhoid fever epidemic during the War with Spain in 1898. Due to the exemplary performance of contract nurses during the conflict, the U.S. Army Nurses Corps was established in 1901. When the United States. entered World War I, there were only 403 nurses on active duty. By the war’s end, roughly 21,000 Army nurses served overseas. Of that number only 14 of them were Indigenous. At the time, nurses were expected to be white, but these women, including Elm, changed that preconception. This was the first time that Indigenous women served as nurses in an official capacity.

Once the war ended, she continued to serve overseas in Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania from 1918 to 1919. When she returned to the United States, Elm continued to work as a nurse. She was employed at Fort Bavard Hospital in New Mexico and Wood Veterans Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There, Elm was a supervisor in the tuberculosis wards. She married James E. Sinnard in 1922, and the couple had one child together named James Jr. The couple eventually divorced as reported in the 1940 census.

Elm died on June 9, 1949, at 58 years old. She is buried in the Holy Apostles Church Cemetery, in Oneida, Wisconsin, with a military headstone. Approximately 20,000 Indigenous women veterans have served their country, a higher number than women in all other demographics. Their contribution to America’s defense can be linked to Cora Elm and the 13 other Indigenous women who bravely volunteered to serve during World War I over one hundred years ago.

Sophie Weber
Education Specialist

Bibliography

“Biography.” Voices from the Carlisle Indian School.  May 15, 2017. https://blogs.dickinson.edu/carlisleindianindustrialschoolwritinganthology/2017/05/15/biography-6/.

Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center. “Cora Elm Student File.” Accessed September 15, 2024. https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/student_files/cora-elm-student-file.

Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center. “Cora Elm and Sarah M. Ingalls, 1917.” Accessed September 15, 2024. https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/images/cora-elm-and-sarah-m-ingalls-1917. 

Equal Justice Initiative. “Federal Government Separates Native Children from Families in Efforts at Forced Assimilation.” Accessed September 27, 2024.“https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/nov/1#:~:text=Many%20parents%20sent%20their%20children,rooted%20in%20racism%20and%20prejudice.

“Eugene Frazo Pays $33.41 Fine, Cost for Theft of Tires.” Green Bay Press-Gazette, August 7, 1934. https://www.newspapers.com/article/green-bay-press-gazette-eugene-frazo-pay/86909086/ 

Hauptman, Laurence M. “On the Western Front: Two Iroquois Nurses in World War I.” American Indian 19, no. 3 (Fall 2018). https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/western-front-two-iroquois-nurses-world-war-i. 

Lewis, Herbert S. and L. Gordon McLester. Oneida Lives: Long-lost Voices of the Wisconsin Oneidas. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

National Cemetery Administration. “Authorizing Women in Military Service: Nursing to Combat.” Accessed September 20, 2024. https://www.cem.va.gov/docs/wcag/history/Military-Service-Women-Nursing-to-Combat.pdf.

National Parks Service. “The Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Assimilation with Education after the Indian Wars (Teaching with Historic Places).” Accessed September 18, 2024. https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-carlisle-indian-industrial-school-assimilation-with-education-after-the-indian-wars-teaching-with-historic-places.htm.

The National World War One Museums and Memorial. “Native Americans in WWI: Courage and Sacrifice.” Accessed September 16, 2024. https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/native-americans-wwi-courage-and-sacrifice. 

United States Indian School. The Carlisle Arrow. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1916. 

United States Indian School. The Carlisle Arrow and Red Man. Cornell University, 1917.

The United States World War One Centennial Commissions. “Army Nurse Corps.” Accessed September 15, 2024. https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/american-indians-in-ww1-branches-of-service/american-indians-in-ww1-branch-army/american-indians-in-ww1-army-nurse-corps.html.

Additional Resources

“American Indians in WWI Army Nurse Corps.” The United States World War One Centennial Commission. Accessed September 18, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20210414044519/https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/553-american-indians-in-wwi.html.

“Commencement Week for Carlisle Indians.” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 30, 1913.Accessed October 1, 2024. https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-mar-30-1913-2746278/ 

“Cora Elm, Native American Nurse in WWI France.” American Women in World War I. Uploaded June 5, 2017. https://americanwomeninwwi.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/cora-elm-only-us-born-native-american-nurse-to-serve-abroad-in-wwi/.

“Indian Nurse in First World War Dies in Hospital.” Green Bay Press-Gazette, June 13, 1949. Accessed October 1, 2024. https://www.newspapers.com/article/green-bay-press-gazette-indian-nurse-in/86901805// 

Stur, Heather. The U.S. Military and Civil Rights Since World War II. Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishing, 2019.