Lt. Catherine “Cappy” Ridenhour, U.S. Army Nurse Corps

May 29, 2008

Lt. Catherine “Cappy” Ridenhour, U.S. Army Nurse Corps

All the young fellows had gone off to WWII when young Catherine “Cappy” Joy saw the recruiting poster at the Young post office. She decided to join the Cadet Nursing Corps, the youngest group of uniformed women to serve in the war. She got good training at Good Sam in Phoenix, but with most RN’s off to war, the teenage Cadets were spending eight hours on the floor in addition to their studies, and on most afternoon and night shifts, there wasn’t an RN in the hospital.
By the time Cappy finished her training, the war was over and her enlistment was up. She worked at Miami-Inspiration Hospital until 1953, when she joined the Army Nurse Corps. She got her basic training at Ft. Sam Houston and served at Brooks Army Hospital. She’d volunteered for “Overseas” and was sent to Hawaii for fifteen months, a good place to visit and the perfect spot to meet a Marine named “Ike” Ridenhour.
Cappy and Ike married and wound up back in Arizona, where Cappy took a few years off to raise a son, Monty. She worked at M-I again for a few years and finished up as a Visiting Nurse for the elderly.
Nursing, she says, was much more than a living. It gave her the self-discipline and confidence to “weather the stormy times in life. I’ve had a very good and fulfilling life, thanks to the ‘Cadet Nurse Corps.’”

Posted by Rita | Filed Under Service Person of the Week 

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