One hundred years ago this month Jessie Fowler Miner Jobes, my grand aunt, was among the patriotic women who entered the Army Nurses Corps (ANC) during World War I. Jessie, born February 12, 1883 to Charles and Lydia Fowler, grew up in Fayette County, PA and married Clifford Minor in 1903. As reported in the 1910 census, Jessie had no occupation, and at some point in those 7 years of marriage she had a daughter. My grandmother, Marjorie Ludwick who was a sister to Jessie, related the following story: Marjorie, their sister Addie, and their mother “went to visit Jessie and to see the new baby who was about a week old. They stayed about 2 hours and before they left they looked in on the baby again, but in that short span she had died. Clifford didn’t live long after that; he had some health issues that caused him to be bedfast.” Perhaps taking care of her ill husband prepared –even inspired—Jessie to become a nurse.
Clifford died in the fall of 1910 several weeks after an operation for an abscess of the stomach. A newspaper article in Uniontown’s Daily News Standard related how Clifford’s mother arrived too late to see her son before he died, and grief stricken at the news, she was taken to the house of Jessie’s parents. Now a widow Jessie needed to support herself. Whether she went right into nursing or first pursued other ventures is not known. It is thought that she remained in Uniontown during those 8 years until she joined the war effort. Most likely she received her nurse’s training at the Uniontown Hospital sometime before 1918 when she joined the ANC.
When the United States entered the Great War in 1917, the country was not immediately prepared for combat and needed to increase its military readiness with both troops and equipment. Although men stepped forward and volunteered to fight, the number fell far short of what was required for a viable army. To supplement this shortage the government enacted the Selective Service Act of 1917 and over 24 million men registered for the draft between June of 1917 and September of 1918. At the end of the war the military had about 4 million personnel on its rolls, including enlisted and drafted soldiers.
As men went off to war, a void was left in the industries where they worked. To fill these jobs, the government permitted women to join the military; they received no basic training and were assigned, not to army units, but to factories to replace the lost manpower and to manufacture munitions and supplies to fight the war. Other women signed up to join either the Army or Navy Nurses Corps to assist with the medical demands of war. The Army Nurses Corps (ANC) was founded in 1901 and when the U.S. entered the conflict, the ANC had about 400 on duty nurses and 170 reserve nurses. With the enrollment of nurses like Jessie, the ranks of the ANC had grown to almost 21,500 by the time the war drew to a close.
According to her Veteran’s Compensation Application in 1934, Jessie served in the ANC for about a year, enlisting on May 31, 1918. A card record stated she was relieved of duty as a Reserve Nurse on April 17, 1919, but her application listed she was honorably discharged in Washington D.C. on June 2, 1919. Jessie served stateside at Fort Banks Massachusetts, located on the coast. During her time in the service she suffered a broken wrist on her right arm, recorded as a Colle’s fracture, on August 23, 1918. How this affected her duties is unclear.
After Jessie left the service, she returned home to Uniontown and worked in the hospital as a nurse. In 1920 she married Charles Jobes. They resided in Uniontown for several years before moving to Monongahela PA, where Charles was a grocer with a small store. Charles also moonlighted some evenings at the local movie house where he played piano music that accompanied the silent films. My mother remembered how Charles would play the piano when she visited as a young girl; she also commented that Jessie didn’t smile much. The experience of losing both a young daughter and her husband before she was 27 years old may have stayed with her throughout her life. But despite that she pursued a profession where she cared for and gave comfort to others. She continued her work as a nurse in McKeesport throughout the 1930s and 40s. In the spring of 1951 she entered the VA Hospital in Altoona PA as a patient with breast cancer. She remained there for a little over four months, until the disease claimed her life. She was buried in Monongahela PA with a veteran marker.
Although I never knew this grand aunt, when I heard she had served in the First World War—years before her country allowed her to vote—I was fascinated to learn more. Unfortunately, many of the veteran records were destroyed by fire some years ago, so it is hard to discover what her time in the service entailed. It is exciting when information is discovered, such as her compensation application, mentioned above. I am grateful that my grandmother told me stories about Jessie. And it is with pride that I in turn, share these few accounts to honor and celebrate her life and service.
Click here to learn more about the Army Nurses Corps.
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