Martha-Jane Ekstrand

September 19, 1926 - September 3, 2016

Martha-Jane worked at the neighborhood drug store during high school. She also published service information in the Greenwood News, a small local paper providing location and news of service men and women. After graduating from high school in 1943, she enrolled in the Roger Williams General Hospital School of Nursing in Providence, RI, where she was a member of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps. She had affiliations with the Yale School of Nursing and the State Mental Hospital. She was one of six in her class who spent six months of training at a USVA Hospital. MJ worked at the USVA Hospital in the Bronx, NY, and after graduation worked there as a Staff Nurse on the Thoracic Surgery unit.After the war she sailed as a Ship's Nurse aboard the USAT General Harry Taylor out of New York. The ship carried 1200+ displaced persons from camps in Europe to ports in the USA and Australia. During the '50s and '60s, she worked in the airline industry as flight nurse or flight attendant. She also held administrative positions based in Amman, Jordan; West Berlin, Germany; and Shannon, Ireland.In the '70s and '80s, MJ held administrative positions related to nursing. She retired in 1988 as Director of Risk Management and Loss Control at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

MJ's papers are available at the University of Minnesota Immigration History Research Center archives.