Josephine E. Heffernan (11 March 1876 – 1962) was an Irish-American nurse who served during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. She was born in Dublin and immigrated to the US in 1906, where she joined the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

in 1913. She served as a nurse in California and Mississippi, before being stationed at the

American hospital The American Hospital of Paris (''Hôpital américain de Paris''), founded in 1906, is a private, not-for-profit hospital that is certified under the French healthcare system. Located in Neuilly-sur-Seine, in the western suburbs of Paris, Franc ...

at Rimaucourt, France. After the war, Heffernan went on to see service in China, the Philippines, and

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

. In 2002 a bracelet belonging to Heffernan was discovered by a schoolboy in Rimaucourt, who enlisted the aid of his teacher to return the piece to Heffernan's family. The efforts to identify Heffernan and return the bracelet were the subject of a 2017 film documentary which first aired in January of 2018.

Early life

Josephine Heffernan was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

to John Heffernan, who worked as a baker, and Christine Allen. Her family later moved to Bray after her father's death. There she worked as a book-keeper. Heffernan emigrated to the United States in 1906.

Career and later life

Heffernan joined the United States Army Nurse Corps in 1913. In 1917, she became the chief nurse at a hospital at Fort McDowell on

Angel Island Angel Island may refer to: *Angel Island (California), historic site of the United States Immigration Station, Angel Island, and part of Angel Island State Park, in San Francisco Bay, California * Angel Island, Papua New Guinea * ''Angel Island'' (n ...

in California. She was later transferred to Camp Shelby near

Hattiesburg, Mississippi Hattiesburg is a city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, located primarily in Forrest County, Mississippi, Forrest County (where it is the county seat and largest city) and extending west into Lamar County, Mississippi, Lamar County. The city popu ...

. She arrived to find Shelby in a state of emergency, with 240 patients and facing shortages of both supplies and staff. She recalled:

We all worked together. Nurses during those days did not spare labor. Meanwhile, time-slips, hadn't any use for them. Nurses stayed on duty until relieved by others ... Marvelous what one can do when emergency calls.

In 1918, Heffernan was appointed Chief Nurse of U.S. Army Base Hospital No. 59 at the army's Rimaucourt Hospital Center. After the First World War, Heffernan continued her career in the Army Nurse Corps at stations in the U.S., China, the Philippines, and Hawai'i. In 1920 she was appointed to the rank of

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...

, the basic rank for nurses. Heffernan retired in 1935, and moved back to Bray in 1943. She never married or had children. Heffernan died in 1962.

Bracelet

Whilst working in the American hospital, Heffernan lost a bracelet with her name engraved. The bracelet was found in 2002 by an eight-year-old in a garden in Rimaucourt, who asked his teacher for help in locating the owner and their family. This led to a 15-year-long search to find out more about Heffernan, in order to return the bracelet. The teacher eventually met with Marjorie Desrosier in 2017, an American Nurse Historian who was giving a local talk about nurses in the First World War. They also enlisted the aid of the local Bray Cualann Historical Society. The search initially started in the US, as Heffernan was believed to be American, but where ancestry records showed that no-one of that name was born in the years 1880 or 1881. The search then widened after she was shown to be of Irish birth. The bracelet was returned to Heffernan's family in 2017. The return of the bracelet was filmed, and the search was covered in a French language documentary ''Josephine H'' by France 2, which first aired in January of 2018. An exhibition on the discovery of the bracelet was shown at the Yarn storytelling festival in Bray.

References

External links

Josephine H.
(French, with English subtitles) Documentary by France 2. Via

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. {{DEFAULTSORT:Heffernan, Josephine 1876 births 1962 deaths 19th-century Irish women 20th-century Irish women American nurses American women nurses Irish emigrants to the United States Irish people of World War I Irish nurses People from Bray, County Wicklow Health professionals from County Dublin Health professionals from County Wicklow