Nancy Cornelius, later known as Nancy Cornelius Skenadore (13 June 1861 - 2 November 1908), was the first Native American woman in the United States to be educated as a nurse.

Life and education

Nancy was born on an

Oneida tribe The Oneida people (autonym: Onʌyoteˀa·ká·, Onyota'a:ka, ''the People of the Upright Stone, or standing stone'', ''Thwahrù·nęʼ'' in Tuscarora) are a Native American tribe and First Nations band. They are one of the five founding nat ...

reservation. The reservation was located south of

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea lev ...

. She attended school there, and then enrolled in a training school in

Carlisle, Pennsylvania Carlisle is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2020 United States census, ...

. In October in 1890, she graduated from the Hartford Training School for Nurses in

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...

. She married Daniel Skenadore on Easter Sunday in 1901.

Career

After graduating from the Hartford Training School, she worked in Connecticut. Later, she returned to Wisconsin and began to work at the Oneida Mission Hospital. Most of the time there was no resident physician in the hospital, and so Cornelius shouldered much of the responsibility in the hospital. She was superintendent of the hospital until 1905. She practiced as a nurse until her death in 1908.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cornelius, Nancy 1861 births 1908 deaths American nurses Oneida Nation of Wisconsin people People from Hartford, Connecticut American women nurses Carlisle Indian Industrial School alumni Native American people from Wisconsin 20th-century Native American women 20th-century Native Americans